First Freespin opening!

[Mikeh727]

Finally!

If you've read any of my other adventures, you'll remember that I haven't had what I would call a 'trouble free' opening yet. I've always hit some sort of stumbling block where I have to back up, re-evaluate, start graphing, or whatever. Last night, things went a little better

Here's the story.

Yesterday I had my wife change the combinations on both of my S&G locks to get me started. We went out with some friends to eat, and when we came home we were sitting around and I started spinning one of the locks.

I used my new technique (learned here and most recently pointed out to me by Trevor) of checking every ten increments for a low spot in the wheel pack AWR. Found the lowest point at 20, so I parked W1 & W2 at 20 and spun W3 left looking for a gate. Found one at 53, and after only about 8-10 minutes from when I started, which is fast for me.

Took a break to install a new drain pump in the washing machine so we could do some laundry...something always breaks when I'm on the road so there is always something to fix when I get home!

Back to spinning. My wife is asking me how it's going, and if I had figured anything out yet. I told her I was pretty sure I found the third number. Eager to help, she asked if she should tell me the third number or not. NO! I need to do this without help!!

I put W1 @ 20, spun W2 AR with W3 at 53. It didn't take long and a second gate jumped out at what I figured was about 68. From there, BF combinations on W1 and the lock opened at 17.5. WOOT!! The combination it opened with was L17.5 - R68 - L53. The actual combination she set was L17 - R69 - L53.

My wife was actually impressed. She asked "Are you getting better at this or did I pick too easy of a combination?"

I'm getting better.

I didn't actually time it, but we figured it took about 25 minutes to get into the lock, which for me, is HUGE. My past manipulations have all been much longer and involved graphing, even when I wasn't planning on graphing. 25 minutes! I realize it wasn't super fast, but I feel like I'm in the ballpark now. Shave another 10-15 minutes off of that time and I'll be in the clubhouse with the rest of you, but it was a great feeling!

I will say that I followed another suggestion that Trevor made and had her set the first number between 0-20 so that if I dicked it up, I would know before I spun through 40 combinations, so that helped speed up my time. And, it could be that the combination that she set suited this lock well when it comes to ease of manipulation. Still, it goes in the 'WIN' column.

Great confidence booster.

-Mike

[LockManipulator]

Super! I remember when I first put away the pencil and graph paper. Once I did, I never went back! Although, it's still good to graph every now and then when I come across a tough lock, helps me visualize and problem solve better. Then, the graph becomes unneeded again

[Oldfast]

....My wife is asking me how it's going, and if I had figured anything out yet. I told her I was pretty sure I found the third number.
Eager to help, she asked if she should tell me the third number or not. NO! I need to do this without help!!

Haha!! That's funny.... usually it's the other way around. lol

Nice spin Mike! Very nice. Exciting stuff

[10ringo10]

That's a skill learnt ...congrats

[CPT1911]

Mike great job bud! A couple things you said really resonated with me:

If you've read any of my other adventures, you'll remember that I haven't had what I would call a 'trouble free' opening yet. I've always hit some sort of stumbling block where I have to back up, re-evaluate, start graphing, or whatever.

I think you will find that this is the norm for a while but then gradually, these stumbling blocks will start to subside. Over time, you will have more and more tricks in your little mental toolkit on how to handle those stumbling blocks--you won't even notice them anymore and you will just automatically go to the next method of attack, whatever it might be. A good example is the checking every 10 increments technique. Great tool! But I only find it is necessary when you get a lock with a lot of "noise" in the readings. A lot of the new production S&G locks seem to have very concentric wheels, so your CP readings all the way around will be super consistent--within a 10th of your baseline...It's also no surprise that on those same locks, you may find that the wheel that reads only reads by one or two tenths...So that's a case where mapping very ten and parking W1+W2 at a low point might not actually do anything for you...there really isnt a low point. You just do AWx and wait for a tiny gate indication.

But I find the every ten technique works well for locks that have that "noise." I always use the technique on LaGard because of the crazy shadowing. And, I pull the technique out of the tool box on S&G locks that have crazy ups and downs...So if I get rolling on a 6730 AWR, and 10 readings in my RCP has varied from 7 to 7.5 and then back to 7 again or some crazy shit like that, it becomes really hard to see a true gate indication versus goofy lumpy wheels or whatever. Is one of those goofy ass lumps hiding something? Who knows? So you can use the technique to eliminate the junk that two of the wheels are throwing at you. Therefore, in that case, when I see shit get a little funny, I just back off, do the every 10 thing, Park W1+W2 and spin W3. That doesn't work? Well spin W1+W2 together and park W3 at the low (a tedious one). Point is that you just keep reaching in your tool kit and coming up with creative stuff on the fly until the thing falls apart in your hands!

Great job bro. KEEP IT COMING! Build the collection too...want to see you in action on some other stuff!

[Altashot]

Great! 25 minutes! Man, that's pretty good.
You are doing fine, with more practice, you'll be cracking them in no time...
Sweet!

M.

[Mikeh727]

Hey Thanks a LOT for the response Trevor. Good information.

I think you will find that this is the norm for a while but then gradually, these stumbling blocks will start to subside. Over time, you will have more and more tricks in your little mental toolkit on how to handle those stumbling blocks--you won't even notice them anymore and you will just automatically go to the next method of attack, whatever it might be....

Point is that you just keep reaching in your tool kit and coming up with creative stuff on the fly until the thing falls apart in your hands!

I'm starting to figure that out. I've opened that same lock a few times since then and once W1 was masking pretty well, so I had to go with a different attack. The key for ME is going to know which method should be next. But my confidence is growing, which helps me persist through the 'difficulties'. I'm starting to trust my data more instead of questioning if I screwed something up or if the lock is just laughing at me. I'm making fewer mistakes.

KEEP IT COMING! Build the collection too...want to see you in action on some other stuff!

I'm getting ready to start trolling and find myself a LaGard or a Mosler. I'm looking forward to checking out those crazy wheels and developing more techniques...more tools for the toolkit!

Thanks again Trevor!

-Mike

[Mikeh727]

Great! 25 minutes! Man, that's pretty good.
You are doing fine, with more practice, you'll be cracking them in no time...
Sweet!

M.

Thanks! However, I'm going to call the 25 minutes a 'statistical anomaly' LOL! I've since opened that same lock a couple of times and both times took me about 45 minutes, so I'm not consistently hitting that time...yet. But it gives me a goal to shoot for!

Thanks Mike.

-Mike