The Schlage SC1 I couldn't pick
Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 7:30 pmMentlegen. It has been a while since I've made a thread and its definitely a fun one.
The backstory to this is my friend purchased a condo for herself and was finally given the keys to move in. I went with her one day to visit the condo as it was still a work in progress and she went to unlock her door and the keys didn't work. She tried both sets of keys on both doors and nothing worked. Looking at the lock and her keys I saw they were Schlage SC1 5 pinners, which should have been very easy to pick. The locks were Key in doorknob cylinders. I offered to pick the door open. She gave me permission to pick her locks. I was pretty excited as I hadn't picked in a while and definitely haven't done a lockout in a long time. I whipped out my wallet carry set which had my two peterson prybars and a custom made carbon fiber short hook from ChemicalRobot.
My cocky ass thought this would be easy. Nope. After an hour of picking and getting this lock into crazy weird false sets that felt like extreme countermilling or that the locksmith who pinned these locks was some kind of diabolical labratory clone of Farmerfreak, I gave up and she went home to get her "other set of keys". While she drove to get her other keys I stayed behind to try picking her second door into the apartment. Same thing. The lock would go into a weird false set and I could barely pick any further. It got to the point where I had 4 of the 5 pins lifted and set, the lock was in a false set, and the 5th pin absolutely refused to lift no matter what I did. The strange behavior of the locks coupled with the wobbly doorknobs humbled me the fuck up pretty hard.
It turns out she just simply had the wrong keys. The locks were "fine" and we got inside. Well I wasn't fine. I asked her If I could have the locks after she replaced them. I removed the cylinder, put it in a vice, actually managed to pick one of them within a few minutes. Now its time to gut the fucker.
What's inside?
Well, normal keypins... but the drivers? Upside down Schlage T-Pins attached to springs used as drivers. I was false setting onto the springs themselves. Who does this? It is my understanding that these pins
are meant to be used on the top of the spring so when the spring collapses it collapses around the T-pin and cannot be crushed and that they were never meant to be used as drivers. Both locks have all 5 chambers pinned like this. Is this factory or did some locksmith pin this up like a lunatic?
The backstory to this is my friend purchased a condo for herself and was finally given the keys to move in. I went with her one day to visit the condo as it was still a work in progress and she went to unlock her door and the keys didn't work. She tried both sets of keys on both doors and nothing worked. Looking at the lock and her keys I saw they were Schlage SC1 5 pinners, which should have been very easy to pick. The locks were Key in doorknob cylinders. I offered to pick the door open. She gave me permission to pick her locks. I was pretty excited as I hadn't picked in a while and definitely haven't done a lockout in a long time. I whipped out my wallet carry set which had my two peterson prybars and a custom made carbon fiber short hook from ChemicalRobot.
My cocky ass thought this would be easy. Nope. After an hour of picking and getting this lock into crazy weird false sets that felt like extreme countermilling or that the locksmith who pinned these locks was some kind of diabolical labratory clone of Farmerfreak, I gave up and she went home to get her "other set of keys". While she drove to get her other keys I stayed behind to try picking her second door into the apartment. Same thing. The lock would go into a weird false set and I could barely pick any further. It got to the point where I had 4 of the 5 pins lifted and set, the lock was in a false set, and the 5th pin absolutely refused to lift no matter what I did. The strange behavior of the locks coupled with the wobbly doorknobs humbled me the fuck up pretty hard.
It turns out she just simply had the wrong keys. The locks were "fine" and we got inside. Well I wasn't fine. I asked her If I could have the locks after she replaced them. I removed the cylinder, put it in a vice, actually managed to pick one of them within a few minutes. Now its time to gut the fucker.
What's inside?
Well, normal keypins... but the drivers? Upside down Schlage T-Pins attached to springs used as drivers. I was false setting onto the springs themselves. Who does this? It is my understanding that these pins
are meant to be used on the top of the spring so when the spring collapses it collapses around the T-pin and cannot be crushed and that they were never meant to be used as drivers. Both locks have all 5 chambers pinned like this. Is this factory or did some locksmith pin this up like a lunatic?