Great question! Yes, there are a few locks that have hollow pins that the springs rest in. Typically they do that for space constraints, though, rather than to

Great question! Yes, there are a few locks that have hollow pins that the springs rest in. Typically they do that for space constraints, though, rather than to improve alignment. There's a great example whos name is escaping me at the moment...its a South American company. Anyway, they have a lock with two rows of pins, one normally aligned and the other coming in from the side. However, there isn't as much room horizontally (you'll notice most plugs are located toward the bottom of the housing, yet centered horizontally) so they use the encapsulating pins to make up for the lost space. That's one of the most interesting challenges in lock engineering, actually. There are a handful of standard formats for locks around the world, and whatever you build needs to fit within those agreed-upon (and very compact) formats, or you won't enjoy wide adoption of your concept.