Ringnecked

So NIJ Standard-1001.00 tells you what the critical dimensions of that handcuff key are supposed to be. And you would think that if you bought a key, it ought to meet them.

Well.....

Keys get lost, or misplaced, and you should always have two. So I got a couple no-name "standard" keys at an army-navy place. Took them home, and at some point took one of them to unlock the S&W legcuffs I have, the ones you see in many of the boots pictures.

It wouldn't go in the keyhole.

I tried the other: same problem. Fortunately there was a third key handy, but I got out my trusty Starrett micrometer and measured the problem key. The standard says that the shaft is supposed to be 0.139” OD. Well, it wasn't; it was more like about .0148", which is within the .010" tolerance allowed, if just barely. I also tried it on my S&W handcuffs, and met with the same problem. The key goes in and works my Peerless cuffs just fine, so the issue does seem to be that, well, S&W isn't respecting the tolerances. I don't have anything handy to check just how big the keyholes are, but given that the standard doesn't say how big the holes actually need to be, perhaps they take this as an out. But clearly it's not enough just to buy a "standard" key.