Sat Jan 05, 2019 7:45 am by Squelchtone
@OP I venture to guess that they are pinned up like this (disregard your luck of finding a pair with mirrored keyways for a minute) so that a locksmith who stocks them can demonstrate them opening and cloing nicely to a customer at their counter, and then they would go and pin it up to the customers existing master keyed system or to just a stand alone change key they cut by code based on the MACS for Sargent.
This may be more for marketing than anything. I know I wouldn't want to show a customer a $30 dollar padlock in a baggie with a bunch of pins and springs spilling out.
I live a couple hours from the Sargent factory, an ASSA Abloy umbrella company, and I might reach out to their folks to see why this is done, maybe my answer is totally wrong and there is another reason they pin things up zero bitted. Maybe it is to make sure the plug and shell and all fit and finish and machining is good to go before it leaves the factory, what better way than to pin it up and stick a key in?
just my theory,
Squelchtone