S&G Dial locks - AR15.COM

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Posted: 2/25/2014 4:03:39 PM EDT

I am considering buying a liberty safe floor model. It comes with an S&G dial lock. I have had bad luck with electronic locks. Anyways my question is should I worry about the dial lock being abused? like spun really fast to cause slippage or it could go bad in a year or so? Anyone buy a floor model or do they have any incite thanks. Floor model liberties gtg or pass?

Posted: 2/25/2014 4:12:20 PM EDT

[#1]

Unless its been physically abused, it should be GTG, S&G are used for bank vaults and can take abuse.

Posted: 2/25/2014 4:14:18 PM EDT

[#2]

No big deal. Good locks and easy to work on.

Posted: 2/25/2014 4:18:12 PM EDT

[#3]

Quote History

Quoted:
No big deal. Good locks and easy to work on.

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Are these good locks?

Posted: 2/25/2014 5:00:47 PM EDT

[#4]

GTG

Posted: 2/25/2014 6:44:58 PM EDT

[#5]

Are these good locks?

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The S&G locks used on gun safes are no where near the quality of their vault locks. Most gun safes are using the 6740 series which is OK at best. It is their entry level lock, and you get what you pay for there. The 6730 series is the next step up, and is an all around better choice. Liberty does use this model on their Presidential and National Security lines.

Can a lock be damaged through abuse? Absolutely. Are floor model safes abused? Yup.

Posted: 2/27/2014 3:37:48 PM EDT

[#6]

any other info?

Posted: 2/28/2014 4:10:46 PM EDT

[#7]

Mine is 16 years old. Still works.

Posted: 4/17/2014 7:48:33 AM EDT

[#8]

Does it require a locksmith to install one of the dial locks or is a relatively straight forward install?

(Assuming you can actually get into your safe, and you don't need it drilled out)

Posted: 4/17/2014 8:22:35 AM EDT

[#9]

Quote History

Quoted:

The S&G locks used on gun safes are no where near the quality of their vault locks. Most gun safes are using the 6740 series which is OK at best. It is their entry level lock, and you get what you pay for there. The 6730 series is the next step up, and is an all around better choice. Liberty does use this model on their Presidential and National Security lines.

Can a lock be damaged through abuse? Absolutely. Are floor model safes abused? Yup.

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View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Are these good locks?

The S&G locks used on gun safes are no where near the quality of their vault locks. Most gun safes are using the 6740 series which is OK at best. It is their entry level lock, and you get what you pay for there. The 6730 series is the next step up, and is an all around better choice. Liberty does use this model on their Presidential and National Security lines.

Can a lock be damaged through abuse? Absolutely. Are floor model safes abused? Yup.

I am pretty sure they use the 6730 on the Lincoln as well.

Posted: 4/17/2014 8:25:04 AM EDT

[#10]

Does it require a locksmith to install one of the dial locks or is a relatively straight forward install?

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Many locksmiths aren't overly familiar with safe work, so you should make sure whomever is doing it is, or that you're dealing with an actual safe tech. It's not rocket science, but you will need a pro to do the work in order to maintain the warranty on the safe and/or the lock.

(Assuming you can actually get into your safe, and you don't need it drilled out)

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Before or after you work on your own safe?

Posted: 4/17/2014 8:41:06 AM EDT

[#11]

Ha. Guess that answers that.

Posted: 4/18/2014 7:11:02 AM EDT

[#12]

Quote History

Quoted:

any other info?

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FWIW, S&G locks are used on GSA-Approved containers and doors to rooms protected from riff-raff (like ya'll

). I would actually prefer having an S&G lock on my gun safe; if they're good enough to secure classified things, they're good enough to secure my things.
Yes, I realize I'm essentially saying "Corvette's are awesome, so yeah, you should definitely buy a Chevy Cobalt."
Just don't mix S&G locks with Masterlock-type locks. The opening procedure is different enough to cause significant frustrations.

Posted: 4/18/2014 7:20:02 AM EDT

[#13]

E-locks suck. Get a key back up or dial.

Posted: 4/18/2014 5:05:52 PM EDT

[#14]

I remodeled an old safe for my guns. It was made in 1948 and had a S&G 6730 in it. I had the safe guy replace it with a new 6730 because the old one didn't want to take a new combo. It took 65 years in a business to wear it out.

Posted: 4/18/2014 6:33:35 PM EDT

[#15]

if they're good enough to secure classified things, they're good enough to secure my things.

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Just keep in mind that the locks used to secure classified things are not the same as the locks used on gun safes. The name on the lock is the same, but the locks themselves are very different.

Posted: 4/19/2014 6:07:06 AM EDT

[#16]

Seems like an ok lock from my experience. After awhile mine would not open with the combo and after a few hours I found out the combo shifted a full number. The new combo has worked ever since.

Posted: 4/19/2014 10:04:08 AM EDT

[#17]

As with any manufacturer, locks come in grades of quality and cost, just like any other product family. Locks are no different. Service reliability usually follows the relative cost/quality relationship. The 6730 Group 2 lock today is all but forgotten. It was replaced largely by the 6630, the Group 2M version that qualifies for installation on TL rated safes. For RSC rated safes, the Group 2 rating is the baseline requirement for UL listing. Most safe companies migrated to the 6741 locks long ago where the safe rating would allow the change, because it is so much less costly.

Others moved to other brands, predominantly the LaGard 3300. The cost of Dial & Dial Ring kits was a big factor too, whereas the price of S&G Dials have always been considerably higher cost. It's a package deal, and the combined cost for a set, lock-dial-ring, has been the metric for these choices. Long ago, LaGard offered package prices that were considerably cheaper. For a while, almost everyone in the gunsafe business moved to LaGard with a few exceptions.

In the Locksmith world, the LaGard has a legacy of poor reliability. That legacy came from a bad launch of their products in the early 80's, and a series of poor decisions choices about how to support the industry when they had a serious rash of failures. Those problems were resolved long ago, but the legacy lives on. In the gunsafe industry, the lack of technical expertise of the market allowed the LaGard product to thrive and aggressive pricing placed it in a leading role. There were other players that came and went. The Taylor Resources PPI P70 lock, later bought by Ilco-Unican had it's day. They faded after Ilco bought the company. Then, the more recent player, the Lock1One came to play with a 6730 level knock-off that is now known as the BigRed. This is the lock that AMSEC uses today on all of the gunsafe and residential products, as well as many light commercial safes. The BigRed has been a good lock at a low price, but retained the high quality traits of the 6730.

The key differences in these locks are materials and manufacturing methods. The traditional 6730/6630 locks are a collection of machined and stamped brass alloy parts, as is the BigRed. The S&G 6741 and LaGard 3300 locks are largely made of zinc die-cast and aluminum stamping components. The machined brass parts are far more precise, durable and longer lasting. The brass parts cost a lot more to manufacture, and are made for a far more expensive material, hence the cost differences.

As for reliability, our records don't favor one over the other much in this diverse lock spectrum when used in residential applications. The typical residential user opens a safe once or twice per day. In commercial use, the safes can be opened more than 100 times each day. So, the problem becomes longevity, and this is where the locks with brass components bear fruit with much better wear characteristics, resulting in longer service life. A typical mechanical lock will operate 30,000-50,000 cycles if it is serviced regularly. Therein lies the hitch... mechanical locks require periodic service, and in commercial applications they get that service if the owner is prudent and has robust maintenance programs for all of their equipment.

In residential use, 30,000 cycles is a lifetime, so the longevity of the locks becomes far less evident. Most of these low-cost locks installed in the early 90's will not reach their service limits for another 30-40 years. Consequently, the residential user is not inclined to solicit regular service to extend the life.

Service failures on residential safe locks are mostly attributed to poor combo setting techniques in factories focused on mass production, where the care and precision is disregarded. Another huge source of problems is in the selling cycle, wherein the dealers interfere with the process by setting the safes on simple common one-number combos for display purposes, then later return the combo to the factory numbers when they sell the safe. These dealers are not trained in the delicate process, and they are responsible for a huge source of lockouts and service calls.

Combo locks have a "dialing tolerance", where there is a range around the ideal set-point of each number that should allow the lock to open. Our factory setting process requires the installer to test the over/under range to verify the combo is set properly. This quality step is imposed on our import vendors as well. Every lock is dialed 1/2 high and low to assure each number is set in the middle of that tolerance range. I know most other gunsafe manufacturers hardly understand these concepts. These are lessons learned from decades of making safes for commercial service.

Which brings me to the point of the dialog. Electronic locks. Since I designed the first retrofittable digital safe lock in 1989, it has been a standard of ours to assure a lock that lives service-free for at least 1,000,000 cycles. Yes, that's what I said, one million cycles without any regular maintenance. I can't say the same for any of the "other" lock manufacturers. The UL ratings only require 10,000 cycles. I won't share the brand vs longevity data we have collected, but suffice it to say this is largely why so many have low regard for electronic locks. We have all had our challenges with e-locks as the technology evolved. I can say, without reservation, that the ESL10 and ESL20 lock we make today lasts longer and fails less than any other mechanical or electronic lock made. We keep detailed statistics, and we sell almost every lock made, so this is genuine statistic based on real service reliability.

So, digital locks have a legacy of their own, but that has been polluted by the failings of lock companies to test and maintain a continuous improvement program like our own. Newcomers with products designed in China by engineers unfamiliar with our safes and history have brought a cloud of doubt of e-locks. Some of our own big-name US companies have had wide-spread failures with poor designs and poor quality control, adding to the negative light shed on e-locks.

In the grand scheme, the e-lock is a MUCH better choice, if a quality lock is selected. Backup mechanical systems are a band-aid for digital reliability. The e-lock offers the user the privacy of combo change without anyone else knowing the code. They offer absolute manipulation resistance, as code testing is prevented with penalty lockout periods. They live longer by as much as 100 times. They auto-lock when the door is closed, so there is never the accidental unlocked safe because you neglected to spin the dial off the combo. They don't require regular costly professional service, and they are many times faster to open in crisis conditions.

You choose, but do that with your eyes wide open.

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