Master Lock 410 busted open

As you may have seen on Twitter I got myself a Master Lock model 410. These locks are known to be great training locks.

Master Lock is kind a huge contrariness. They have padlocks well resistant against physical attacks but contain poor cores. You all know the “ML number 3” with their crappy four pin - no security pins - core.
Then they have very weak padlocks with plastic housing like the model 410. They can be sawed open in no time. However they contain a little bit more challenging key way, a fully populated six pin core and what is even more weird is that they are all security pins.

Anyways. As stated before I obtained one of these ML410 and picked it in a few minutes. But I wanted to dig a little bit further and know what is really inside and if I can reuse the core in a much tougher padlock.

So I gone ahead and sawed the adhesive joints and cracked the baby open.

Look inside

You can clearly see that the cover is completely made from plastics but containing all the very common parts known from other Master Lock or American Lock brand locks: The shackle (I did not test if it is hardened or not), the two ball bearings, the actuator and the core.

From the pinning point I was totally wrong. What I found were five standard spools and one slightly serrated pin in chamber number five.

Even though I am happy with the gutting as it tell me, that I have to keep practicing to interpret the feedback from my pick and the tension tool correctly.

If you want one of these model 410 you can grab them on eBay or equivalent internet stores as well as - depending on where you live - in your local hardware store.