Most break-ins are committed by criminals who come right through the front door, according to Department of Justice statistics. Even if you’re diligent about locking up, you need a good deadbolt to thwart thieves.best mortise lock brand
“The bolt portion of the lock, called the throw, isn’t the part that fails in our tests,” says Dave Trezza, the engineer who runs Consumer Reports’ lock testing. “There are other design flaws that allow burglars to break through and gain entry.”
Namely, the strike plate—the metal ring that holds the throw in a doorjamb. Too many locks come with short, 3⁄4-inch wood screws for attaching the strike plate to the jamb, and they can tear out of the soft wood under force. That makes it easy for an intruder to simply kick the door open.
For our kick-in tests, CR engineers use a custom-built jig to swing a 100-pound steel battering ram against a locked door repeatedly. They also conduct tests to evaluate how easy it is to pick a lock and to disable it by drilling through the keyhole. Smart locks in our ratings go through additional testing. We evaluate their wireless setup and investigate features such as smartphone alerts, remote locking, voice control (via Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant), shareable electronic keys, and more.
After putting dozens of locks to the test, we’ve selected five of the best from our door lock ratings, arranged below in alphabetical order. All of them are vulnerable to attack from a cordless drill, but they should give your home a fighting chance. We’ve also included five models to skip. These performed poorly in our physical challenges and/or our tests specific to smart locks. CR members can click on each model name for detailed ratings.
CR’s take: The Baldwin Prestige 380 performs well in our tests for picking and kick-ins, with an Excellent rating in the former. That doesn’t mean the lock can’t be picked. It means our testers were unable to pick the lock in 5 minutes using standard lock-picking tools. The Baldwin also comes with sufficiently long screws for the strike plate in the box, so we didn’t need to reinforce it for a second kick-in test. Unlike the other models on this list, this Baldwin is plated in brass; it also comes with a relatively heavy gauge key.
CR’s take: The Falcon D241 is a solid deadbolt. It comes with hardware that makes it resistant to kick-ins, and it proves to be difficult to pick, too. This Falcon deadbolt comes in a chrome finish, so it should match many doorknobs and handlesets.