I have been installing locksets for some time now and I would finally like to ask this question to everyone else. On a keyed entry lockset there is a secondary plunger behind the primary beveled plunger which is supposed to not fall into the strike plate hole when the door is shut, this prevents the door from being ‘credit carded’. However, all of the doors I’ve seen it is possible to slam the door, compress the weatherstripping and have this little plunger fall into the strike plate which number one makes the door hard to open with a key and number two misaligns the deadbolt making it not work. I understand the importance of having the lock secure from credit cards but isn’t there a way to do this without having it interfere with all of the above. I hacksawed two of them off today and I may do more tomorrow. We have deadbolts so I guess we don’t need the secondary plunger anyway unless someone could give a good reason to keep it. My other question would be if someone else has encountered the slamming door problem and has a solution to keep the door from going to far and causing the seconday plunger to fall into the strike. Thanks for your input.
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You have to set the strike plate more accurately. It should be extremely difficult if not impossible to compress the weatherstripping enough for the lock-out plunger to drop into the hole in the strike.
If you are changing out the lockset in an existing installation and leaving the old strike in place, this explains your problem. Hacksawing off the plunger is not the solution. In over 30 years of doing occasional locksmithing, I have never had to do that, or ever heard of anyone else doing it. And that includes situations such as installing new locksets in beat-to-snot doors that have been burgled and jimmied repeatedly (like NYC tenement apartments).
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
I respectfully disagree with Dinosaur. I used to work with a guy who had that same theory and he would set his strike plates so deep that you had to slam the door to get it to latch. The result was that closing the door normally would not latch it and home owners were calling to have this "problem" fixed.
Unfortunately, this is just the price we pay for having "Better"weatherstripping. Obviously this wasn't a problem back in the days of the old brass weatherstripping.
I have had some limited success with replacing the foam/vinyl weatherstrip with the rubber magnetic stuff that Stanley uses. But we all know how quickly that stuff becomes stiff and stops sealing well. I did cut two little blocks about 1/4" thick by 1/2" tall and installed them, one at the top corner, and one at the bottom corner, on one door. That seemed to work ok, but it just felt too much like I was jerry-rigging it for me to feel good about it.
Its one of those "Catch 22" situations. What used to drive me crazy on steel clad entry doors with magnetic weatherstrip was the "light" shining around a closed door. I would set the striker so tight to block the light, the door would be hard to close. There was no problem with the pin but the latch was constantly under tension and, being hard to open, would develop other problems.
I finally realized the light coming around the door was shining through the accordion part on the weatherstrip even though there was a perfect magnetic seal. I would point this out to customers and supervisers who complained about the light and began to back off the strikers. So yeah, if the door is slammed, or yanked, the pin slides into the hole, but operates perfectly if treated normaly.
Edjucating the customers and supervisors to the fact an exterior door needs some play to operate in all seasons and that a perfectly sealed door can have a little light shining around it has saved me a ton of callbacks.
This is getting long, but another thing that should be pointed out, is the handle latch is not really a secutity feature. Its function is to keep the door in place to activate a security feature (deadbolt, etc.) and allow easy entry, and keep the wind out. Any well placed boot, shoulder or prybar will get any undesireable through any handle latched door, quicker than a credit card.
Thanks for all of the great responses. These are new steel clad doors with the strike plates already mortised. Some are 1 3/4" solid core particle board doors going into the garage. I think the strike plates are set correctly whick allows for the edge of the door to be flush with the jamb and to compress the weatherstripping from 5/8" to 3/8". I tried to order the doors with the magnetic weatherstripping since it seems to somewhat prevent this but was unable to. My supplier sent a combination compression magnetic which didn't work at all. I think it needed a different strike position and they didn't adjust from the pure compression type. I think I will call Q-lon and see what the situation is.
I agree it is a catch 22 situation. I explained it to one person and she said she just felt more secure if she shut the door "firmly" which resulted in the plunger falling into the strike plate. If this is done all the time the weatherstripping becomes permanently compressed too far and then it does show light.
I cut a couple of the plungers off to see if it would work despite my feelings of jerry rigging. I also agree with gordzco that the handle set is not a security feature especially since we have a deadbolt above this lock. Also the front door in my house which has a non locking thumb lever does not have secondary plunger; locking is done through a separate deadbolt.
I would like to ask the manufactures if the seconday plunger is not supposed to fall into the strike plate then why don't they engineer the secondary plunger to be on the top or bottom of the main plunger so it would be far less likely to fall in from a slammed door.
One day, after about 20 years, the plunger on my front door jambed. And even after removing the lockset I could not get the plunger to release.Have to pull the hinge pins and remove the door. to get the plunger out.Took it to a lockset to see if they had a replacement and by looking at the wear patterns he immediately said that they problem was that the striker was allowing that pin to extend into the latch.If you have removed that pin then it seems to me that you are forcing it "over extend" each time and wearing out the plunger early.
If you are cutting it off anyway why not just save some money and use cheaper lockssets witout the plunger? Since you have deadbolts it shouldn't be a security issue.
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It's a small revolver and any five cards."