Newbie with a Sentry - OPENED

[bpeterson87]

First off, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm from MN and I've been lurking for a while trying to read up and learn as much as possible about this stuff before asking any questions. I can normally figure out anything on the internet but this safe has me stumped. I've manipulated masterlocks before, but nothing like this. Hopefully it will let me post pictures.


Anyways, I bought this safe at a garage sale. It's nothing special, but the owners lost the combination. It also looks like they tried dropping it or something to get it to open once they lost the combination. They had the Owner's Manual and all that jazz so for $5 it was a deal because Sentry will send me the combination (just sent out my notarized letter), however...I have an Engineering degree and therefore that type of mind. I don't want to just open it that way. I already told my wife to keep that letter from Sentry when it comes because I want to figure it out the hard way since I've already put all this time into researching and fiddling around with it.

Anyways, I know Mikeh opened one very similar to this and I've read a lot of the material from oldfast, Daggers and altashot...thanks to all of you BTW! Great writeups!

The problem I'm having is getting accurate indications off of this handle. It has a lot of give to it. Using mikeh's analysis of the safe he manipulated, I found the 12 gates on the drive cam (3rd wheel) easily and what I believe is the true gate (26). Like he had stated, none indicate any deeper than any other, but I noticed in various pictures on the net that on the construction of the drive cam for these, which are plastic, the false gates are all sloped and shallow evenly spaced along the cam, while the true gate is obviously very steep to allow the fence in.

**Hoping I have all my terms right here LOL

So, if I put very light tension on the handle, I can actually "feel" the gentle slopes as the fence rides the 3rd wheel and those false gates and all of a sudden it will just stop between 24 and 28 and I can't get the dial to move unless I release some tension or really torque on the dial. It is also the widest of the gates with a gate directly opposite it coming in a close second but not having the "drop-off" effect that I've felt at 24-28.

Here's my issue, I've tried laser pointers, straws, coat hangers, you name it. I just can't figure out how to get around the fact that this handle has so much give to it that it's hard to apply the same amount of pressure. Each time I think I may have found a gate on one of the first two wheels when running 1&2AR/3@26, I can't help but think if I'm just getting more or less of an indication due to my hand pressure on the handle.

I'm looking for advice on this safe and anything anyone may have done to get around this issue with a similar safe. I'd really appreciate it and hopefully I can continue to learn. Thanks guys!

PS: I got the hugest adrenaline rush when I figured out how to actually do that 1&2AR/3@26 test and I could actually feel it pick the first 2 wheels up. Thanks to Daggers for explaining that in detail. Awesome stuff. Can't imagine how I'll feel when I actually open it for the first time by manipulation...just hopefully my wife doesn't leave the Sentry letter out in plain view during a moment of my frustration.

[bpeterson87]

Reading more on this site and others over the last 24 hours, I believe I'm going to try and BF the first two numbers like Hawk did on his. I just didn't want to sit and dial through a possible 999 combinations (0-100 dial, every 3 increments, leaves 33 possible numbers for the first 2, 33x33=999) or even 1600 if I went every 2.5. But, learning how these safes work through this site cuts down my dialing time considerably. If I start at say 50 for the first number and park W1 at 50, then come back right and set W2 at say 48, then go to my W3 known gate, if it doesn't work I can go back right and pick up W2 at 48 go down to 45 and retry with W3. Then keep repeating through all of my possibilities. Am I understanding this process correctly? If so, I can spin 33 combos in about 3 minutes so I should maybe have an opening in about an hour and a half let's say two hours.

Worst case, I get so frustrated I ask for a range on the first number from my wife and BF W2 in smaller increments. SMH

Also ordered my first S&G to practice on. Fun! Will update when I get this thing open.

[Anarchy_won]

Welcome to the forum, stop by the chat some time.
good luck with you'e Sentry safe hope you get it open
check out viewtopic.php?f=100&t=10269&p=94425#p94425 for some ideas on applying steady pressure.

[bpeterson87]

I did see oldfast's rig, and wow what a set up. I may have to try something like that...

[MBI]

Now THIS is an awesome way for a new member to start his safe manipulation thread: pictures, lots of information and background, and importantly what he's tried already to start to figure out his puzzle.

I don't manipulate safes and combo locks so I won't be of much help in this thread but we have a lot of wheel spinners here I hope we're able to help you with accomplishing your goal.

Welcome to the forum.

[bpeterson87]

UPDATE: Made a new rig to the handle as far as my indicator goes. Duct taped a 1/16" ruler as my gauge to a box to the side to see if I can find the gates on W1 or W2 while parking W3 at the "known" gate and running wheels 1&2 AR. However, nothing jumped out. SO, I decided to investigate W3 AWL just one more time. There's only two spots again that jumped out, right around 26 and then 76. According to mikeh, on these Sentry direct-entry safes, the true gate on W3 normally does not indicate any deeper but it is definitely wider. Well, my original technique was holding tension on the lever while turning the dial to see the width of the gate. This is NOT good technique. Remembering what I've read on numerous peoples' posts, I needed to amplify these areas of interest. So, I went in 1/2 increments on the dial and discovered that the gate I thought was the true one at 26 is not the widest, it is the one opposite at 76. 26 only indicated from about 24.5 to 27 while 76 indicated from 74-78.5. Interesting result. Maybe the false gate at 26 is one of those deeper false gates that allows for the retention screw during shipping that I've seen on the older Sentry's?

I've taken a break for now feeling confident that I've found the true gate on W3. Maybe now running W1&2 AR/3@76 will show some indication of a gate on one of those wheels. Will update more.

Also, thanks to bitbuster for some help and information. I think if I can't find it this way, your information will prove to be invaluable.

I'll post pictures of the graphs when done. Some have been crumpled and thrown away in moments of frustration though....haha.

[Altashot]

Keep going, you'll get it. I don't have anything to add but my
encouragement. You're on the right track. I can tell from what you are saying that you're
a gear head (like most of us) and that you understand what you are doing and what to look for so...
...Keep spinning my friend, you're on the track to success.

M.

[Oldfast]

Now THIS is an awesome way for a new member to start his safe manipulation thread: pictures, lots of information and background, and importantly what he's tried already to start to figure out his puzzle....

Welcome to the forum. Always a pleasure to tryn' help someone who's done their homework.

Unfortunately, I agree with Altashot. I think you're doin' just fine and you'll have
it open soon (if you don't already). There's not much I can add at this point.

You have a good understanding of wheel movement, which is half the battle.
The other half of the battle is finding consistency when taking readings.
You're right on track with that too, doing just as I did.... experimenting.

Great job so far!

[bpeterson87]

I take that as great praise coming from you guys...it's only due to your posts that I've even gotten this far. Going to work more on it today, work's been crazy past couple of days. Will post when I get it open or get stuck...whichever comes first. I'm guessing the latter, hoping for the former.

[bpeterson87]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMf0RPYt2W8

Go to 1:04 in the video. I guess I didn't realize that all of these newer Sentry's are designed with a R-L-R dialing configuration...can any of the known safe techs confirm this?

EDIT: Haha...sorry to live up to the stereotype of guys not reading instruction manuals, but yes on my safe is the dialing order is R-L-R. May be why I've had such issues?

[Altashot]

It doesn't matter which way you dial it.
The numbers would be different though.
I mean if the instruction tells you to dial R-L-R for a given comb,
it could be opened L-R-L too but the numbers will be different.
In you case, since you don't know the numbers at all, it doesn't matter which
way you start. As long as you always dial it the same way, it'll open.

M.

[bpeterson87]

Altashot, thank you. I re-read Daggers' book last night to hopefully truly understand and yep I got it now. Oldfast just put a link to another piece of reading in regards to wheel interaction which was also helpful.

So here's my latest attempt at graphing. I made a rig similar to Oldfast's but without the laser pointer. I may have to try the laser pointer though, because these graphs haven't been helpful so far.

img001.jpg

So, let me explain where I'm at and what I was thinking...

I'm not so sure 76 is the true gate on W3 anymore. I just can't be sure. There is so much play in the dial that I can't really decide which is the widest gate on W3 and I had a feeling it could be at 59.5. Anyways, I tried graphing 1&2AR/3@59.5 in graph #1. I wasn't getting much reaction on my indicator except in a couple of spots. Graph 2 I started 1&2AR/3@76, but realized my readings were inconsistent because when I released tension on the spring I'm using so I could move the dial from where I had taken my previous reading, I wasn't being consistent in where I placed the spring back on the handle. So, then came graph #3 which I was meticulous about where I placed the spring on the handle. I came away with a few areas of interest, but when doing H/L tests no wheel indicated over the other.

I also realize that there is a difference between my readings at 59.5 and 76 (59.5 average reading around 7 4/8...76 average around 7 11/16....) but this was because of my spring placement on the handle. I did go back and take a few test readings at 59.5 with the new consistent spring placement and averaged around 7 11/16 consistent with W3@76.

I really need to figure out what W3's true gate is, but like I said I'm having trouble because when I hold tension on the handle, the dial can move a considerable amount on a lot of the gates but with resistance. If I don't move the dial past any point of resistance in the 12 gates, there are none that stick out as particularly wide. They average 1.5-2.25 increments wide.

I guess I'll keep playing with it and see what I can figure out. Just wanted to post a little progress update. Thanks for everyone's help and advice!

[bpeterson87]

Definitely not so sure I have the true gate on W3 anymore. I finally found someone that had opened one of these newer Sentry's and gave pictures of the wheelpack. I believe it may be someone on this site's blog, sorry if I don't give credit but I'm not sure who it is. If you go to this link http://safecracking-blog.blogspot.com/2015/01/cracking-sentry-fire-combination-safe.html it shows one of these newer ones and the wheelpack. The true gate doesn't look any wider than the 11 false gates. I'm either going to have to come up with the most accurate possible way of taking readings on this handle, or BF the 9 gates that don't fall within the forbidden zone.

My question to the guys that know WAY more than me is...do you think if I can come up with a way to accurately take readings on this handle that I can graph through one of the false gates and possible get my first two wheels?

Thanks guys!

BTW, completely off-topic, my wife has the combination now from Sentry. She is teasing me non-stop because she knows how I get when I can't figure something out. She even opened it while I wasn't home and took a picture and sent it to my phone. All in good fun though, and I'm learning something new so it's worth the teasing.

[bpeterson87]

OPEN!!!!!

OK, so I went back to my graphs and decided maybe they weren't that useless if I could just figure out what was good information and what was bad information. I decided I'd go back to my instincts that the W3 gate was at 59.5. I looked at my graph. There's an area of interest between 80 and 90 and then another lower down around 32.5-37.5. I thought to myself, was I rushing through this and not dialing accurately? Hmmm....

Well, I had read somewhere on this site that normally the second number will be between 10-50 numbers away, to improve ease of dialing. That kind of fit the 80-90 area of interest. So, would the other area of interest be W1? Time would tell...

My plan was to work W1 down from 60 (just to be safe) in increments of 3, while working W2 up from 72-96 in increments of 3, and obviously W3 at 59.5. This would really cut down on a lot of the possibilities if my hunches were correct. I know from being an engineer that more often than not with mechanical problems/machines the error is human. It had to be me and my dialing accuracy.

So, I started working my way down. I get to 39, back up to 87, and to 59.5 (dialing in RLR since that's the manufacturer's way of dialing this safe), and I noticed a drop in the handle. Hmmmm....So, I go to 36 and start walking W2 up from 72 in increments of 3, parking W3 @ 59.5. I get to 87 and woot! Open! I quickly close the safe and relock it to re-dial in my "winning" combination again. Handle doesn't open...WTF!

So at this point I've experienced the same extreme highs and lows that a base jumper experiences in about the same amount of time. I mean, I went from Eifel tower to the catacombs in a matter of 30 seconds. (Forgive my Paris reference, planning a trip there next month with my wife lol)

I redo my process, W1 at 36, walk W2 up from 72, get to 87 and again it opens.

The safe is actually really nice inside and I don't really want to take apart the door to get the real combination, but I want to show my wife without walking W2 up that I have the real combo. So, what would make a safe act this way? I'm going to play with it and see if I can figure out the real combination by dialing one combination at a time in those areas. Any insight however would be helpful. I'm sure I'll end up just taking it apart to figure it out but we will see.

Thanks to everyone for their help and advice! Bitbuster, oldfast, daggers, altashot, mikeh...I'm sure I'm forgetting someone and if I did I'm sorry!

[Altashot]

Woo hoo!!!!! Congratulations!!!!!
I knew you'd get it! Doesn't it feel great!?

To answer to this question: "The safe is actually really nice inside and I don't really want to take apart the door to get the real combination, but I want to show my wife without walking W2 up that I have the real combo. So, what would make a safe act this way? I'm going to play with it and see if I can figure out the real combination by dialing one combination at a time in those areas. Any insight however would be helpful. I'm sure I'll end up just taking it apart to figure it out but we will see."

I believe your numbers are a little off. The gates don't align quite right at the fence so, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
The numbers are really close to the real ones though. Now it's just a matter of tweaking those numbers until the safe opens reliably.

It's really easy to look inside, just remove the back panel and it'll expose everything, and while in there, retrieve the real comb or change it to a different one.

You'll figure it out as you said, you're an engineer...
...And it's really not that hard.

Max.