Inspired by Greenroofer's latest Spot(of an evidently near-instant slicing of braided cable lock at Meggetland Tesco), I've just dug out my upstairs neighbour's Abus cable combination lock, which I kept as a souvenir after cutting through it when she forgot her code and asked for help. And cut it a couple more times in the interests of For Science.
It looks almost exactly the same width and general robustness as my Kryptonite lock's cable, and only causes a mild hesitation before my bolt croppers chomp right through it.
I timed myself, and while I can confidently say it's under two seconds, I don't know it was under one since I don't know how much time I spent getting my hands from stopwatch to handle and back.
They're medium sized at 45cm of arm length.
I'd imagine smaller croppers would replicate the feat if you were burly or could get them on the ground, which you probably always can with cables.
It took 1:23 to get through it with a pair of pliers. It's some comfort to know that I found it extremely hard, and I can say with some evidence that I'm unusually strong in this regard - it's almost exactly like using torsion grippers, which back in the day I trained with obsessively and still dust off the shelf from time to time.
Less comforting is the fact I was racing the clock and found in an untimed testing cut that you can gnaw away at the cable and make much slower progress. I'd hazard a guess at 5-10 minutes.
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