Let’s begin with door locks: On street-level main entrance doors of apartment buildings, businesses and warehouses you will mostly find rim cylinder locks incorporated with an electric striker and installed as a single unit, such as the following examples:



As you can see these are all Kale Kilit rim cylinders. They are very commonly used, and almost equally as common I see them installed upside-down:

Otomatsan is another manufacturer that produces these rim locks, though they are less common.


– A single Euro cylinder on a street-level door, an unusual setup.
Entrances of private residences and individual apartments are almost always secured using Euro profile cylinders. The majority of these are pinned with spools to increase pick resistance. A very common combination is a Kale dimple cylinder along with a second Kale or Fayn cross lock deadbolt for added security.


Deadbolt cross lock, either Fayn Kilit or Kale Kilit brand.

Kale dimple cylinder.

Cross lock from inside the residence, also showing the attachment point for a heavy steel anti-burglar bar with Buddha-style warded padlock.


Kale dimple locks in spring latchbolt / mortice configuration


The above are all popular setups for securing residences. Especially in urban neighbourhoods, a heavy steel door with two cylinders, usually one standard cylinder and one dimple lock is common. A lot of residences use steel doors with multiple bolts that provide greater resistance against destructive entry.

An example of Kale Kilit’s steel door boltwork.
The name Kale means fortress in Turkish. Kale is also a producer of steel doors, related hardware and alarm systems as well as locks. They have about 70% market share of locks in Turkey and export to many other countries. In that respect, Kale Kilit is much like what Kwikset or Schlage is in the US. While I admit they are difficult to pick for my level, most Kale locks can not be considered high security. The KALE YGS dimple cylinder (http://oi43.tinypic.com/2uxwwec.jpg) with spools, trap pins, anti-snap and anti-drill features comes closest to high security but they have no sidebar-type locks that are exceptionally pick resistant. It is also very easy to get keys cut.


As displayed above, another type of commonly used door hardware is protective steel rosettes to prevent snapping-drilling-plug pulling. The rosettes also make it difficult to identify the lock properly, they are so common in fact that I have seen specially made rosette pullers in locksmiths’ toolboxes.



Most stores and businesses having glass doors use this kind of configuration along with shutters. I would imagine it would be awkward trying to pick or otherwise manipulate a cylinder installed in this fashion.



Aris and Kale Euro cylinders on UPVC doors.

A less-common brand, Özruh.

A no-name Euro cylinder, used to operate an elevator.

Picked Euro cylinders from my collection. (ITO, Yale, DMK)


Kale standard Euro cylinders; the norm.

A lever lock, probably Kale. These are not widely used, even though Kale claims that their lever locks are “impossible to impression”.
As for padlocks, here it goes:


Above is a Yale padlock; I have a surprisingy hard time picking this same model in my collection. Interestingy, one blast from an EPG immediately rips it open.

Low security padlocks such as these are commonly used to affix parking barriers, electrical fuse boxes and other infrastructure.
Yuma Kilit is another Turkish manufacturer; their padlocks are very common but can be picked and comb picked easily. Their catalog shows Euro cylinder locks too but I’ve never seen one in use.
Here are some Yuma padlocks:





Tri-Circle appears to be a popular padlock for many applications:



Again, a Kale rim cylinder installed upside down, next to a Tri-Circle shutter lock.

A Tri-Circle dimple padlock, hard make out in the photo.

The Tri-Circle made Abloy-clone disc lock provides a pretty good level of security against many attacks I think.

Viro, of Itay.

An American Masterlock; I have seen these in hardware stores but this is the only one in use I’ve seen so far.



Assorted low-security padlocks, as always including Kale.

Disc-lock cat



Tubular, disc-detainer and dimple locks such as these are commonly used to secure bicycles and motorcycles here, same as anywhere else.
Some locks that were interesting to see were high-security pump locks, Medeco M3 and Biaxials and Mul-T-Lock’s on embassies and banks, but I could not take pictures for obvious reasons.
Anyways I hope you have enjoyed this “lock safari”.