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Hi I've now acquired 3 S&G 831B-M-1s that I want to have keyed alike and have additional keys cut. However I'm trouble finding someone to do it - can someone point me in the right direction please? Many thanks

First of all, you are going to need to change the keyway, since it is highly unlikely you will find a source for the restricted US Military key blanks that the locks come with.

Any locksmith who rekeys Medeco can change out the pins so they are all keyed the same.

Gordon

Ah ok many thanks - Thats helpful.

Please pardon my ignorance as a newbie but An alternative question - is it possible to get replacement commercial cylinders for the 831 and swop them over ( so I can keep these military ones with their keys in case I want to put them back to original state)?

They take a special cylinder (the way the back is shaped) which isn't the same as any of the Medeco commercial cylinders. Ordering original cylinders is incredibly difficult, some of us tried for years, even going through Medeco dealers. Medeco will only sell them to certain dealers, and even then the factory will sometimes want to know who the end user is before they will decide whether or not they're willing to ship the cores to the locksmith. In the unlikely event you can find a locksmith who can get them, retail is ~$200 apiece, their dealer cost is about $100. Even then, they will come with 1 control key and 2 user keys and they won't be keyed alike. Blanks are not available even to the locksmiths who can order cylinders. You'd need to collect several pairs of keys, then figure out a deeper bitting that all the keys can be cut deeper to accomodate.

Your best bet is to either do some metal work and modify a commercial cylinder to fit, or try to find someone with a Keyway King key machine that can make custom blanks by cutting the warding grooves into some brass stock. I'd expect to pay around $10 per blank, give or take, if you can find someone to help you go that route. Then you'd have to pay the cost of having a locksmith code cut your bitting onto the blanks. Common fees for that tend to run between $15-$25 per key, but they might discount that a little bit since you'd be providing the blanks.

You can also look for surplus cylinders on eBay. They don't come up very often, typical price is around $75, but every once in a blue moon you'll see one for $50 or so.

Many thanks for the detailed and very helpful reply. Very much appreciated. I'm learning Ian

I've been going the route of trying to get extra keys cut for these locks rather than getting them keyed alike. but the best locksmith in my area doesn't have the profiling equipment. Does anyone know a locksmith in the UK who may have a profiling machine and who could cut spare keys?

Fortress lock and safe in London have the easi entri machine.

Many Thanks - I've phoned them and they want to have a look at the key. I've posted it to them so should know on Monday if they can help. I guess the alternative if that fails is to look for a locksmith in the USA and see what can be done by post - if anyone knows of anywhere?

I apologize that this isn't super helpful, just some FYI to perhaps help you out in the future.

There are several AVID lock enthusiasts/collectors on the forums who own Easy Entrie or Keyway King machines. They don't advertise it though, perhaps to avoid being flooded with requests for special blanks, or for their own security reasons. Mostly only their close friends know who has them. If you are unable to find a locksmith who can get you what you need, I suppose in the long run if you stay active on the forums, maybe attend some events, you might make acquaintance with the right people to help you once you get to know them a bit better.

Many thanks for this MBI. That's entirely understandable. People won't want to go out of their way to help in that way until they know a member is a 'good egg'.

On the key
I've now heard back from Fortress Locksmiths in London, who not only have an Easy Entree but are the distributors within the UK. They've tried to copy the key all day but have now told me they have given up because of the multiple angles on the key edge. It wasn't a question of cost, it was an issue of their ability to do it. So I have to conclude that it can't be done at any price - not until 3D print technology has advanced into the key cutting world anyway...

I was going to put these locks on my house in East Africa - we sleep on a night behind prison style steel doors and windows - just the look of this lock amongst all those easy to break tri circle locally sold padlocks would have such a deterrent factor that thieves wouldn't even try to break them - they would just look for an easier target elsewhere. It looks like I'll have to go for a set of Abloy 362's for the house instead. I know that the Abloys are a stronger lock anyway, but there is for me an aesthetic quality about the 831B-M-1 that I really like.

The 831B-M-1 is also part of a family of ingersoll locks I've been slowly collecting which have developed from the impregnable back in 1949. So I'll hang on to at least one of these.

Thanks for all the input on this guys. Much appreciated.

Ian