Everything below goes to the same inbox. Putting the category in the subject line gets you a faster reply.
We publish pick times, cut times, and scores. Sometimes we get one wrong — a mislabelled model, a spec that changed after we bought the unit, a manufacturer revision we didn't catch.
If you spot an error, email us with the page URL and what's wrong. If you're right, we fix the page and note the correction and the date at the bottom of it. We don't quietly edit and pretend it never happened.
Locks are expensive, and we pay for most of what we test. That's the single biggest thing limiting how fast this site publishes.
So: if you have a lock sitting in a drawer — a deadbolt you replaced, a padlock nobody has the key to any more, something strange from a garage sale — we will take it and we will test it. Reader-sent locks get the same treatment and the same rubric as anything we bought.
You get no say in the score. If your lock is bad we'll say it's bad. Every review that came from a reader is tagged on the page so nobody has to wonder.
Email first with the make and model — we'll tell you whether we've already covered it, and send you the address if not. Just want to suggest a lock without mailing one? There's a form near the bottom of Best Deadbolts and Budget Padlocks that drops straight into the testing queue.
We accept manufacturer samples. We also publish scores manufacturers don't like. Both of those stay true because of the terms below — so read them before you send anything.
What we'll do:
- Test your unit on the same rubric as anything we bought ourselves, and state plainly on the page that the sample came from you.
- Retest if you can show us we got something wrong. Send evidence, not a complaint — see section 01.
- Take spec sheets, technical documentation, and engineering contacts. Those are genuinely useful and we'll credit them.
What we won't do:
- Embargoes or timing conditions. We publish when the testing is finished.
- Copy preview. No advance read, no fact-check pass, no quote approval, no seeing the score before the public does.
- Return the unit. Most of what we test ends up drilled, cut, or in pieces. Treat anything you send as gone.
- Promise coverage. A sample gets your product into the queue. It does not get it published, and it certainly does not get it a number.
- Sponsored reviews, paid rankings, paid placements, or paid links. No. Not at any price.
Journalists, podcasters, and anyone writing about physical security: happy to talk, happy to be quoted, happy to demonstrate an attack on camera if it's useful.
Advertising and partnership enquiries go to the same address. Note section 03 before you write.
Articles here are bylined Johnny T. — same person you'll see as Johnny Taco around locksport. That's a handle, not a legal name, and it stays that way for one reason: the work is about defeating locks, and publishing a legal name next to a public record of every lock you can open is a bad trade. It isn't a bit and it isn't an attempt to dodge accountability. One person writes everything here and answers this inbox.
What we'll commit to instead: every unit is either bought at retail or disclosed as a sample on the page it appears on, every score follows the published rubric on How We Test, every correction gets logged on the page it affects, and this inbox is answered by Johnny — the same person whose name is on the articles.