Active Duty intro, and questions

[MACE_USMC]

Hello all,
been reading everything here for a few weeks, signed up recently. started picking about 14 years ago using street bristles and the like. haven't really been keeping up with it though. just bought a set of picks at a knife shop out of whim and am getting back into the sport. im currently serving in the US Marine Corps. my job entails keeping track of our key and lock program. im currently managing about 1500 keeps and 900 locks or so. mostly american 5200's medeco 833's and s&g 3 wheel locks, both safe and the 8077. couple other random locks thrown into the mix too.

My main question regards the over 100 5200's i have without keys. i've rekeyed house locks when i worked at lowes, and think i have a plan for these. basically if i order new halves of the screw that holds the trapdoor on, what prevents me from drilling out the keeper and emptying out the cylinders, keeping all the pins, sorting them by size and rekeying them to match keys i already have?

I've learned so much about these locks (date code specifically, many marines that perform my same job believe that is a serial number that somehow corresponds to the key code, haha)

Also i am open to any questions you may have about how keys and locks work for the USMC. there may be some details i wont openly share that could compromise security but anything i can answer i will.

Thank you all for the abundance of information here, and the ispiration to get back into the sport.

[keysman]

Hello all,
My main question regards the over 100 5200's i have without keys. i've rekeyed house locks when i worked at lowes, and think i have a plan for these. basically if i order new halves of the screw that holds the trapdoor on, what prevents me from drilling out the keeper and emptying out the cylinders, keeping all the pins, sorting them by size and rekeying them to match keys i already have?

Welcome to Lp101

To answer your question Nothing prevents you from doing exactly that. I don't know about the numbers on the locks themselves , but the numbers on the keys correspond to the depth. Since you have apx 100 you may just want to buy a pin kit, from any supplier,Saving and measuring pins can be quite a chore...but if you have a micrometer it can be a kind of interesting job. By the way a Master padlock pin kit will work for the american padlock, There is 1 number diffrent in pin sizes.

[femurat]

Maybe I'm missing something, but... Why don't you just pick the padlocks and undo the philips screw under the shackle to remove the cylinder? You don't need to drill anything to rekey them.

Good luck with your project, I did it with 4 5200 padlocks and a key and was very happy with the result. I used just the pins inside these 4 padlocks and ended up with 2 keyed alike padlocks to secure my mountain bike and reassembled the other 2 padlocks with the remaining pins to play with.

Cheers

[raimundo]

I agree with femurat.

just pick them open and after that you can rekey them, no drilling or ordering extra parts.

and remember, when picking, if the lock is just not opening, you can impression it. impressioning is considered the sure thing, if not the swift one.

you could keep yourself busy and happy for a while with that pile of locks. and when your finished, you would be an expert on them.

[MACE_USMC]

the reason i was considering drilling them is because my picking skills are sub par currently for these locks. Im gonna take my picks into work today and see what i can pop open, maybe ill get lucky. thanks for the re assurances.

[Squelchtone]

the reason i was considering drilling them is because my picking skills are sub par currently for these locks. Im gonna take my picks into work today and see what i can pop open, maybe ill get lucky. thanks for the re assurances.

try TOK (top of keyway) tensioning, and overlift all the pins, then let them drop down slowly until the lock is picked. also, use light tension, and wobble your wrench to feel out if the lock is picked, then apply more tension to overcome the main spring.

Squelchtone

[Evan]

Maybe I'm missing something, but... Why don't you just pick the padlocks and undo the philips screw under the shackle to remove the cylinder? You don't need to drill anything to rekey them.

Good luck with your project, I did it with 4 5200 padlocks and a key and was very happy with the result. I used just the pins inside these 4 padlocks and ended up with 2 keyed alike padlocks to secure my mountain bike and reassembled the other 2 padlocks with the remaining pins to play with.

Cheers

@femurat:

Not every American Padlock is re-keyable... Many of them are sold permanently riveted together and are not drilled and tapped for a cover plate retention screw so once you take it apart you have no way to put it back together using only the parts that came with the lock...

~~ Evan

[MACE_USMC]

Thank you all for the wealth of information. I spent a while at work today working on them and have learned and improved a ton already. I took an extra cylinder with key I had, disassembled it within a bag, and have been working my way back up from one pin and am currently practising with three pins, two serrated spools and one normal serrated. I've got it probably a dozen times so far. One of my marines cut an in use lock off today and i swapped the cylinder to an inactive one and learned a few more things that might interest everyone. After 2011 they change the cylinder to "action" mating surfaces so they are not compatible. thankfully the majority of my locks are before that point. this is also the point when they began incorporating the "bump stop" technology which is easily identifiable if you have the keys as the improved key is much smaller. so tomorrows activity will be trying out a bump key on them. also the locktite on post 2010 models is much stronger although it could be just age, and the screws strip quite easily. <had to drill one screw out but it was the cut lock, so good learning> I read somewhere that there was a bypass tool, but that is Advanced forum materials so i will just keep practising until i can spp them regularly. Are there standard locations for the spool pins? im currently using them in the first and second but perfect practice makes perfect.

Squelchtone, thanks for the recommendation of TOK tension, im gonna give that a try, the current wrench i've been using fits flat on the bottom of the keyway so its been working okay, but any advantage is a good advantage.

Thank you again gentlemen.

[raimundo]

when working with the wrench in the bottom of the keyway, look at where the tension blade touches the drillbreaker cover in front of the keyway, the drill breaker is a stamping not well tumbled, it has rough cutbreak edges inside it and this roughness will create friction that will degrade your feel of the interior of the lock.
do whatever you have to to reduce this friction, one way is to put a small clipping of a cocktail straw over that part of the tension blade, there will be no lockup between the edge of the tensor and the rough drillbreaker plate if the tensor goes through a slippery piece of plastic.

If you choose to impression the lock you need to cut off the part of the shoulder that would contact the drillbreaker so that it does not absorb all your attempts to impression this lock.

American locks have a way of actually being picked to the shear line and not clearly indicating it to the lockpicker, I usually recommend that if you are picking one of these, before dropping tension you should put the tip of a straight screwdriver in the top of the keyway and try once to turn the plug. do not use the tensor to turn at this time.

Often the lock will open when the screwdriver is tried, it is possible for a bottom of keyway tensor to get in a bind between the plug and the cylinder wall and this can cause it to not turn and this is the problem so you can't get around it by forcing the tensor blade tighter into this bind.

[LocksmithArmy]

Maybe I'm missing something, but... Why don't you just pick the padlocks and undo the philips screw under the shackle to remove the cylinder? You don't need to drill anything to rekey them.

Good luck with your project, I did it with 4 5200 padlocks and a key and was very happy with the result. I used just the pins inside these 4 padlocks and ended up with 2 keyed alike padlocks to secure my mountain bike and reassembled the other 2 padlocks with the remaining pins to play with.

Cheers

@femurat:

Not every American Padlock is re-keyable... Many of them are sold permanently riveted together and are not drilled and tapped for a cover plate retention screw so once you take it apart you have no way to put it back together using only the parts that came with the lock...

~~ Evan

while its true the american lock company makes many varieties of lock... every gov 5200 is rekeyable... if he is managing locks for the usmc, and we are talking about his `100 5200 padlocks, it is a fair assumption to say that they are all rekeyable.

[Raymond]

I often do not have time to pick the 5200s that I have to key or rekey. Drilling the rivet-nut is cost efficient when it has to be done.

The Americans with the rivet are rekeyable. The rivet can be punched out with a 3/32 pin punct and replaced and flared again. Or, you can replace the rivet with a rivet-nut and screw.

Commercially, you really have to balance the time involved with trying to pick or rekey one padlock. I it probably not worth the effort except for special customers.

[femurat]

Nice point LocksmithArmy It's good to know that a 5200 number always means it's rekeyable.

I agree with you Raymond, padlocks are always cut and replaced in a hourly-pay / price-of-new-padlock situation. Sometimes I feel like crying for this waste of goods. Drilling the rivet is better than throwing the padlock away.

I spent hours to pick, disassemble, rekey and reassemble my 4 padlocks. I was very happy for that, and I'm still proud of that. Reusing, recycling and fixing old stuff always give me a nice sensation. This is not my job and I'm not paid for what I do. I pay to play!
/end of rant

Cheers

[Raymond]

But, I do pick up almost every 5200 I see with a cut shackle. They go in a box and I pick them during slow times. I have a lot of replacement shackles and always end up with a complete lock. A lot of my civilian customers are not aware of the key retaining feature of military order padlocks and are thrilled when I turn them on to this feature.

A sharp 3/16 cobalt or carbide drill bit makes quick work of the rivet and the lock is opened. But I see this as a negative feature of the padlock when it comes to overall security. The Master DG series may be much easier to pick, but cannot be taken apart. The only way to make a key, clandestinly, is to impression. Impressioning takes too much time, on site, and an infiltrator would be caught. If the 5200 is not secured to a chain or fence it can easily be taken away, drilled, rivet replaced, a key made, and returned in less than an hour. Security has been fully compromised and no one will be aware until the actual moment of compromise happens.

[MACE_USMC]

I've drilled/dremeled out about twenty or so of them, all previously cut. i've picked about 10 or so cylinders open, not quite getting locks to open up but i've learned a ton and am getting better every time.

Few things i've learned:
Spool vs pin is completely random.
there does not seem to be all the bottom pin heights, i've found no 1's or 9's? and no direct key codes contain ones or nines.
the security nut/rivets are quite hard steel, dremel a cross, drill out, pound out with a punch, trap door pops open, cylinder in hand.
i understand how the bypass would work, but it does not apply to 5200.
removing the cir-clip from back and pushing the plug forward creates a separate set of shear lines that are sometimes real easy to pick, sometimes not. with a false set you can switch back to rotational shear lines by inserting a tension wrench from the rear and pick the false set from there.
5200's are not our primary security, we have multiple layers of security and 5200's are mostly to discourage anything.
Any questions just let me know.

[raimundo]

I have a 5200 that I cut off a storage locker, its boron steel shackle had to be cut twice on the right leg and the left leg, and it put up a real good fight, two of us were on the handles of the pincher.

after that I tried two locksmith shops to see if I could buy a boron steel shackle for an american 5200.

was unable to locate one on that short search, but what if we located a source for replacement shackles for these cut locks that you seem to have so many of, in fact locksmith army also seems to have had access to a lot of cut 5200's

lets bend this thread toward replacement shackles for a bit, perhaps someone has a good source.

only interested in boron steel shackles for the 5200