Locks that work

Is it safe to remove the silver bracket "catch" from a mini evo 5 or should it be left on covering the shackle in case of freezing attack etc?

it have slighty more room than an Evo Mini, cut off the plastic cover and you'll have noticably more.

this picture should speak thousand;

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh167/edscoble/IMGP0625.jpg

Ed, this is terrible advice!

the plastic cover is there for a reason. it provides an insulation against thermal / chemical attacks (ie freezing). PM me if you wanna know how exactly - and how easy it is to defeat a serious lock, I'm not gonna post it up here.

Most of the time it takes longer and is more difficult / risky to remove the plastic than it does to break the lock. to remove plastic you need to carry a stanley knife, and a thief is more likely to think twice about that than carrying the right chemicals to break a D lock.

So do NOT remove the plastic cover, especially if you wanna rely on the guarantee from your lock manufacturer.

Ed's post and also fred's reply, are from 2000 odd posts ago. The protection sheath is not just some random ugly add-on. It will always be a different density to the main shackle, so would have a different freezing point. These lock makers are not as silly as some might believe.