Lock types and their usual applications

[Chinook67]

Greetings all.
Lock types and their usual applications.
Why is it you never see a house door lock with disc tumblers? They are usually used for bike locks and things of that nature.
You see slider type locks for car keys many times but not so much for other applications.
And the list goes on. Does anybody have a link about the whys amd whats of locks, it would be great.

[GWiens2001]

Greetings all.
Lock types and their usual applications.
Why is it you never see a house door lock with disc tumblers? They are usually used for bike locks and things of that nature.
You see slider type locks for car keys many times but not so much for other applications.
And the list goes on. Does anybody have a link about the whys amd whats of locks, it would be great.

There are a number of house door locks that have used disc tumblers. Ever hear of a company called Abloy? Abus?

Sliding tumblers have been used in padlocks, vending machines, even in very high security door locks such as the EVVA 3KS.

Care to give a further list? Wafer tumblers only in desk and cabinet locks? Schlage. Magnetic locks only in padlocks? MIWA. Lever locks only in cheap deadbolts? Ingersoll. Combination locks only on safe locks and cheap padlocks? RKS by Stanton Concepts.

And the list goes on.

Gordon

[demux]

Gordon's reply is spot on, but I'll add a couple of comments from a different perspective regarding "why things are the way they are".

1. Price and overall security posture play a bigger role than people realize. Yes, I've seen people with Protec locks on their house. Most people wouldn't do that, because they cost too much and if someone really wanted to get in they'd just break a window. Same argument applies for Schlage Everest Primus, Sargent Keso, Cormax, BiLock, etc. Note that the population of this forum may not represent a valid statistical sample here, a lot of us do things just because they're cool and we want to.

2. Most people are completely clueless. They want to buy a new lock for their house so they go to the local big box store, and see a shelf with some Kwikset 5 pin pin tumbler locks in various finishes and styles, and some Schlage C 5 pin pin tumbler locks in various finishes and styles. They buy one or the other. Completely unaware that there's literally a whole world of different (and often better) options out there.

[MartinHewitt]

And don't forget: Traditions!

[nothumbs]

One might also consider geographic differences. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." https://ipvm.com/reports/different-locks-different-countries

At my last job, one of the services we offered was music identification. We would return metadata, including genera. In our taxonomy, we eliminated World Music, as that was a very US centric concept.

[peterwn]

Gordon's reply is spot on, but I'll add a couple of comments from a different perspective regarding "why things are the way they are".

1. Price and overall security posture play a bigger role than people realize. Yes, I've seen people with Protec locks on their house. Most people wouldn't do that, because they cost too much and if someone really wanted to get in they'd just break a window. Same argument applies for Schlage Everest Primus, Sargent Keso, Cormax, BiLock, etc. Note that the population of this forum may not represent a valid statistical sample here, a lot of us do things just because they're cool and we want to.

Some people would want to minimise the chance of a 'clean' unlawful entry to their houses, apartments or businesses. They want a lock that is hard to pick with a key that cannot be copied without due process. There was a woman paralegal who some years ago had a high profile concerning open source code when IBM and others were being sued by various interests wanting to claim intellectual property to it. Someone hired a private detective to get the goods on her and the detective was initially thwarted because she had a Medeco on her apartment door. Detective bribed the Superintendent to let him in, but he found nothing (hopefully she saw to it that the Super was fired and got a settlement from the building administration).

Then there is the perception about bit key (wrongly in some instances called 'skeleton key') locks unaware that they cover the complete spectrum of locks from simple warded locks to high security lever locks used for vaults, prisons, pay phones (until quite recent times) and (especially in UK and some other countries) high security door locks. After a TV item about the lack of security of bit key locks, Chubb (now Union with respect to these locks) had to run ads explaining the difference between their high security bit key locks and Legge (and similar) 2 lever locks (2 differs off levers times 6 differs off bullet wards - series operable by 2 skeleton keys). In a small New Zealand town, realtors carried the two skeleton keys so they could show clients around 'for sale' houses.