I've decided I suck at this...

[LockManipulator]

Wow.... Oldfast, that was great! I think you really do have a knack for this, it's talent! And a lot of hard work too!

[fgarci03]

Nice one Mike! Very thorough




I just want to add something for CPT1911:

And for fucks sake... don't believe everything I've said! lol

Exactly... For example, when Oldfast says he knows shit about manipulation!

[CPT1911]

Awesome response, Oldfast! Thanks so much for putting that together for us.

The most eye-opening thing you talked about was the idea of doing mock manipulation sessions...I would never have thought of that. And, I must admit, the concept intially gave me pause, I thought, "why not just do a real one??"

But gradually it sunk in and you nailed it here:

Fake manipulations take all this out of the equation. It seems to free up the brain, allowing us to focus on some of the other things that are going on. Reasoning, strategy, rotations, keeping track of where you're at in the wheelpack, what exactly it is that you're doing & why, what you want to do & how to go about doing it, etc. Eventually some of these things start to become as natural as breathing. You don't have to think so hard about how to do somehting, you just do it

It's so true that I get bogged down re-taking readings, clearing the dial and checking again, analyzing what I am seeing, etc. I think you are right! What has happened is that my strategic thinking and mechanical knowledge are now more developed than my actual ability to spin the dial and land places consistently, or run through a hi/low test without thinking. By taking the "pressure" out of getting an open, you can focus on the mechanics of what you are doing. I'm surprised this wasn't more apparent to me. I've always told people that dry fire is often better marksmanship training than live fire. The recoil masks bad technique in the same way the pressure of getting an open makes expertly turning the almost an afterthought!

I will continue to read through and digest what you have given me. Thank you for your time! Trevor

[Oldfast]

I'll tell ya what, it REALLY excites me to see there is now a small yet growing number
of us around here that are enjoying and appreciating the puzzle factor of safe locks!

Wasn't always like that. But now I log in and sometimes see half the 'recent topics'
board riddled with manipulation related things! It's great. But there's still very little
'how-to' information for those of us that are thirsting for more. It can really be
frustrating to have an insane desire to learn, yet have no place to direct efforts!

If we ALL continue to share what we can, we'll ALL continue to progress.
Eventually, I think we'll hit a bit of a plateau. But if even one of us breaks through it,
we can all break through. Even if you're not quite sure, but you think you're really on to
something - share it! Odds are, someone will pick it up and run with it where you left off.

The dynamics of this forum and the potential for achievement are astonishing when you
really think about. Some of the most brilliant, experienced, and talented people I've ever
met. Really! People from all over the world... with new members joining in all the time.
And it all happens from right here (I'm currently sitting in my lazyboy chair). Ha! Crazy.

So keep spinnin' & keep sharin' folks. It's getting awfully interesting round here

[LockManipulator]

I'll tell ya what, it REALLY excites me to see there is now a small yet growing number
of us around here that are enjoying and appreciating the puzzle factor of safe locks!

Wasn't always like that. But now I log in and sometimes see half the 'recent topics'
board riddled with manipulation related things! It's great. But there's still very little
'how-to' information for those of us that are thirsting for more. It can really be
frustrating to have an insane desire to learn, yet have no place to direct efforts!

If we ALL continue to share what we can, we'll ALL continue to progress.
Eventually, I think we'll hit a bit of a plateau. But if even one of us breaks through it,
we can all break through. Even if you're not quite sure, but you think you're really on to
something - share it! Odds are, someone will pick it up and run with it where you left off.

The dynamics of this forum and the potential for achievement are astonishing when you
really think about. Some of the most brilliant, experienced, and talented people I've ever
met. Really! People from all over the world... with new members joining in all the time.
And it all happens from right here (I'm currently sitting in my lazyboy chair). Ha! Crazy.

So keep spinnin' & keep sharin' folks. It's getting awfully interesting round here

Well, after I graduate this year, my parents are giving me a graduation present of a group 1 safe lock manipulation course! That ought to help get over plateau's!

[Mikeh727]

I successfully cracked one safe and thought I might become a decent manipulator. But I have since realized...

I suck at manipulation.

CPT1911,

I had to revive this thread because I found everything that you said to be true, and the comments by all of the 'old hat's' to be a great source of motivation and additional information for us who are new to the sport. I too manipulated my first safe recently, a Sentry Fire Safe, which although not a group two lock, was still a challenge, a great learning experience, and VERY rewarding. There was nothing like turning that handle and having the bolt retract and the door swing open!

I'm now working with my first group two lock, an S&G 6700 series, and it's not all puppies and unicorns. My issues seem to be similar to what yours were...taking consistent readings. I spent a couple of hours making a couple of graphs and then hit a roadblock so I took off the back cover and found that while I was accurate on one of my gates, the other was, interestingly, about 5 increments off from the true gate. I still have no clue how I did that, but as I started to play with the lock some more, I gained more experience and found that I wasn't accurate enough in my readings. What looked like 1/4 of an increment before was now clearly 1/8th of an increment. That revelation came after accruing minutes of hard earned experience! (That was supposed to be a funny). And, I'm sure there was a part of me that thought I felt something, which is the goal, so I convinced myself that I did feel something. Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.

Even though I haven't opened the lock yet, working with it so far has been rewarding in that I'm learning to get a 'feel' for what's going on. It's actually kind of amazing that with just several hours of practice, a whole new world of puzzles becomes just a little bit easier to solve. Still not easy, but as someone pointed out to me on a different thread, it's not supposed to be easy.

I wanted to let you know that I am experiencing much of what you went through, and it's great to read a post like this with all of the comments, advice and encouragement from those with more experience. It's posts like this that helps us new guys gain a little perspective.

Cheers,

Mike

[CPT1911]

I wanted to let you know that I am experiencing much of what you went through, and it's great to read a post like this with all of the comments, advice and encouragement from those with more experience. It's posts like this that helps us new guys gain a little perspective.

Mike! Hey buddy, can't tell you how much it means to hear that. As I have said before, I have found the folks on keypicking to be some of the most helpful, polite, welcoming people I have ever come across. I wanted to learn this stuff SOOOOO bad, and the amount of time that these guys put into helping me was what got me there. I'm excited that you are on the board--I expect to see a lot of good stuff from you. Your Sentry work was top notch!

I thought it might be kinda helpful to share how I steepened my learning curve. As I am sure you can tell, when I wrote the original "I suck" post, I was pretty bummed and not feeling like I was progressing. Here are the things that I did that helped:

1. Get super deliberate about your practice. I created a random combination generator in Excel that followed the S&G rules for forbidden zone, distance between adjacent numbers, etc. I then printed out 100 combos using the tool, cut them into little strips, and kept them all in a single "combos" envelope. Meanwhile, each practice lock had a dedicated, marked little envelope where the combo was placed after it was set. So the process was simple--my wife pulled a combo from the "combos" envelope, set it, and then put it in the appropriate lock envelope. After I finished (or failed) the manipulation, I would remove the combo from the envelope, check my work, then glue the little combo into my notebook and take brief notes on what I learned. I also kept track of the time it took me to complete the manipulation, or give up! Those notes became the foundation of my technique and significantly steepened my learning curve.

2. Add the needle. Your ability to precisely read contact points can be affected quite a bit by how wide the opening index and dial markings are. Especially early on, it is very helpful to tape a needle to the opening index and use the point of the needle when taking your CP readings. There were a few other techniques for this described in this thread. But I have found the needle to be the best.

3. Add to the training volume. When I first started out, I had 5 practice locks and none of them read W1 first--ever. That meant I was always brute forcing W1. Let's be honest, it is far more difficult to find gates by sight and feel than mindlessly brute force them. So if you have locks that always read W2 and W3 before W1, have your combo setter put W1 between 0 and 20. Why? Because you will spend more of your valuable practice time finding gates that way...also, if you go for the open and BF your way to 20 with no result, you know you fucked something up. This is a far better outcome than dialing 50 combos and only then discovering you had W2 wrong or whatever. This may seem like training wheels, but I swear, it seemed like my practice sessions took off after I did this. I learned a lot more and had a lot less frustration and wrist pain than I did before implementing this. Obviously, one other way to add volume is to do "fake" manipulations like Oldfast described. This is great for just getting the motions down, eliminating all the time you spend judging, re-taking your readings, etc. This is something I really need to do more of...I think this kind of "dry" practice is one of the reasons Oldfast moves like an autodialer.

4. Stop graphing. Haha, I know...Ok so here is my philosophy on this. Graphing a lock in ass bleeding detail is a slow and painful process. I also think, for me, it hurts my ability to see microscopic deviations on the dial because I am constantly moving my eyes to graph each point. If you want to graph, one technique I used to good effect is recording myself saying the CP readings out loud on my iPhone and then going back and graphing after the fact. This also encourages saying the CP readings out loud when you start free spinning which I have found to really help. You will be surprised how fast you can do a full rotation of 40 CP readings when you are not stopping every 10 seconds to make a dot on a page. You'll also feel a lot less fatigued.

Beyond that, I have also run across lots of lock that simply reveal nothing going one direction, but spill their guts going the other. So, after 30 minutes of graphing AWL, bleary eyed and frustrated, you may discover that you have nothing and need to go AWR. Ouch! Meanwhile, the free spinner would have gone AWL and AWR in 12 minutes or less. Oldfast would have done it in 12 seconds.

It is probably more likely that the CR deviations are more pronounced going one direction than the other, but that's kind of the point for me. I will flood the lock with so much testing and volume that it will give me unmistakable indications. I just might have to hit it AWR, AWL, W1+W2 RA W3 Lx, W1 Lx W2+W2 RA, W1+W2 Rx W3 LA, you name it. I will pound the shit out of that thing until it's open. And even if I do a few extra tests, my opens free spinning are always waaaaaaaay faster than they ever were even if things worked out perfectly and I only did two graphs and a BF to get it open.

I should caveat all of that by saying that there are rare times that I sort of have the urge to graph. One of them is on a 6730 that I dropped that since then gives the most crazy, erratic readings along the way. Difficult to wade through all the noise sometimes. The other time is when I run into the not-so-common drop off and stays down or rise and stays up type indications. But again, now that I am more tuned in to those, I am still able to get decent opening times without graphing.

5. Test yourself under pressure. Once I felt confident, I started going to local sporting goods stores and cracking safes. It got to be joke after a while--I opened all of the safes in the Academy sporting goods stores in the greater Dallas area. I drove 50 minutes to open the last one and that was when I decided it was enough. If you don't have access to a playground like this, you can also train against the clock. Set the egg timer for one hour and start rolling. You will get more focused and serious about practice. You will notice smaller indications. Adding a little stress to the game will also steepen your learning curve.

Sorry that turned into a book. Good luck and welcome!

Here are some pics of the notebook so you have a better idea of the training log concept:

photo 1.JPG

photo 2.JPG

photo 3.JPG

[Mikeh727]

CRP1911,

Hey man, THANK YOU for all of that information! I only have time for a quick response and with my weekend schedule, I likely won't get back to this until sometime next week and didn't want to let this just sit. Your notebook idea and the spreadsheet you created are GREAT ideas that I think I will incorporate. I'd love some info on how you did the spreadsheet...I'm worse at those than I am at these locks! Thanks to your information and the information posted by oldfast and others, I've got a huge amount of reference material that I can look over when I'm not in a position to actually practice, and that alone steepens the learning curve. Nothing beats spinning, but using the information here still puts me ahead when I do spin. Thanks again!!

Cheers,

Mike

[Oldfast]

Yeah, great stuff there Trevor! The time & devotion shows!
Nothing pans out like time spent in front of a dial. Period.

And Mike.... very exciting times!
Looking foward to following along!

[Mikeh727]

Well guys, I'm excited...I opened my lock last night!

What a journey this lock was. It's my first group two lock, so everything I experienced I was experiencing for the first time. You've all been there so you know what I'm talking about, but I'll relay some of the high points and 'revelations' along the way.

Trevor, your original post said:

I am very confident that I “stop” at the precise moment the nose makes contact, but I am less convinced that I consistently read the dial the same way.

That's where I thought I was too...having problems taking consistent readings. Well, that was true also, but it turned out that I was actually a step behind where you were at this point. In other words, I wasn't sure I was actually stopping at the correct point. After I found the gate on the third wheel through manipulation, then confirmed it by looking at the lock itself, I started playing around feeling the contact points and realized that I was NOT always stopping at the exact point where contact was made. More importantly, I was stopping at different points each time, so I was getting inconsistent results.

I spent a couple of hours just feeling the contact points, and making sure that I was being consistent. I would dial AWL to 79, the gate on the third wheel, and feel the points. Then I'd move the pack somewhere else and do it again. I did this repeatedly, and then had my wife dial the same way, but not tell me where the pack was. I kept doing this until I was sure that I knew where I was stopping and what I was feeling. That exercise really helped develop a better feel, and a little more confidence.

Finding the first gate on this lock was a challenge because it didn't have a huge signature, only about 1/8 - 1/4 of an increment of deflection difference. That's what I expected for the rest of the manipulation, so after all of this practice, I started spinning again looking for another gate. 1 @ 2 AR, 3 at L79. I got an indication very similar to what I felt finding the first gate at around 60, and almost just amplified and assumed this was the next gate, but decided to continue, graphing along the way since I needed the practice. I hit 27.5 and WOW, it felt like I ran into a brick wall! Huge, unmistakable deflection nearly 3/4 of an increment on each contact point. This bolstered my confidence significantly, and although I wanted to stop there and get the lock open, I still graphed the rest out for practice.

I went back and amplified both points, thinking that maybe I had found two gates. 26.5 was the center of one, and 59.5 the center of the other. At 59.5, the indications were subtle, and had that signature where the points come together and then don't drop for a while, so that was more of a guess than anything.

I tried dialing the two possible combinations and the lock didn't open. I picked 26.5 as a certain gate, tested, and found (barely) that it was on wheel two.

Brute forced the combination on 1 and got the lock to open when I hit 62.5. SUCCESS!!

So what did I learn?

1) Make sure that you are consistent in your readings, both in feeling your points and recording them. Not an earth shattering revelation here, but no matter how many times you read it on these forums, it won't hit home until you actually experience just how important it is while manipulating!!

2) To do this, SLOW DOWN! We've all seen the videos of Oldfast spinning like there's no tomorrow and heard of the 5-10 minute manipulations that you can achieve. That's powerful motivation. But, you've got to walk before you can run. Dial precisely. Make sure you feel the points, and record accurately. This takes time. If you're just starting out like I am, the learning process is just as important as getting the lock open. Maybe not as fun, but just as important!

3) Don't take shortcuts. I tried to incorporate some of the shortcuts that have been posted, such as only feel the right contact point, don't graph, etc. I started out doing that and realized that I was focused on the wrong goal. I was trying to get better at something I didn't even know how to do yet! Shortcuts will help improve your speed, but they do NOT improve the learning process! I modified my graphing so that I wasn't graphing until I got to someplace on the dial where the readings were different, but as my feel improved, I was finding quite a few places where things were different, just not dramatic. I graphed just to practice. It's tedious, and I will certainly ditch it as I improve, but you can learn a little about the lock and the wheel pack by looking at the gentle slopes on the graphs you make. More information is a good thing.

4) Locks have personalities. Finding the first gate on this lock was a challenge. The points felt mushy and the indications weren't huge. But they were there. The second gate was absolutely unmistakable. When I found that gate, I thought something inside the lock had broken it was so obvious. I'm guessing that every lock has different characteristics, and in some cases you'll have somewhat subtle gates, and in others they'll slap you in the face hard.

5) Learn to identify gate signatures. The first number ended up at 62.5. I had found a gate that began dropping right at 62.5 but then continued on much further than a gate could be, so I kind of guessed where the middle of a gate might be. It's possible that my inexperience kept me from identifying a gate at 62.5 where it truly was. I haven't converted to whole numbers yet to find out what number is actually in the combination, but it's possible that had I been more experienced, I would have identified both gates positively and not had to brute force the first number of the combination. Great dialing practice, but I'd rather learn to identify the gates.

I could go on, but I don't want to induce 'forum fatigue' in anyone!

Thanks for all of your help guys. Now I need to go back and reread all of these posts, get a change key, mount my other lock, and get spinning!

Cheers,

Mike

[CPT1911]

Mike,

Great report! Once you get the hang of this, you'll be flying through manipulations on this lock. You'll also want to see what other brands are like--get ready to start trolling ebay!

4) Locks have personalities. Finding the first gate on this lock was a challenge. The points felt mushy and the indications weren't huge. But they were there. The second gate was absolutely unmistakable.

Totally agree here! It is also interesting to see that often that "personality" will change when the combo is changed. Some locks will ALWAYS read a certain wheel first--others will have the read order completely change when the combo is changed.

Thoroughly enjoyed your write-up keep it coming!

Trevor

[Oldfast]

Hey Mike!!! Very nice! I too really enjoyed reading that.

And your 5 points under "What did I learn?".... EXCELLENT points. Every one of them

And I agree... Trevor has progressed into a phenomenal spinner very quickly. AND......
the best part is that he's quickly turned around & past on anything he can to the 'next guy'.

What's the next lock you're talking about getting mounted? Another S&G?

[Mikeh727]

Hey Mike, Thanks for the comments. It's ALWAYS good to have you pro's reading and commenting.

I just mounted my second lock today, another S&G 6700. This one is newer and had a torque adjustment, which I will not mess with. After mounting it it feels 'crisper' than the first lock, which was obviously a bit older and a little more worn. I'm looking forward to getting to work on it. I'm leaving for a long weekend in Wisconsin with relatives and I'll be bringing the lock but I doubt I'll actually have time to do any spinning, but ya never know...

Kudos's again to Trevor for his progress and his ability to share knowledge that I can understand, and to you too Mike...great stuff from both of you! I'm hoping to progress to the point where I'm sharing useful information instead of asking so many questions!

-M