Best Locks

[gswimfrk]

Hey guys I need a little help deciding...

1. How are best locks quality and security wise?
2. Which brand makes better deadbolts for the price, Dorma or K2


Thanks
-Ivan

[globallockytoo]

In my opinion, K2.

Dorma are door closer specialists.

Best locks are generally found in institutions and chosen because the architects and builders have been conned by Best. (IMHO)

[gswimfrk]

Cool,
This site sells dorma deadbolts for cheap anyone know the quality of these things?

[/url]http://www.icorelocks.com/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=57&osCsid=g8734bfpoffesidsvse1apqrr4

[Evan]

Best locks are generally found in institutions and chosen because the architects and builders have been conned by Best. (IMHO)

I am going to ask you to explain that opinion and the rationale behind it...

Installing a BEST system is a choice made for various reasons by an organization...

I know you prefer other lock manufacturers but to eliminate SFIC's categorically without much of an explanation other than you think "architects or builders are being conned" is a cop out... More often than not, an architect or builder chooses one type of lock over another because they REALLY liked the design or styling of a certain trim piece offered by that lock company... It is not because of the more sinister motivations you alluded to...

Most architects only see designs and style issues, all they know about locks is what they read about them in a "building systems" textbook, what the fire protection engineer says the door/lock needs to be rated for and the explanation of the SKCS put out by various sources...

You should know what I am talking about if you have ever been involved in a keying conference with an architect when the designs for a new building are being discussed... I have heard some pretty off the wall initial ideas over the way a master key system should be designed from an architect or two in my time in facilities management...

~~ Evan

[globallockytoo]

Best locks are generally found in institutions and chosen because the architects and builders have been conned by Best. (IMHO)

I am going to ask you to explain that opinion and the rationale behind it...

Installing a BEST system is a choice made for various reasons by an organization...

I know you prefer other lock manufacturers but to eliminate SFIC's categorically without much of an explanation other than you think "architects or builders are being conned" is a cop out... More often than not, an architect or builder chooses one type of lock over another because they REALLY liked the design or styling of a certain trim piece offered by that lock company... It is not because of the more sinister motivations you alluded to...

Most architects only see designs and style issues, all they know about locks is what they read about them in a "building systems" textbook, what the fire protection engineer says the door/lock needs to be rated for and the explanation of the SKCS put out by various sources...

You should know what I am talking about if you have ever been involved in a keying conference with an architect when the designs for a new building are being discussed... I have heard some pretty off the wall initial ideas over the way a master key system should be designed from an architect or two in my time in facilities management...

~~ Evan

It is a well known fact that Best sold out the locksmiths industry many years ago by selling direct to the end user, effectively bypassing the locksmith industry altogether. Then they proved they are unable to support their product line and told end users to seek the services of a locksmith for back up issues.

I have personally been involved with architects and builders in 3 different countries and in the USA, it is the most difficult because they are usually pre-convinced by the lock manufacturers bias (based on kick backs, corruption etc).

Many institutions that employ locksmiths in a department of their own, find that their systems are better replaced by better locksmith designed products than the stupid SFIC product lines.

Yes it is an opinion based on my 28 years industry experience in multiple continents. Is it the right option for everybody? Perhaps not. But I strongly recommend that Best SFIC products not be used by anybody, primarily because the end user is locked into using that type of hardware. At least with most of the other manufacturers products, you can use almost any choice of key cylinder, dramatically reducing the replacement cost and delivery timeframe of parts.

I see schools here that use SFIC. I ask them about who they get their parts from. They most often tell me they get direct from the manufacturer. When I inquire as to their pricing, they are always charged full recommended retail (list) price for everything. Where is the discount and service they get from the manufacturer after the horse has bolted.

Often I can sell them superior quality other branded product (SFIC) at significantly cheaper prices than they get from the manufacturers. I do occasionally get an order like this, usually preceding a total system change.

I dont doubt your opinion Evan. My opinion differs based on "my' experience. I have met many "so called" institutional locksmiths who have absolutely no idea, nor the ability to figure out anything outside of their institution. They have become institutionalised. (like prisoners)

Architects reflect on the bottom line price and aesthetic value. More often they have never, ever spoken to a locksmith or been shown the many thousands of alternatives to SFIC garbage, that is usually substantially cheaper, better quality, better looking, easier to work with, more manageable and easier to source replacement parts quicker and easier.

They generally prefer to stay with their same old suppliers and live with complacency.

[gswimfrk]

Wow I have never been aware of that. hahah I have been looking into best because of their lock quality and the after market products' quality. (i guess i have been conned too) haha I spoke with an SFIC core dealer who highly recommended the system not only for my home but rental properties too. He had stated that SFIC cores and accessories are significantly higher quality, pick resistant, and more difficult to bump? thats why i have been looking into best locks. (i have yet to verify)

Thanks for your advice
-Ivan

[Raymond]

I have to speak up in favor of SFIC (I am not specifying Best.) because of the ease and quickness of rekeying. I do a lot of work on a military base and have to rekey the same doors relatively often as the people rotate in and out. On many exit devices the entire top and bottom locking bars must be removed before the panic bar just to rekey the rim or mortise cylinder in the outside trim. The SFIC cylinder in this case prevents having to strip down the door hardware just to rekey it.

Also, with the tip stop of an SFIC lock, and using nickle-silver key blanks, I see VERY FEW broken keys. With no shoulder at the bow there is no shearing force that breaks the key at this one point. The bow and shaft tend to flex more and not break.

All of the big box stores, car part stores, dollar type stores, and flea market/auctions do not cut SFIC keys. This somewhat improves the key control angle.

The same SFIC can be upgraded to true high security by using Medeco, Marks, Yale, Scorpion, Kaba-Peaks, and many other brands of controlled access keys.

Just my quick, spur of the moment, thoughts on the subject.

[Evan]

Ok... I can understand your opinion a little better now... Thanks for spelling it out...

It is a well known fact that Best sold out the locksmiths industry many years ago by selling direct to the end user, effectively bypassing the locksmith industry altogether. Then they proved they are unable to support their product line and told end users to seek the services of a locksmith for back up issues.

So you are totally opposed to end-user level systems that leave locksmiths totally out of the loop ?

I think a lot of what you are talking about as far as the support being available is that Best Access Systems expects end-users to enter into a service contract and continue paying for the contract even if no service is required or requested or long periods of time pass between the service calls...

Many institutions that employ locksmiths in a department of their own, find that their systems are better replaced by better locksmith designed products than the stupid SFIC product lines.

(AND)

I have met many "so called" institutional locksmiths who have absolutely no idea, nor the ability to figure out anything outside of their institution. They have become institutionalised. (like prisoners)

It seems fairly clear that you have not run into many true institutional locksmiths in your travels... More like you have dealt with glorified maintenance men who install replacement hardware and factory keyed cylinders who are little more than key cutters/key accountants...

Yes it is an opinion based on my 28 years industry experience in multiple continents. Is it the right option for everybody? Perhaps not. But I strongly recommend that Best SFIC products not be used by anybody, primarily because the end user is locked into using that type of hardware. At least with most of the other manufacturers products, you can use almost any choice of key cylinder, dramatically reducing the replacement cost and delivery timeframe of parts.

Having personally experienced a retrofit in a building I used to work in I can tell you that there is little logic to ordering replacement cylinders from one manufacturer to fit into the locks of another, some parts are available quickly and others had a six week lead time from order to delivery, but there is not really any rhyme or reason to what can be obtained quickly and what can not...

I will say to anyone who ever requests my opinion now or in the future that mortise and rim cylinder based keying systems are the only way to go... If you are talking SFIC or LFIC all you need is appropriate housings to fit into the mortise or rim locksets... You can obtain replacement mortise or rim cylinders MUCH more quickly depending on the keyway you are ordering as opposed to a special cylinder to fit into a knob or lever or unit lockset...

Anyone who specifies or installs other than mortise or rim locking devices is only asking for trouble down the line... You may have to replace some hardware to upgrade to the latest patented keying systems down the road as the latest and greatest key cylinders are not made to fit into your 30 or 40 year old locking hardware which requires unusual cylinders to operate it...

I see schools here that use SFIC. I ask them about who they get their parts from. They most often tell me they get direct from the manufacturer. When I inquire as to their pricing, they are always charged full recommended retail (list) price for everything. Where is the discount and service they get from the manufacturer after the horse has bolted.

That might have more to do with the purchasing policies that the school districts have in place rather than a desire to compete against local businesses... It is much easier for a large organization to place orders with a large company and pay the full retail price on the relatively small orders they are placing that it would be to deal with the local locksmith whose prices would fluctuate and would involve some amount of mark-up on the supplies... Unless you are saying you ALWAYS sell products for less than the MSRP after your mark-up or handling fees are factored in why would it be a better deal for such a school district to deal with a 3rd party such as yourself or another locksmith ?

You are also bringing up the difference in business operations between an end-user which intends to consume (install) the purchases they are making rather than an intermediate 3rd party locksmith (reseller) who is promoting and installing the products in question on the behalf of the manufacturer to the end-user customer...

~~ Evan

[misterj]

I voluntarily maintain the locks and keys for a very small library. When I started there, everything was Kwikset. Worse yet, the building hadn't been rekeyed in at least 10 years.

First chance I got, I ordered SFIC hardware for the entire building, and used a bunch of keyed alike Best cores for the building...had enough keys made up for all the keyholders. About a year later, I was seeing building keys that I did not have made (all mine were done on generic Duplication Prohibited blanks with the series stamped on them, the ones that were popping up were Ilco BE2 keys with no stamps). Obviously, there were more keys than I originally had made around now.

I had a guy I know make me up a small master system on the "M" keyway, figuring a more obscure one would make visiting a real locksmith essential to having them copied. The master key opens all the doors, and only I and the director have one. All other staff get what I refer to as a "Level 2" key, which opens the building exterior and the computer room...nothing else.

I keep a set of "TE" keyway cores keyed alike on hand so that if there comes a need to lock out all the keyholders, it can be done in minutes. The only two keys to those cores are locked in the key box at all times...unless we need to use them, of course!

Out of curiosity, I took one of the level 2 keys with me to see if I could get a successful copy one day. These are the only keys that would ever have an opportunity of unauthorized copies made. The front of these keys is simply stamped "Duplication Prohibited," with no star pattern or anything, the back is stamped "XG-2" and has a small M near where the bow meets for the keyway. Hardware stores and the like didn't have the blank, obviously, but didn't seem to care about the "duplication prohibited" stamped on them. There's only two locksmiths around here both refused. One had a bit of an attitude and asked if "I really expected him to make me a master key to who-knows-where" It's not a master, but I guess he had no way of knowing that. The other looked at it for a while, said something about how he hadn't seen the M keyway in use around here before, and told me to come back with a core that it fits and he'd make one, but not until that. Apparently my having access to the control key would have been enough for him.

Frankly, I'm surprised they cared that much about it...

Hard enough to copy for our purposes, I guess.

[David Swearingen]

Based on my half-century-plus experience with locks and keys, my opinion is that any large instituion that doesn't use Best is wasting the taxpayers' or the stockholders' money, as the case may be. Best makes the best quality lock for the money that I've ever seen, and it's quicker and easier to service than anything else. My experience with Best in particular was primarily back in the 1980's, but unless things have changed they have always tried to sell exclusively to large instituions who have their own in-house locksmiths, who do not want local locksmiths messing with their systems.

[David Swearingen]

Oh, a couple other things I forgot to mention...Best provides techincial support for theie systems; for example, when a facility that doesn't currently have Best wants to convert, the Best representative will do a complete survey specifying the proper replacement lock for each door, and lay out a masterkey system to meet the owner's needs. Also, an end user can incorporate more different types of locks into the same masterkey system (rim, mortise, KIK, padlock, cable, file cabinet, drawer, cam, push, etc.) than with any other brand I know of. The McLean trucking company in New York even had their truck's ignition locks and king pin locks included in their keying system; UPS has truck door locks specially designed by Best so they can be part of their system; Kennedy Space Center had locks specially designed by Best so that even the rocket launches could be controlled by their master keys.

[WOT]

SFICs have a unique flaw also.

Often time the control key is of comparable access privilege as the TMK and it only takes one core to immediately derive the control key.

So, if someone accidentally leaves a padlock out, it's the equivalent of losing the bitting to the great grand master key

[Evan]

SFICs have a unique flaw also.

Often time the control key is of comparable access privilege as the TMK and it only takes one core to immediately derive the control key.

So, if someone accidentally leaves a padlock out, it's the equivalent of losing the bitting to the great grand master key

Only if the system was designed following the standard rules by a factory computer or someone lacking real world experience... Different applications would have different realities as far as a system-wide SFIC control key or having unique control keys for each building or sub-master group in a large keying system...

I have worked on a SFIC system where each sub-master group had its own unique Control key bitting which was used in an office complex where each tenant had its own sub-master key to open all the locks in their suite...

Padlocks used in a large system shouldn't be grand-master keyed unless absolutely required as they become valued targets for someone wanting to reverse engineer the system as unless the padlocks are attached by clevis and chain to what they are securing they are easily removable and may not be discovered as missing if located on a perimeter fence or seldom used enclosure... SKD keying for such padlocks is a good idea...

SKD keyed locks in a large Interchangeable Core system whether SFIC or LFIC should never share a common control key for security purposes, and on many LFIC systems it is impossible to have SKD keyed locks (or other specially keyed locks that exclude master keys) use the same system-wide control key due to the way the control key bitting and TMK bittings are related to work the locks... In all but a few rare cases with LFIC keying systems each SKD keyed lock requires its very own control key because you wouldn't want to have additional master pins in those SKD cores to allow operation with a common control key...

~~ Evan

[WOT]

SFICs are distinctively different from common LFICs, because it has two separate shear lines, one for control, one for operation. It's ok for some chambers to share the same bitting as control, but if there are too many, you risk inadvertent core removal. If there are too many different control keys, it will also prevent the number of usable unique change keys.

SFICs have the same vulnerability as dual shear line master key system. While the control key as well as the master key in dual shear system is immune to decoding by method discussed in Matt Blaze's paper, the second shear line (control shear) is usually single keyed.

It is also possible for a lock to be SKD on operating side, yet share the same control as rest of the facility.

The control key on many LFIC is just a matter of any key that can turn the cylinder cut on a control blank as they don't have a separate shear line.

[Evan]

It is also possible for a lock to be SKD on operating side, yet share the same control as rest of the facility.

Possible yes... Any key that is not a part of the key bitting array for the system can be used as a control key with SFIC keying systems... It is generally recommended that the control key have a different bitting parity than the operating keys to ensure against key interchange with possible keys which could be operating keys for that system... But an SKD keying is used where special security considerations exist... Why on earth should that SFIC core have the same control key as every other lock in the building -- that logic doesn't respect the additional security considerations that prompted the use of an SKD keyed core/lock at that location... Having a separate control key for that core does respect those additional security considerations... Frequently, SKD cores/lock cylinders in a keying system will be on an entirely different keyway...

The control key on many LFIC is just a matter of any key that can turn the cylinder cut on a control blank as they don't have a separate shear line.

Yes that logic applies to some LFIC cores... Schlage and Yale, where core retention in the housing is by means of an additional pin/device at the rear of the core... So any operating key for that core cut on the control key blank will allow for removal of the core from the housing...

However in others like modern Corbin-Russwin, and Sargent the control key MUST share the cuts of the TMK (or SKD) and is only usually different from the TMK/SKD in one (or sometimes two) position/s... CR has four chambers on its control sleeve and and Sargent uses two chambers... The control sleeve is operated by means of adding build up pins in those positions... If you pinned those SKD locks to allow the system-wide control key to operate, it would require adding master pins in every chamber of the core which defeats the purpose of having an SKD keyed core/lock to begin with... With such systems you lose the one (or two) bitting depth/s in the control sleeve position/s that the control key in the chambers where it differs from the TMK/SKD... Which is why usually only one position is different... Anywhere in the system where the TMK is excluded from operation would require a special control key for that core...

For example in the case of the specification: AA-1(NMK) would require a control key cut to match the bitting for AA-1 except in the chamber position/s where the control key reserved bittings are because the TMK should not operate that lock by design of the keying system for whatever reason...

Medeco LFIC uses an interesting method of control keying... The sleeve is in two chambers, and the key is just cut to higher depths than the operating key in those two positions to allow core removal from the housing without any additional pins required to operate the control sleeve... You lose some possible bittings in the keying array because of this...

~~ Evan