Page 1 of 1

A list of Training locks

PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2020 4:59 pm
by pickmonger2

Re: A list of Training locks

PostPosted: Tue May 26, 2020 11:57 pm
by MHM
Interestingly there is an active thread right now on UKLocksport discussing this as well, although as far as I know no-one has linked to this article.

Although I agree with his progression from easy to hard (is there another way to do it?) I don't like the list of locks because most of the padlocks listed have very small cores and keys, which in turn means small keyways and tiny pins.

Beginning pickers need nice open forgiving keyways and large, easy to get onto pins so that they can learn what the feedback means without having to contend with mixed feedback from warding and having the pick and tension tool fighting for space.

I note that he recommends the Peterson #1 in 025 as a default short hook in the article on pick choice that you posted yesterday. Also recommended were the gem and deForest diamond, and steep hook (looked like a #5, but whatever.) Sending a novice picker to open most of the locks on the above list with big thick Peterson hooks would be a fool's errand.

A common complaint by the British and European pickers is that almost all of these progressive lock lists (and in particular the well known and controversial Reddit belt ranking list, the pros and cons of which have been debated endlessly elsewhere) are very American-centric and many of the locks are difficult and expensive to get hold of outside the US. I see that this gentleman includes some Abus padlocks and provides Amazon links which partially mitigates this.