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Posted: **Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:43 pm**

Okay. So I’ve had a look round and couldn’t seem to find any references referring to the types of lock to pick for newbie’s, intermediate or experts.
Ya know,
if you are just starting out try these locks... blaa blaa blaa
If you are an intermediate try th.....
You get the idea.

If this has been covered can some kind personally point me in the right direction?
If one hasn’t been written, is anyone up to the challenge?

Much love and thanx all
PHatDriver...

Posted: **Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:31 pm**

It'd be different depending on the country. For the UK though, I'll give you my thoughts. I pick padlocks now and again but most of my experience is with door cylinders, so I'll talk about those.

Easy would be anything with standard pins and average/below average tolerances. For cylinders, try:

- Cheapo brands such as Bird, or anything with an obscure name
- Cylinders with no name whatsoever
- Most ERA rim cylinders, and non-BS rated euro profiles
- Older models of Union

Medium would be locks with security pins and average tolerances such as:

- Iseo
- Tesa
- Basta
- Asec
- Zone

Moderately difficult stuff would be locks with security pins and fairly tight tolerances, aswell as trickier keyways:

- ABUS
- Kitemarked Yales (the mortise cylinders have much tighter tolerances than the euro profiles for some reason, I'd recommend trying the euros first)
- Kitemarked Unions
- Corbin
- Cisa (some of these have trap pins and use spooled key pins so keep this in mind when purchasing one to practice on)

That's plenty to get you started. Once you get onto higher quality stuff you won't need a list of stuff to go by, cos you'll have made your own by then. You won't be looking at anything harder than that last list for quite some time, believe me. :mrgreen:

Hope this helps, it's not an exhaustive list by any means and I'm certain I've left out a whole bunch of stuff, but it'll get the ball rolling anyway.

Posted: **Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:50 pm**

Some of the cheap cheap padlocks in the U.S. are hard to pick, some seemingly impossible, due to the extreme play in the cylinders, so keep this in mind, some of them are tough, and not good to practice on, they will just frustrate the hell out of you!

Posted: **Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:04 pm**

the lockpickkid wrote:Some of the cheap cheap padlocks in the U.S. are hard to pick, some seemingly impossible, due to the extreme play in the cylinders, so keep this in mind, some of them are tough, and not good to practice on, they will just frustrate the hell out of you!

Damn dude, you ain't joking!

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:24 am**

Solomon wrote:It'd be different depending on the country. For the UK though, I'll give you my thoughts. I pick padlocks now and again but most of my experience is with door cylinders, so I'll talk about those.

Easy would be anything with standard pins and average/below average tolerances. For cylinders, try:

- Cheapo brands such as Bird, or anything with an obscure name
- Cylinders with no name whatsoever
- Most ERA rim cylinders, and non-BS rated euro profiles
- Older models of Union

Medium would be locks with security pins and average tolerances such as:

Sorry for sounding but in what way do you mean tolerances? Totally new to this but like gathering info. cheers

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:05 am**

The tolerance of a lock depends on the make/quality of the lock.

In a nut shell, a high quality lock will produce a lock which is harder to spp, because the pin stacks a more in alignment(straight) and the plug wont have much clockwise movement as you pick each pin stack. But IMO they bump extremely well.

Low tolerance locks will seem sloppy and you will get quite alot of clockwise movement in the plug picking each pin stack.

But as mentioned by lockpickkid, some of the cheaper locks will be a pain to pick for this reason. Also security pins will be throw into the mix, but your better off not worrying about that now. hope this hasn't confused you.

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:13 am**

s1deshowmick wrote:The tolerance of a lock depends on the make/quality of the lock.

In a nut shell, a high quality lock will produce a lock which is harder to spp, because the pin stacks a more in alignment(straight) and the plug wont have much clockwise movement as you pick each pin stack. But IMO they bump extremely well.

Low tolerance locks will seem sloppy and you will get quite alot of clockwise movement in the plug picking each pin stack.

But as mentioned by lockpickkid, some of the cheaper locks will be a pain to pick for this reason. Also security pins will be throw into the mix, but your better off not worrying about that now. hope this hasn't confused you.

No not confused. I'll no doubt with a bit of experience get know more about different tolerances along the way .

cheers

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:41 am**

Yeah, you sure will.
Good luck and welcome to KEYPICKING.COM.

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:32 pm**

Thanx Solomon, very helpful – nice work. (HAHA)

I have a few ERA somewhere, no idea where tho...
Non BS rated euro profiles? What’s the BS for, Bullsh!t?
Not all, but most of the others you mentioned I’ve never heard of and I call myself a lock picker! (Wanker)

Any answers for padlocks – both types? In fact all locks and types.
Wouldn’t be kool to have something like this all in one place,
Don’t you all agree? Now, can't you all see this page coming together...

Elbowmacaroni and the lockpickkid:
I’ll give that another DAMN!..
I have a cheapo 60mm lock from a pound shop and the plug turns to past the one oclock position using the TW.
The key opens it, at just a bit past that position – strange!
Do ya think I can pick that bast ard thing – do ya? DAMN, again... :evil:

It will be picked, oyes, it will be picked... 8-)

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:39 pm**

PHatDriver wrote:Non BS rated euro profiles? What’s the BS for, Bullsh!t?
Not all, but most of the others you mentioned I’ve never heard of and I call myself a lock picker!

Haha, I guess you need to get picking some more locks then! I only listed some of the manufacturers I have personal experience with (and I left a good few out because my brain sucks sometimes). I could rhyme off so many different lock manufacturers it'd make your head spin.

BS stands for British Standard (the kitemark thingy). The specifications focus mainly on forced entry, but they do put security pins in them so they can tout the product as having a "high security pin tumbler mechanism" aswell.

ERA use spools, Yale use what I would call double spools. Because of those pins, the false sets are smaller, but still very noticeable. Essentially you will get 2 false sets on each pin. Thankfully they use standard key pins, so there are no oversetting issues... if they used those pins in conjunction with at least one spooled key pin they would definately be trickier. Then again if you know which pin you're on all the time and know how many times each has clicked, I suppose not.

PHatDriver wrote:Elbowmacaroni and the lockpickkid:
I’ll give that another DAMN!..
I have a cheapo 60mm lock from a pound shop and the plug turns to past the one oclock position using the TW.
The key opens it, at just a bit past that position – strange!
Do ya think I can pick that bast ard thing – do ya? DAMN, again...
It will be picked, oyes, it will be picked...

You'll get it open for sure, just keep at it. How far you have to turn the plug with the key has no bearing on picking it open. It just means that once you set the last pin, the plug will rotate to 1 o'clock as opposed to 3 before the shackle will release.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:36 pm**

I’m working on picking as many locks as I can but my current skill level only permits me to pick easy locks and that’s not really getting me anywhere now.
The next level up form this is locks with security pins and I’m finding them impossible, so sort of stuck in a rut at the mo’ - if ya know what I mean.

I heard expert pickers saying,
“...and one day it all just clicks in place...”
So I’m patiently but eagerly awaiting for that special day to arrive.

Seriously considering buying a pro re-pin cutaway lock with security pins, as at the mo’, I can’t see it all clicking in place, the way things are going.

It’s funny coz in my mind I can “see” the pins in the lock but going from the types of locks that fall open just by me showing them the pick
and then jumping to a tri-circle 265 may not be the best road to take.

Thanx...

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:22 pm**

You could get yourself a removable core in a padlock/cylinder, remove all of the pin stacks and replace them one stack at a time with a security driver.

Pick it, get used to how the particular pin feels and what it takes to set the pin. Then replace another pin stack until you have the lock full of security drivers.
Once you have mastered that, replace the key pins one at a time with security key pins.

It's much easier to get the feel of the security pins this way, and you know exactly where and what security pins are in the lock as well.

Give that a try before going out and buying an expensive cutaway.

Good luck.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:43 pm**

Damn.

Ya know, earlier on I was reading a rather informative thread by Lockylew on Spool Pins
and didn’t think of ditching my idea of getting a cutaway and using this idea instead.

Thanx for the reply as I don’t know why the idea didn’t stick.
Just thought to myself, that’s a good idea, I’ll try that later.
Must have just HAD my mind set on a cutaway...

Thanx again...

Link to Locklew’s thread: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=36

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:50 pm**

HA HA, i do that all the time, have fun picking your security pins.

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:54 pm**

I agree with mick, a regular lock is much better than a training cylinder. The majority of those things generally have very sloppy tolerances and are far too too easy to pick, I guess the cutaways of actual locks are better but still, you don't need to see what's going on in there and they're seriously overpriced. Remember, picking is all about feel and sound. If you get a cheap lock and pin it up one at a time like mick said, you'll get the hang of it a lot faster.

Rim cylinders are the easiest to take apart and repin, so grab a cheap one of those along with some tweezers and something to use as a plug follower. That's all you need. If you get something like an ABUS I can guarantee there will be 4-5 spools in there, but I never see those on ebay... euro cylinders are much more common, which need special tools to repin. You can always just buy a standard rim cylinder and grab some spools from uklockpickers site though, so it's all good.

Whatever you do, it'll work out a hell of a lot cheaper than getting a cutaway... alternatively, you could get one of the Yale padlocks with removeable cores. They pop up on ebay a lot and you can get them from UKLP aswell. All you need to take those apart is a screwdriver... you can repin them by hand by popping the steel retaining cap off the top of the cylinder aswell, which is very handy indeed. Keep in mind though, the spools in those things are much longer and deeper cut than regular spools so they're a bit tougher to get past. Good luck, and keep us posted!

.:: Keypicking :: Anything And Everything For Locksmiths, Hobbyist Lock Pickers, Locksport, Lock Picking, lockpicks, cutaways and Security. Simply The Best Lockpicking Forum Around!

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