Some Good Beginner Locks?

[lolbat]

Hello all,
So I got a Home Depot gift card as a early Christmas gift and I want to buy some easy/cheap locks to pick. I would appreciate if anyone could give me some suggestions, but nothing difficult please because I'm not good (yet!). Padlocks are preferred but I am open to anything, deadbolt ect. I have a basic SouthOrd set. This forum is a great place for those with this hobby!
Thanks in advanced ,
L. Olbat

[the picker]

i looked at the website id say most of the masters are a good place to start if you want more of a challenge then go American lock they have mostly drivers and key pins.happy picking hope this helps.

[lolbat]

Thanks!

[Thedonofdeath]

Honestly if you want a good start get a master lock and a brinks medium or high security. the brinks are affordable and ususally have security pins but are still pretty easy to pop open. Master are good if you are wanting to practice raking but brinks is deff good for spp (single pin picking)

[virul]

i dont know about over there, but here i would say any house lock under €25 would be a pretty good practice lock for starting out. Also try to get a lock thats pins are realativly easy to switch around, that make for a great practice lock.

[macgng]

get a generic kwikset double deadbolt, a generic schlage, a master 3. that should cover you for your first few locks

[pickafication]

like virul said, get something that you can switch around easily enough, that was you will be able to reppin it to a difficulty of your choice

[Thedonofdeath]

my only concern with lolbat getting a repinnable lock is that he might make the mistake a lot of newbies make (including myself) when taking the lock apart a spring goes flying and the carpet eats it lol. Just be carful is all I am saying, if you don't have extra springs around and you loose one you can say goodbye to picking that lock for a while. I have lost probably 10 springs doing that lol.

[pickafication]

That is true, ive lost a bunch of springs like that too.. and thats not the only mistake u can make.. :/ in that case id have to say start at master.. cant go wrong even some master locks can give up a pretty good fight when you are starting out

[virul]

my only concern with lolbat getting a repinnable lock is that he might make the mistake a lot of newbies make (including myself) when taking the lock apart a spring goes flying and the carpet eats it lol. Just be carful is all I am saying, if you don't have extra springs around and you loose one you can say goodbye to picking that lock for a while. I have lost probably 10 springs doing that lol.

Yeh of course thats always a problem, but its going to happen sooner or later and searching your carpet for tiny bits of metal is an essential skill in this hobby
I lost a spring on one of my yale rim cylinders early on and it ended up being a fantastic practice lock for spool pins, since it only had 4 pins instead of 5.
And being able to pin a lock one pin at a time is such fantastic practice early on.
I still say if you find something where u can get at the pins easily without compleatly dismanteling the lock it will be your best lock for practice. It gives you lots of options for the price of only one lock, particularly if u get something simple with a couple of spools.

[lolbat]

Thanks! I'm going to assume that the locks you can re-pin without having to dismantle everything would be cheap and common locks like kwikset, generic brands, ect. Is that correct? I appreciate everyone's help.

[jeffmoss26]

Kwikset locks are easy to rekey once you get them apart from the knob/deadbolt. Sometimes that can be a pain, but there is a removal tool that is basically a flat metal bar. There is just a cap on top of the springs and you can dump everything out.
Schlage key-in-knob and deadbolt cylinders have a spring loaded threaded cap on the back and will require a follower, unless you do like I have been known to and pry the top brass strip off, tap the holes and install 6/32 set screws
They also have the compressible cylinders in some of the knobs, and those caps are removable from the top.