S&G 6870, anyone picked successfully?

[Shrub]

The lock may have 9 levers but there may be 20 heights to choose from, the differs come from how many different bitings the lock can have using any of the full range of levers.
The answer to the question in the title is yes.

[gumptrick]

The lock may have 9 levers but there may be 20 heights to choose from, the differs come from how many different bitings the lock can have using any of the full range of levers.
The answer to the question in the title is yes.

If they had 20 possible heights and 9 levers that would be an insane number of potential differs! Over 500 billion! Assuming there is no MACS, of course. But that seems rare for a lever lock.

[kwoswalt99-]

The lock may have 9 levers but there may be 20 heights to choose from, the differs come from how many different bitings the lock can have using any of the full range of levers.
The answer to the question in the title is yes.

If they had 20 possible heights and 9 levers that would be an insane number of potential differs! Over 500 billion! Assuming there is no MACS, of course. But that seems rare for a lever lock.

Chubb locks used to have over 20 possible lever heights in the early days, I doubt any manufacturer does that now.

[Shrub]

20 was an example to demonstrate my point.
I'm not guessing here, I'm stating facts. That IS how you get the number of differs on a lever lock.
Lever locks do not adhere to any strict macs.
I open lever locks all day everyday.

[Squelchtone]

Here's an article about the lock back from when that model came out: http://www.wheelpost.com/Documents_PDF/ ... rticle.pdf

[Lelandwelds]

Squelchtone

Thanks for the article! This is quite a lock. I dont completely understand it but I want one.

Shrub

I would welcome anything you can add about lever locks. They're quite different from everything I have seen. I am googling but I cant get a firm idea on how secure they are. I am getting the feeling they're used in the UK mainly due to inertia from the insurance industry or local laws? I care little about such things. But, I feel in Texas this exotic will throw every thief a curve ball.

[Shrub]

It is my opinion that a good lever lock is better than any pin lock and as you say offer a bit of security with obscurity.
I very much doubt a their over there would be picking lever locks to break in, I doubt they would even know you can drill them not alone how or where. Over here where we have them on our doors I still don't see drilled ones especially picked ones, they tend to either try and kick the door in and fail or cut the bolt work off with a lot of noise and mess stopping them completing the job. A lever lock is infinitely harder to drill open than a pin cylinder lock. Any monkey with a drill can guess where to drill a cylinder and get it open at least after a couple of tries whether that's through a destroyed lock or a severely compromised one. A lever lock needs a specific point to within millimeters and then specific techniques for an effective drilled opening.
A lever lock is in or behind the door with just a keyhole showing, a cylinder presents itself stuck on the door, gives someone a lock they can see and identify as well as physically attack it.
Nearly every safe I come across has a lever or combo lock so they are deemed good enough for securing valuables with quite a high cash rating.

To open these sort of lock by picking you have to be quite dedicated and well practised, your not going to jump in with 2 wires and get one open in next few hours. You can drill them like everything else but on a safe lock you again really need to know what you're doing, I've seen locks made into Swiss cheese but still not opened.
Lastly it's true you can get decoding or bypass tools for a lot locks but these tend to be quite restricted, very expensive and still require some lock knowledge and again a level of skill I doubt a thief would have even if they got hold of the correct tools.

The locks are cheap enough for you to buy one and play with it. I can tell you how to pick it and you can see if you can or not.I guarantee if your interested in it that much it would turn into your nemesis for a while, they are very hard to pick open without continued practise.

In the UK the insurance can be quite vague only getting more detailed when it comes to making a claim. I believe most safes are internationally certificated but our lever locks on building doors come in various guises. An insurance approved lock has to meet various requirements from anti pick to anti drill and includes specific design parameters including minimum bolt sizes amongst other things.
In the UK there are alot of people happy to have reduced door security for ascetic locking systems or smaller keys in their pocket however those that want something a bit better normally in my experience opt for a lever lock.

Get a lock and give it a go. A safe lock is a nice bit of engineering, if you have concerns about the security of your chosen lock you can of course start going up in lever numbers and complexity. A 7 lever safe lock would tend to be the lowest form of lever lock on a box with a 9 lever after it so there's a lot of scope for better safe locks but of course the cost starts exculating.
Locks like the maurer 71111 are on another level up to a 9 lever with nasty anti pick notches and double bited keys. They can be decoded and opened but no thief is going to be doing that

Locks only keep honest people out and no matter what locks you have if someone wants something bad enough you'll get a gun to your head and the door gets opened that way.
No matter what system you use it's hard to protect against a petrol stone saw cutting the door out and there's nothing stopping someone ramming the building with a bulldozer.
Unless your making a bank vault I think you have to consider what level to stop at. In most situations a good quality lock and a secure looking building is enough to move someone on to the neighbours who doesn't look so secure.

Buy yourself a lock and try to beat it, I think you'll get a new event respect for them.


Remember though, a safe lock is normally meant for restricting a locking system and not as a direct bolting system, if you are making a steel door you need to make some handle operated bolt work that the safe lock then restricts. Some locks can be used where the locks bolt secures the door but even in that situation consider that you may have to put a bigger locking bar on to the bolt to extend it.

[Shrub]

If you put Safe door bolt work in to google and click images you get a load of pictures where you can see the relationship between the lock and the doors locking system.

[MartinHewitt]

The S&G 68x0 locks have six possible heights per lever.

[Ralph_Goodman]

The S&G 68x0 locks have six possible heights per lever.

Is there a chart out there for this?

[MartinHewitt]

The S&G 68x0 locks have six possible heights per lever.

Is there a chart out there for this?

What do you need?

[MartinHewitt]

The encoding has six possible levels, but only five are used because the highest position can't be reached. Nonetheless all six possible ecodings are used because of the two possible directions of the levers. Photos are here: http://wiki.koksa.org/FAS_vds_Klasse1_verstellbar . Reassembly is not easy.

[lockpicker69]

Martin
That’s some good pictures on wiki. Do you know how to translate these into English.
I know what you mean about reassembly . I want to make a 2in1 for the lock this is a project I aim to do in the near future

[MartinHewitt]

The text around the photos describes IMHO the obvious. The text in the box says:

Modell 6860 VdS Klasse 1.
Manufacturer: Sargent&Greeleaf (S&G)
Brand: FAS
Label with:
Underwriters Laboratories Inc.(R) Listed SECURITY CONTAINER KEY LOCK
No 27N7
Type: lever lock with rotating key, 1 tour
Category: container lock
Key profile(?): double bitted key
Difficulty: 8 levers with alternating orientations (I believe there are now random oriented) The bolt is moved by a disk which is rotated by the key tip
Manufacturing year: 1999
Special features: levers not "zwangsgefuehrt" (the lever has a position defined by the key bitting, which does not depend on a spring tension). Lock can be changed to a new key. When the change button is pressed the key can be removed when unlocked.
Apears to be cheaply manufactured. Soft zinc cast. Lever springs together with lever cut in a single piece. Separators made from thin plastic.

It is more general information. The best is to have an open lock at hand.

I can now reassemble that lock with the help of a key blank in less than 10 minutes. I remove the spring between bolt and wedge. Then I put the bolt and the stuff below into the lock, insert the levers etc with the encoding of the blank key (second highest position). Finally I reinstall the spring and put on the cover by inserting the key blank to nudge the levers away so that the cover fits in and on. I wonder how S&G assembles them. Another nightmare is the SECU S4700U. I call it Pandora's box. Open it and you will be plagued with frustration. Opened it only once so far and it took me over one and a halve hours to reassemble.

I have seen a 3-in-1 mentioned to open the FAS lock, but I would start with a 2-in-1 too.

[MartinHewitt]

The question in the title was IMHO not yet answered. The answer is yes.