Deadbolts Not Secure From ‘Bump keys’

Remember the good old days when you could leave home, flip the deadbolt and think “my home is (relatively) secure”? Well those days are gone - the trusty deadbolt has met it’s match in the ‘bump key’.

It used to be you had to be an expert to pick most locks - it took practice and technique. No longer. With the right tools and access to the internet, a 12 year old can learn to get through most locks in as little as 15 minutes.

Although bump keys are not new (a long time locksmith “trade secret”), they’ve only recently been gaining attention in North America - through “how-to” videos posted on YouTube.

Holy **** Batman, guess it’s time to get new locks. So what kind of locks can be bumped? And what kinds of locks are “bump-proof”? What will take you back to “relatively secure”, at least from roving 12 year olds?

For starters, don’t get anything with a “conventional pin tumbler lock”. This is what most of us already have on our front doors, the type of lock that can typically be bumped. Not every last one, but most of them, statistically speaking.

A “bump-proof” lock is a “high security” lock that has a secondary locking mechanism as insurance. Who makes these? Well there’s the Schlage Primus. And a line of locks & hardware from Medeco.

Primus vs. Medeco - what do the experts think?

The design of the key is one of the critical differences between Primus and Medeco. Whereas Primus separates the functions of the sidebar from its traditional pin tumbler mechanism, Medeco does not and integrates the two. In my view, Primus offers a higher level of security against bumping, but Medeco is more secure against picking.
– Marc Weber Tobias on Engadget

As my goals are modest (safe from the roving 12 year old as opposed to the determined professional thief), either one will do .

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 11:59 am and is filed under Security, Home Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.