[285] Two Registered Mail "Counter" Padlocks Picked and Gutted

this is the lock-picking lawyer and what i have for you today are two US Postal Service registered mail counter locks these locks have gone through a lot of redesigns over the years I have what I believe to be the two most recent designs and they're not so much designed to provide security as much as to act as a reusable tamper seal for registered mail bags and to do that they have two features the first is every lock has a unique serial number on it you can see them right there and also each of these locks has a counter on the side and that counter increases by one every time you open the lock so it doesn't matter if you can pick them open because it will show on the lock so the theory is if the mail bag starts in one location with a certain serial number lock with and the counter at a certain number and it arrives at the location the next location with those numbers intact presumably the bag hasn't been tampered with now I've seen a lot of disinformation about these locks on the Internet some people saying they are lever locks others saying they're wafer locks or ordered locks but all they are are standard pin tumbler locks each of these has three pins and they are set way way in the back of the key way I'm operating in almost the full length of the pick to get the deepest pin but we want we're going to pick these guys open and then what I'm going to do is show you two of them that I've taken apart so you can see the insides now you can't take these apart without destroying them or it would really defeat the purpose of being a tamper seal they each have let's see it looks like a pinned over piece of brass here holding it together and in fact three of them one two three on this lock so once you drill them out the bottom slides off and you can see the entire mechanism but first let's let's pick these guys open and then I can show you what's inside and you can see the significant redesign on the in decide on the inside this one being a whole lot cheaper than the older ones okay let's get those three pins one is springy click at a to click out a three and I think we're moving and as I start to turn this lock I want you to notice a couple things first listen for a click ok we have a click right there the number hasn't quite moved it was on 89 before but what you can see is we've passed the point of no return as this shackle rotates there is a ratchet mechanism in there that makes it so you can't turn it backwards ok so let's keep rotating it and watch the numbers ok we went up to 90 and more clicks as the ratchet mechanism keeps going and we're back in the locked position again and I well you can certainly see it change but I guess the numbers don't change quite as well as we'd like them to okay let's do the older style lock now again three pins in there ok click at a 1 another click too springy I think nothing on three ok another click at a 1 nothing on two threes binding now couple clicks maybe one more ok it's starting to rotate now and again listen for the click as the ratchet mechanism works ok we've passed the point of no return and that's before the shackle fully open so that's a good thing and we are on 778 and we should turn over to 779 right there and again the ratchet mechanism keeps going throughout the process so you can't turn it back okay let's take a look at what's inside of these locks now I have two of them here that I have drilled out the pinned over pieces of brass on the first lock I'll take this the newer one apart first there is only one place you have to drill out that's on the very bottom and I have actually I've reset the numbers so once I have this apart you can see what happens when it reaches the end of its line and I guess my first thought when I saw these was okay you just get a K you attach it to a drill you turn it ten thousand times and you can defeat the mechanism but no these locks actually can't be used after they reach the end the end of their process so oh I open this the wrong way and I dropped out a couple of a pins so let me put these over here okay let's get the rest of this out okay I dropped one spring I think that was from chamber three and let me drop everything out first thing I'm going to drop out is the pin from this hole right here and that's actually the ratchet mechanism I'm going to put that over in chamber number five and we've already lost everything out of number one so here's everything from number two and from number three now so normal normal pens nothing special there now now that I have these pins out let me show you how this operates I can just turn the shackle and you can see these numbers let's see we would turn them I think this way we go to nine thousand nine hundred 96 97 98 99 and then the lock just jams up it can no longer be opened after after the 9999 --the time if you really really force it you can probably jam up this nylon mechanism but let me actually show you what's stopping it on each of these wheels I just take this apart one by one we have this little nylon ratchet I'll give you close-ups of these but the key feature here is this one that shaped just a little bit differently and you can see right here the groove just isn't deep enough or it not deep as the other ones and that is what stops the ratchet mechanism from moving forward anymore and then you can also see the ratcheting there and what operates those ratchets is not only this little pin on the side but also our driver pins and they'll drop into a little chamber every time you turn just a little bit and prevent you from moving they'll shackle back so let me give you a close-up of this and then we will move on to the other lock okay all standard pins nothing special there and on the the counter mechanism this brass ring right here is what attaches to these flats on I guess the core what you'd call that and that's what turns each of these ratchets which in turn move the counter numbers nothing terribly special and it looks like a relatively cheap mechanism okay let's let me clean this up or let me just move this over and maybe we can put everything from the new lock in chambers 5 through 6 I'm sorry in the older lock okay we're going to open this one up I did have it open before I reset it to 0 just for the novelty of it but um let's see this will open it this way to make sure we don't lose any pins okay and right away we can see things are very very different in this lock this lock all of the bearing components are brass and it looks like we have some interesting things with the the core as well let's drop these pins out okay come on can't get the okay there we go here is our pins from chamber number one and right away we can see these are really really big pins and our driver pin in number one is serrated now in number two slightly smaller pins but again serrated and for number three you can see it's being blocked by something by this little piece of brass here and actually what that is you see if I can pull this out rather than having a pin for the ratchet mechanism this little piece acts as that ratchet okay let's see if we going to drop out pin number three now there we go and again a serrated driver pin so big difference between these two locks now let's look at the mechanism itself we can pull off you can see these all brass components very nicely made and to go any further we're going to have to remove a small pin get a pair of pliers here otherwise none of the wheels will come out put that in slot eight but after that all these wheels come right off and you can see all the bearing components anything that actually operates and pushes against another piece is made out of brass here which is a big big difference from the all plastic construction on our other lock and see if there's anything else unusual here no there is one other unusual bit that you can look at right here and it's not shared with the other lock and you can see on chamber two we actually have counter milling in the core so another security feature that the newer lock does not have okay let me give you a close-up of all this okay we have the pins from the older lock in slots five six and seven you can see they have all serrated driver pins and for some reason they decided to make the pin in slot five considerably larger in diameter than any of the other pins then we get to the counter mechanism and unlike the newer lock you can see this entire mechanism every surface that bears and actually operates is made out of brass here which is much much more impressive than the newer ones so that's all I have for you on these US Postal Service counter locks if you have any questions or comments about these please put them below if you like this video and would like to see more like it please subscribe and as always have a nice day thank you

Channel: LockPickingLawyer

Views: 850,612

Rating: 4.9146423 out of 5

Keywords: Lock Picking, How to Pick Locks, US Mail, Registered Mail, Counter Padlock, Standard Pins, Serrated Pins, Brass Padlock, Rotating Shackle, Brass Shackle, Lock Picking Lawyer, Lockpicking Lawyer, LockPickingLawyer

Id: EenxAWPetFo

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2016