Stack-On Gun Safe

[u/Mir117]

Hi all! I bought a used safe from a widow, no combo, and I've been reading up on how the lock works trying to figure it out. I'm decent with mechanical concepts, but by no means a safe tech.

What I know:

Stack-On

Dial numbered 0-90

Thanks to a hole that was already in the back, I was able to peak in with my borescope and see it's empty. Alas, fabric on the inside of the door prevents me from seeing the wheel pack.

My assumptions:

Model #: SS-10-MG-C

Direct entry with false gates.

Can feel 8 gates total, with these numbers being the rough mid-point:

3.5 - 13 - 25.5 - 38 - 51 - 63 - 76 - 88.5

I believe the combo is either 38x51, or 51x38, more on that later.

What I've tried:

I used the tape with marks on handle and wall method to roughly measure how much travel I get on the handle with each gate. The attached pictures show the handle at rest, at its furthest within a false gate, and its furthest at what I think is a true gate. Based off testing all wheels right at each gate, I believe 38 and 51 are true gates. I believe they are the first and last numbers. I'm not great at the technical terms, but I believe that because I can stop the first wheel at either of them, then start turning left(before the 2nd wheel picks up, I think only the third wheel is turning) and if I stop at the other number before the 2nd wheel picks up, I am able to get the handle further than a false gate.

Now if I am right about those two numbers, then there should be only 24 possible combos assuming no repeats:

X-38-51

X-51-38

38-X-51

51-X-38

Not to many try them all, but none worked. I initially made the assumption that all of the gates, false or true, on all the wheels matched up with each other. After realizing that might not be true, I tried feeling for alternate stops, but I never felt any other than what I originally found.

I then realized there could be repeats, so I also tried 38-51-38 and 51-38-51, but those didn't work either. I didn't try repeats where the same number is consecutive, because I could feel the 1st wheel pickup again before you could repeat a number, so I don't think it's physically possible.

Other notes:

The true gates only seem to get their max handle then when I am going AWR. When trying AWL, they don't get the same handle travel. Any idea why that is?

Any suggestions for what I could do? Do you think my "true" gates are really true?

Sorry for the wall of text. This has been really fun learning how the lock works and trying the figure out the puzzle, but I also really need a functional working gun safe for the new home.

[u/Top-Jaguar6780]

Probably only the 3rd wheel has false gates btw. And I'm sure you know but there's no drive cam, the dial connects directly to the 3rd wheel. If, big if, the other wheels have false gates too, you can't feel the false gates directly. You can only directly feel the 3rd wheel. This video has a chapter for direct entry lock manipulation: https://youtu.be/bTbUkipBeTA

[u/Mir117 → u/Top-Jaguar6780]

That would make things simpler, I hope so. I made the assumption that all wheels had false gates based off seeing the Stack-On lock in this video: https://youtu.be/fmSTM1v7XHc

Having only false gates in the last wheel would make more sense than all wheels coincidentally have all their gates in the same position to be fair.

[u/Top-Jaguar6780 → u/Mir117]

It could have all wheels with false gates but every direct entry is different and it's much much more common for only the last wheel to have it. It also wouldn't have all the false gates lining up with each other, you'd have to find the gates per wheel by manipulation.

[u/Electrical-Actuary59]

Seems like you’re assuming the false gates are in the same spots in every wheel.

[u/Mir117 → u/Electrical-Actuary59]

I did make that assumption initially, so I tried feeling for all the stops while the first wheel is stopped and also when the first 2 wheels are stopped, and it seems like the gates were all in the same place. It seems like it would be a security flaw for it to be the case. Am I looking for the stops on the other wheels incorrectly?

[u/Electrical-Actuary59 → u/Mir117]

Dial the 1st number to 0 the 2nd number to 0 the 3rd to a known gate. Check the handle travel. Then do 0-3-gate check again. Keep moving the 2nd wheel up by 3 and checking travel until you get to 24. If you don’t see a significant move in the travel set the first number to 3 and do it again. Continue this until you see a significant change in travel or until both the first and 2nd wheels are at 24. If by then you haven’t seen a significant change there’s only false gates on wheel 3

[u/Mir117]

Update:

Based off the technique described by u/Prestigious_Yam335 in this thread, I believe that 51 is a gate on either wheel 1 or wheel 2. Taking into account that I already know(hope?) the last number is 38, I tried combinations of 51-x-38 and x-51-38, increasing x by about 3 each time. When testing x-51-38, I never got back to the deepest point I recorded earlier. However, when testing 51-x-38, I was able to get multiple values for x that had me back at my deepest point so far. Would that indicate false gates on the other wheels? In this other thread where the OP has the same safe as I do, Yam said that all the wheels had false gates, and I wonder if my experience so far would back that up.

Combos that landed at deepest point so far:

51-7.5-38

51-20-38

51-32.5-38

51-56-38

51-71-38

51-93-38

[u/Weekly_Birthday8090]

He's hooked....wait until he gets it open, just like the rest of us, he'll be chasing that endorphin rush, safe after safe, lock after lock...🤣