I'm Steve from Pragmasis. We don't make locks but we have been selling them for years.
A lot of the big-name manufacturers quote thicknesses across the rubber covering on D-lock shackles, just like they tend to do the same on cable 'locks'. They also seem to use their own security rating scales in what we think is a misleading way. E.g. a D-lock may get a rating of 15 out of 15 but they don't make it obvious that is "out of their bicycle D-locks". I think a rating of 15/15 should mean it is at least equal toughness to all other relevant locks they produce, of any type, but I don't think any of them do this. It seems to be most apparent with cable 'locks' where an unwitting buyer might think a high rating gives confidence, but actually it is just a high rating on their 'cable locks' scale which means almost nothing!!!
With regard to this particular lock from Masterlock. we don't have experience of this but I'm afraid we used to sell another lock from them (the well-priced Bicycle Gold "M50D" discus lock) but dropped it and would not touch Masterlock again because we had too many problems with customers' keys breaking off inside the lock, and Masterlock appeared to take no action even after a year, and I think they are still selling that same M50D lock now. We told them we'd much rather have two decent keys rather than four keys that were so flimsey they were likely to break. They didn't seem to care. We are not willing to supply locks that we think have a high chance of failing in such a disastrous way - e.g. we had customers unable to unlock their bikes at the railway station because the key had snapped!
Buying from some of these manufacturers/retailers can save you money in the short term but it doesn't always work out that way in the long term, and unreliable spec's seem to be common, as is changing product under the same product name so it can be difficult to tell what you're buying.
I'm Steve from Pragmasis. We don't make locks but we have been selling them for years.
A lot of the big-name manufacturers quote thicknesses across the rubber covering on D-lock shackles, just like they tend to do the same on cable 'locks'. They also seem to use their own security rating scales in what we think is a misleading way. E.g. a D-lock may get a rating of 15 out of 15 but they don't make it obvious that is "out of their bicycle D-locks". I think a rating of 15/15 should mean it is at least equal toughness to all other relevant locks they produce, of any type, but I don't think any of them do this. It seems to be most apparent with cable 'locks' where an unwitting buyer might think a high rating gives confidence, but actually it is just a high rating on their 'cable locks' scale which means almost nothing!!!
With regard to this particular lock from Masterlock. we don't have experience of this but I'm afraid we used to sell another lock from them (the well-priced Bicycle Gold "M50D" discus lock) but dropped it and would not touch Masterlock again because we had too many problems with customers' keys breaking off inside the lock, and Masterlock appeared to take no action even after a year, and I think they are still selling that same M50D lock now. We told them we'd much rather have two decent keys rather than four keys that were so flimsey they were likely to break. They didn't seem to care. We are not willing to supply locks that we think have a high chance of failing in such a disastrous way - e.g. we had customers unable to unlock their bikes at the railway station because the key had snapped!
Buying from some of these manufacturers/retailers can save you money in the short term but it doesn't always work out that way in the long term, and unreliable spec's seem to be common, as is changing product under the same product name so it can be difficult to tell what you're buying.
Cheers,
Steve.