[687] U.S. Military “Miracle Lock” with Ingersoll 10-Lever Core Picked and Gutted

this is the lock-picking lawyer and today is Memorial Day it's a day on which we remember and honor those who died in active military service and on this Memorial Day I want to take a moment to remember my friend and Citadel classmate u.s. Marine lieutenant Daniel Malcolm he died on November 10 2004 in Fallujah Iraq if you have a few minutes I'd like you to follow the link in the description below to a BBC news article describing Dan's extraordinary valor and sacrifice it's my hope that it will help remind all of us why we take this day to honor these men and women okay on to our lock of the day I thought it might be appropriate to open a military lock today and this is a US military munitions lock meet around 1970 by the miracle lock corporation the history of this lock is actually really interesting it starts around 1968 when the US military went shopping for a new lock to secure arms ammunition and explosives finding nothing secure enough made in the US they ended up ordering locks from Ingersoll in the UK fast forward about a year to the end of 1969 the miracle lock company in the u.s. became a franchisee of Ingersoll and started producing this lock it has a us-made lock body and a very clever 10 lever core that was produced in the UK by Ingersoll now here's where the history gets a little bit fuzzy supposedly miracle lock wasn't paying its bills to Ingersoll which in turn stopped shipping cores after less than a year of production at that point miracle lock switched to an Ava core that was produced in Finland but by 1971 all miracle lock stopped being made because their contract with the US government was terminated due to poor quality control it's because of that that we don't see too many of these locks out there particularly those with the ten livre Ingersoll Corps which was made for less than a year so now that we know the history let's see what it takes to pick this open now as a munitions lock you would expect it to be tricky to pick and that is certainly the case for this one we have a 10 lever core in here and they interact with either side of the key so 5 levers on one side and 5 levers on the other for my personal preference I like using heavier tension to pick these and when I do use heavy tension I need really good access to the levers because of that I'm going to be using two different tension tools today and I'm going to swap back and forth between my tension position to make sure I have an optimal angle at accessing those levers I have to say these ingersoll 10 lever cores are very very inconsistent for me sometimes I'll open them up in two or three minutes other times I will be working on it for a half hour I'm not entirely sure why some are easy and some are hard but I can say that these are one of those locks that I can't consistently sit down and be assured that I will open it in in a relatively short period of time so nothing on one nothing on two nothing on three four or five it looks like I started on the wrong side but I'm going to keep the tension up just in case I set something and didn't feel it and I'd be swapping back and forth several times through this process okay I got a click out of one and a little bit of movement on the core I think nothing on two three four or five let's go back check all of them pretty quick yeah I think we're done on that side for now swap our tension back nothing on one okay - is binding got it click at it - gotta click out of three nothing on four or five one two three four five okay I think we're done on that side for now nice click out of one nice click on - nothing on three four or five nothing on one - okay I think we're done on that side for now swap it back once again I know it's strange seeing me go back and forth but I promise you this is the faster way for me using lighter tension and a single tension wrench usually takes me longer okay - might be binding let's see yup got to click at it - nothing on three four or five one two three four five okay I think we're done with that side so you can see this lock has fairly good tolerances even with my heavy tension I am really not forcing the binding order at all okay click out of one click at it - and it looks like we just opened it up okay let's take this apart and I will show you the really clever ten lever core inside of here looks like we have Phillips screws down there and let's get an extension on here so I can reach them they look pretty rusty there we go I came out surprisingly easy given the amount of rustic in there okay here is the core I'm gonna start by looking at the back of it with the actuator you can see this is what actuates the ball bearings when it is in this position it's locked in this position it's unlocked then we have this thick rubber o-ring in here that actually drags on the inside of the lock body it dampens a lot of feedback and makes picking these very very difficult then we have the fence here and it actually operates a lot like a side bar rather than a fence you can see it fits into our levers there and once that drops down into the the gates of the levers it allows this entire mechanism to turn you get the key and you can watch those levers line up wow they don't line up particularly well which means this key and door lock is really worn out but once they're in that position you can see that that will drop down there we go it'll drop down into the gates and allow that to turn so a really interesting mechanism frankly as far as ingenuity goes it's one of my favorites I just love watching this thing operate it would probably be a little bit more secure if they had some false gates in there which this does not have and even the modern version of this doesn't have false gates that would be a great addition if they did add it but even the way it is it is a really nice lock so that's all I have for you today on this miracle lock with the ingress 'el 10 lever core if you have any questions or comments about it please put them below if you like this video and would like to see more like it please subscribe and have a great Memorial Day bye bye

Channel: LockPickingLawyer

Views: 930,583

Rating: 4.9253068 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: FCY5iXqPOUc

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Mon May 28 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MarkChapterThirteen]

So cool.

[u/Jjay1one]

I wish the ingersoll wasnt so expensive. I read about it in nde and have been interested ever since. Like always good job, i dont know how you pick some of the locks you do so quickly and easily.

[u/Livid-Djinn]

I bought one from ebay about a year ago, its 10 lever and inside a U.S. style door handle lock. IIRC it lived in a hotel in its past life, but it came with a free hole drilled at the side, presumably to get access to the side bar so tension could be put on it, but i still havnt figured rout how to get it open and it never occured to me to have switch tension from top to bottom. I might have to go have another look at now. I remember the problem i was having was slippage of the levers and that was with heavy tension. They are definitley a different species to any master lock. :)

[u/anoninfogather]

I have this exact model I bought from a locksmith with no keys a year back. I havent been able to successfully open it yet but I haven't spent a lot of time on it either. Very interesting lock for sure! Great pick!