New and Just Cracked My La Gard 3330

[Oldfast]

Awesome response Oldfast! Thank you very much. I don't really have time to have a look at that manipulation at the moment but I will certainly check it out! You certainly are a valuable resource here. On another note, am I right that you are the one with a video on youtube insanely quickly manipulating masterlock combo locks? I tried your method and couldn't find any sticking points. Did they change the design or am I crazy?

Thanks so much for the kind words. Although it's unlikely I'll ever give back
as much as I've received from everyone here... I'll certainly continue to try!

My method with the masterlocks seems most effective on the newer ones.
Not so much so with some of the older ones that are either masterkeyed
or have a bunch of numbers on the back. Never took time to find out why.

There's Oldfast! I knew you wouldn't be able to stay away from this topic for long... and of course one tiny link to your 'Chronicles' and now it's 12:30am and I'm forcing myself to stop reading for the night (again). So much to learn there, and then re-read again and learn more. So glad you chimed in and linked back to that post... the wheel float thing is a big enlightenment moment for me, and since I'm about to start my first attempt with my 3330, probably just saved me a ton of confusion in advance. I love this place... Great stuff as always, and glad to see ya

Ha! Even if I don't have time to respond, I'm always lurking
in the darkness, lol. Thanks Chad, I love this place too!

Take the cover off your 3330, grab w3 and move it side-to-side. You'll notice the large amount
of play compared to say, an S&G. I've heard some of the newer LaGards are now tighter... but
I just purchased two brand new ones and found them to have and extreme amount of slop --
even more than any other LaGards in my collection. Should be interesting to get these ones
mounted and take 'em for a spin.

[tarboxb]

I think this is one with the bunch of numbers on the back. I tried to manipulate it by pulling on the shackle and taking measurements of its deflection with calipers but it was way too inconsistent. Maybe I will buy a newer one and try your method. That was pretty impressive. Did you discover that yourself?

[tarboxb]

In regards to the play in the LaGard. Do you consider the S&G to be a superior lock in terms of quality? Also with the free spinning, do you just try to keep track in your head of like the point where the contact area was tightest and look for rapid change, etc? At some point I want to try that.I have decent memory but the whole thing seems a bit stressful. :p

[MartinHewitt]

Is there a source for 3330s here in the EU?

[madsamurai]

Worked thru my 3330 tonight with a known combination, ran into all of the things we've been discussing. Even after making myself follow false interesting areas and working around the full wheel to find definitive signs of my known gates it only took a little over two hours. If I didn't have all the information we've brought to light here, I think I'd still be trying to find any good signs at all... Very interesting how things will show quite clearly one direction, but barely or not at all turning the other way, even when running a single wheel. I'll post my graphs tomorrow. Now I just need to find myself a combo change girl

[tarboxb]

I need me a combo change girl too! So how did you go about it? Did you do like I said? I understand this whole wheel float thing but how is one to fight it?

[madsamurai]

Here are my graphs for my LaGard 3330 open. Ran this first one with a known combination so I could try to get a better idea of how things would play out and what to look for on my graphs, but still made myself explore things I would have looked at if I hadn't known the combination, and didn't allow myself to assume I was seeing signs that weren't really there for my known numbers. My basic strategy was if rolling one direction didn't show anything, I'd try the other direction, and for the most part that worked out pretty well.

My combo is L5-R30-L73. Contact points are at roughly 2 and 10.
Started out with AWR (Oldfast had mentioned he liked this direction because you go straight to the RCP without changing direction and thus is a bit quicker, and I agree)

As you can see, I got a whole lot of nothing... a low area at around 64 and another around 78 might have drawn my attention, but didn't really jump out enough to want to follow, and none of my actual combination showed anything but flat. So I ran around AWL to see if anything might be different...

Now we're talkin... L31 is as clear as it gets. There are some hints at L5 and L73, but nothing I would have followed if I didn't already know. So I did a quick H/L test to see what wheel L31 is on. Again following Oldfast's advice to test all wheels in the same direction worked out great, L31 is pretty clearly on W2.
So I parked 1&2 on L31 and ran w3 AR:

Again, not a lot of help there... could be a gate somwhere between 62-68, or 71-74, but not definitive enough to make me feel any confidence. So one more time, I changed direction... with 1&2 still parked at L31 I ran w3 AL (turned w3 around right to 28 and then came back left, starting at about 35):

This time the gate at L73 was unmistakable. Note that both of the clear gates (here and on the 2nd graph at L31) have pretty noticeable rises before and after the gate drop, so I'm going to keep that in mind as something to watch for in the future. In hindsight, L73 does show the rises on either side on my AWL graph, so knowing that now I might have looked closer at it even tho it wasn't a very deep gate indication.
So with W2@L31 and W3@L73, I converted w2 to R30 and just brute forced w1, which was pretty quick starting from 0. This lock has to be right on the number to open, and trying to BF every two digits failed (4 or 6 didn't cut it, however there was an audible 'clunk' at the LCP that might be a useful hint on those two).

So really the thing that worked for me was trying both directions...VERY different results depending on direction, so glad we had this conversation first. At least for this lock, with this combination, on this day, that was what made this one go pretty quickly for me.

[tarboxb]

Wow madsamurai, awesome manipulation report! Thank you for the info! Valuable information for sure. I will be sure to keep all of this in mind!

[madsamurai]

Something else I forgot I was going to mention... if these aren't mounted so the dial fits just right, the contact points will feel really sloppy because the dial will twist or bounce a bit. I use layers of post-it notes between the board and the lock to adjust it so there's as little play as possible but still spins nice. Might help you out a bit if you haven't done something similar already...

[tarboxb]

Mine does do just that. I will try what you're talking about. My dial bushing is worn is part of my problem. I get quite a bit of side to side dial play.

[madsamurai]

Opened my 3330 in an hour today. After the first one, I figured I'd keep to left rotation this time since it revealed so much more, and I was right. A single AWL graph showed clear gates at L13 and L65.5. A quick set of hi-lows put L13 on w2 and L65.5 on w1 (but by just a hair over w3). Brute forced w3 and it opened at L64 (interestingly, it opens on L64-66). Final combination: L65.5-R12-L64

Pretty pleased with that one

[tarboxb]

Haha madsamurai! Good job and congratulations. My fastest so far was 34 minutes on the S&G but there was a fair amount of luck involved. I just starting "freespinning" last night and had an opening on it with no graphing, note taking, etc. in 1 hour and 40 minutes. Going to give it another shot in a few hours and see if I can do better.

[tarboxb]

I'm also only taking the right contact point until I am ready to amplify now, at which point I use both.

[Oldfast]

Sorry for the delayed responses here.... had some internet issues for a while

I think this is one with the bunch of numbers on the back. I tried to manipulate it by pulling on the shackle and taking measurements of its deflection with calipers but it was way too inconsistent. Maybe I will buy a newer one and try your method. That was pretty impressive. Did you discover that yourself?

Well, there's always the chance that I simply reinvented the wheel not knowing it already existed.
All I can say is that I never seen it anywhere... so in that sense, yeah I discovered it on my own.
Before this, the only technique published was several variations on the 'mathematical method'.
I hate math, lol... which is probably what drove me to buy a shitload of these in an attempt
to find a pattern common to them all.

If you buy one, lemme know how it goes. I'm curious since I've not purchased one in a couple years.

In regards to the play in the LaGard. Do you consider the S&G to be a superior lock in terms of quality?

No, not necessarily. They're both prominent companies that have large footprints in the industry.
I'd imagine either lock would be quite reliable and have a rather long lifespan. But honestly, I'm
not really qualified to answer that -- as a manipulator, I tend to view locks with tunnel vision, lol.
I just see two locks with two very different personalities.

Some other folks around here, that do more servicing & troubleshooting could better weigh in.
They would know what types of problems each may tend to have or not have in terms of quality.

Also with the free spinning, do you just try to keep track in your head of like the point where the contact area was tightest and look for rapid change, etc?

As you progress you'll realize there's other things worth keeping track of too -
beyond just low areas and gate sigs. But yes, you got it. That's the general idea.

I have decent memory but the whole thing seems a bit stressful. :p

I see you've been free-spinnin' for a bit now, and catching on nicely! But I hear ya...
whenever I attempt to incorporate something new into my spinning, my entire game
goes to shit, lol. My opening times instantly double or triple and I get confused and
frustrated. It always gets worse before it gets better. Sorta that concept of 'take one
step back in order to take five steps forward'. Keep at it and push through it. Also,
don't be afraid of paper! I still jot some notes down, depending on what I'm spinnin'.


Chad! Great spin session.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
And your last 2 graphs of wheel 3?!....

So I parked 1&2 on L31 and ran w3 AR:

Again, not a lot of help there... could be a gate somwhere between 62-68, or 71-74, but not definitive enough to make me feel any confidence. So one more time, I changed direction... with 1&2 still parked at L31 I ran w3 AL (turned w3 around right to 28 and then came back left, starting at about 35):

This time the gate at L73 was unmistakable.

....what a fantastic illustration of wheel float. Undeniable wheel float - since everything was
positioned exactly the same other than the rotational direction of a single wheel (w3). You
'popped' that wheel up well above the others so that it gave you a ridiculously clear reading
of the gate. It's neat to see that laid out on paper! Nice graphs/descriptions/photos. Thanks.

[madsamurai]

....what a fantastic illustration of wheel float. Undeniable wheel float - since everything was
positioned exactly the same other than the rotational direction of a single wheel (w3). You
'popped' that wheel up well above the others so that it gave you a ridiculously clear reading
of the gate. It's neat to see that laid out on paper! Nice graphs/descriptions/photos. Thanks.

That spin and those graphs were one of the best learning experiences so far, and was all thanks to you for explaining it so well in the first place... up until then I would have never even thought to try just switching directions, and I would've struggled with this lock for hours with the vague right-direction graphs I started with. Kinda blew my mind how vastly different the graphs turned out with a single change like that. This lock seems to really only indicate when turning left... I'm curious if that's common with the 3330 model or if some indicate better opposite; whether it's a result of the design itself or just the particular friction of the spring washers made on the day this lock was made. Either way, this is a trick I expect I'll be using a lot from now on. I'm glad these graphs show it so well, hopefully it'll be a useful example for further discussions. Cheers