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I got some new Medeco M3 locks that were factory pinned and they all contained the new broached/milled pins. I expected maybe to see one or two, but all six were the new style. For those who aren't aware, Medeco announced that these "new" pins would be rolled out after the Tobias book was published. They make manipulation of the angles/sidebar code impossible with the groove grabber type tools.

What was a little more surprising was the new style driver pin, similar to the Assa design. These weren't special orders with ARX pins or anything unusual so I assume the new key pins and drivers will be standard on factory pinned locks and that new pin kits will contain at least some of these. The lock I pulled apart had two of the standard mushroom drivers, two hardened steel drivers, and two of these new ones which are brass.

-Brian

this is exciting! maybe they'll add counter milling next.

I didn't even think to look, I guess I'll have to take it apart again.

-Brian

Sure enough, 5 out of 6 chambers in the plug have counter milling. BTW, the lock has a production date of November 2011.

-Brian

oh now thats fantastic! now i wont be able to keep a pick longer than a week! I wonder if they updated their cam locks

Thanks for sharing this Brian.

Shit that should be the next farmer freak challenge him and xeo are prob the only ones to have a chance at this in a timely manner I wounder if the pinning data has changed or if the gen 3 code keys would work on these new ones

Thanks for posting this.. I haven't seen anything about the counter millings and special pins before.

Even if the side bar code was set (rotation of the pins) the only way to keep it set while picking is with tension on the lock.
Now with the counter millings you have to release tension to get the pins past the grooves.. Once you release the tension, you run the risk of changing the rotation on the pins.

I bet it makes it much harder to pick.

Wait this is new? Most of the M3s I have picked have used this....

I have to agree with nnfak. Ive had my m3's almost two years now with all of the described features. Its worth noting that even with all of these new features, they are still MUCH easier to pick than a standard biaxial. Fun, but easier.

Let me clarify... The key pins aren't really new since Medeco has had the ARX pin design for a long time. What's new is that these seem to be coming standard in new production locks. It's possible that they've been doing it for some time now, but this is the first I've seen it.

Also, to see the difference, make sure you're looking at the channel or slot for the sidebar legs. On the "old" style pins it runs the full length of the pin. The newer design or ARX pins have the channel milled in so that it's not exposed on the bottom of the key pin. Take a look at this for a better comparison: http://www.theamazingking.com/images/locks/upgrade.jpg. There is also more info about how John King's Medecoder exploits the "old" design: http://www.theamazingking.com/medecoder.php.


As for the countermilling, it's certainly new and hasn't been discussed before with regard to Medeco (at least on public forums). Actually, I did find one thread on lp101 where it was suggested that it could be done, but no where have I seen it in a production lock. To better understand countermilling, look at Han Fey's write up on Assa, pages 29 &30. http://toool.nl/images/d/dc/Assa-twin-part1.pdf. My pics aren't that great and if you aren't familiar with the concept, it wouldn't be obvious. I saw the new barrel pin and it didn't even occur to me to look for the countermilling until mister_sour mentioned it. If you think about it though, the new barrel shaped driver doesn't do much good without the countermilling.

If these features have been out there in the wild, especially where someone has picked a lock with them in place, I'd love to see some pics or video.

-Brian

It was interesting to see them using the ASSA-style barrel pins and countermilling.

As for the ARX pins, if you want more info I wrote an article about them in NDE Magazine #4. In short, Medeco first introduced the concept back in 1974. That style of pins eventually fell out of use but was reintroduced in the early 90s under the ARX name, then once again discontinued after a few years. In writing a series of articles for NDE (issues #3 and #4) to publicly introduce Jon King's Medecoder back in 1998, we worked with Medeco who asked for brief delay of a few months to give them time to resume production of those pins as a countermeasure against picks and decoders that exploit that flaw.

Basically, they had millions of standard pins with the full length broached groove already manufactured and sitting in their warehouse. When they resumed making the ARX-style pins with the milled groove with a closed end, they didn't want to waste all those pre-manufactured pins, as they are rather costly. So the solution was to slowly phase in the ARX pins, at first only including one or two per lock, to foil anyone using a groove-grabbing tool to open them. As their supplies of the old style pins has begun to dwindle, you see more and more ARX pins in each lock.

I had been wondering what was up with these after this post and now I know. Thanks MBI!

I have seen and picked the barrel pins a number of times. But this is the first time I've seen any countermilling in the plug. ...I was wondering why they started using barrel pins.

Curious as to why they left the third chamber normal? Assa only did that for their older pre-barrel pin design. So why would Medeco use it with the modern design? Odd.

When I first opened up a M3 I thought maybe the reason the counter milling was missing in one of chambers is to throw people off so they over set but I don't really know either. Love that Medeco is making their locks even better.