American lock to be dumbed down?

[daniel22747]

I have been hearing some reports that now that Master Lock has bought American Lock they are going to, and in some cases have,
changed the lock core to a low security cheapo core with no security pins.

Has anyone here encountered one of these yet?

I just order some more American Locks from a company (Mr. Lock) that I think is still selling the good high security ones. I ordered a 1100 series one from them about 6 months ago and it was full of spool and serrated pins. So I am hoping the ones I get in this order will be the good ones too. Will let you guys know what happens.

But what do any of you guys know about all this?

[ARF-GEF]

I heard the same from quite a few people (around 3 or so to be more specific).
But I personally don't know

[Hachronn]

I've heard the same thing... Read actually ..., but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. I also haven't read where somebody broke down an American Padlock to discover nothing but straight pins.

If I'm not mistaken, Master has owned American for a decade. If they were going to dumb down the lock, wouldn't they have already done so? Besides, what would be the advantage?

It would actually make more sense for them to apply American Lock standards to Master. A couple of the Masters I've been practicing on aren't exactly pushovers.

I suppose if they were to do anything, it would make more sense to just phase the American brand out claiming that they've merged the two products and they are one.

Anyway, that's my uneducated/uninformed opinion.

[snake_wrangler]

I think the dumbed down Americans are all the ones with bump-stop. I haven't run into the cheap cylinders either, but I've mainly bought them off of ebay so they are older locks. Often without the anti-bypass plate which prevents the one glaring problem with american locks.

[spandexwarrior]

I've only seen the new cylinders in 5200's that were made for U.S. military contracts. As mentioned, they generally have bump stop and I think they made the change starting sometime in 2011. The new ones also use a different keyway and the keys have a master style bow.

-Brian

[daniel22747]

Here is a video about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAcNsdWw_y0


Looks like it is a government contract problem.

[Squelchtone]

Here is a video about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAcNsdWw_y0


Looks like it is a government contract problem.

Many thanks for posting that video. I jus Tweeted @MasterLockUS asking for an explanation. It will be interesting if they even reply.

Squelchtone

[Hachronn]

Here is a video about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAcNsdWw_y0


Looks like it is a government contract problem.

Due to the fact that foul language is frowned upon in these forums, I'll limit my response to Wow! Did they think nobody would notice?

[ARF-GEF]

I think they didn't really care too much.
I mean some person calculated that they would save 14 cents on each core multiplied it with the annuals sale numbers and "wowow! We got to do that".
The good reputation was probably not an issue, otherwise they wouldn't have done it.
But well, I wasn't there, so I can't know.

[Squelchtone]

Here is a video about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAcNsdWw_y0


Looks like it is a government contract problem.

Many thanks for posting that video. I jus Tweeted @MasterLockUS asking for an explanation. It will be interesting if they even reply.

Squelchtone

Here's what I said to Master Lock:
https://twitter.com/Squelchtone/status/345160405234094080

and here's what they said to me, along with some more replies from me:
https://twitter.com/MasterLockUS/status/345247670165700610


I think it's sad that in order to meet the bare bones govt CID specifications (which word on the street is that Master helped write the specs anyway) they just said, well serrated pins are not in the specs, so take them out, were gonna make the lock even crappier, but hey it's still up to spec. Why not leave it like it was, I wonder if they're still charging the govt the same price as the old model with proper American Lock cylinder and serrated pins.

It's sad that Master bought American, I wish it was the other way around. Imagine a Master Lock No3 with blue bumper have 5 pins instead of 4 and have all of those pins be serrated? Maybe we'd stop laughing at Master No3's finally.

Squelchtone

[daniel22747]

I got my 3 new american locks in the mail from the company Mr. Lock. All padlocks were high security with serrated and spooled driver pins and serrated key pins.

[phoneman85]

What a shame if they are gona do this! Please tell me they are at least still US made?

[jeffmoss26]

Not US made...all of the American Locks I have bought in the past few years were made in Mexico.