Is boron carbide exclusive to master lock?

[Sakitheninja]

I have this old lock my friend gave me and I picked it twice. Now it won't open and I've warped two of my favorite picks. I can't find any info on the lock for manufacturer for information and I want to know is boron carbide exclusive to master lock so I have a place to start. I need to know what's going on in the keyway...if it's warded or just really old and the springs are crushed. Please help

[l0ckcr4ck3r]

Any shackle that has "Boron" stamped on it will alloy to form boron carbide within the steel.. along with maybe some boron nitride.
Boron is added so the plain/low alloy steels can be hardened to a higher degree, but it takes only a fairly small amount of boron to do this. Hardness is NOT the same as strength....
You can usually get significantly stronger alloys by adding things like nickel and cobalt but these need to be added in much higher proportions and are a lot more expensive.
So its not all marketing BS, it does toughen up the plain steels but they could do a lot better if they spent a little more on alloying elements.

...anyway to answer your question... I've only ever seen "Boron - Carbide" written on master locks... they are the only idiots that would do this along with the other horse shit written on their packaging.
IF your products are marketed to the gullible and ignorant in Lowes or Home depot... just write as much tech-jargon on it as you can and it sells

[Squelchtone]

l0ckcr4ck3r: I wish there was a way to Favorite posts, that was a great explanation and the last bit about Home Depot and Lowe's consumers had me rolling on the floor!

OP: the shackle material has nothing to do with your keyway or the brass pins inside the lock, not sure if you are assuming the entire padlock including the pin tumblers inside is Boron Carbide??

Which brand and model pick set are you using and is this the 1st lock you've ever picked? Many beginners use too much tension on their wrench and are too heavy handed with their picks. Could you take a pic of your lock, upload it to imgur.com and Paste it here so we can see which model you have? If the keys came with it, include them in the photo, sometimes the key cuts can be a tricky combination of deep and shallow cuts (we call it High Low) which makes it harder to pick.

Squelchtone

[averagejoe]

Squelchtone,

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with poppy _

[Robotnik]

No sense in actually producing a top-of-the-line lock if you can convince credulous people that your budget padlock is the gold standard .