Practice Lock Kit
This is my practice lock kit. Mostly Schlage kik cylinders but a few other assorted one there as well. Contains all the goodies I need such as followers, shims, leather for holding cylinders in vice, 3d printed kik holders, pinning tweezers, bags of springs, key pins, top pins, master wafers, and some other extra parts.
Here is a way for new pickers to get practice on many different locks for a reasonable price.
All of these cylinders came from a barrel of door knobs and deadbolts at a metal recycler. Since they were going to be shredded, they let me pay by weight for the knobs. I took them home, picked, bumped or cut them open, removed all the cylinders from the knobs and returned the knobs for scrap price.
I think all in all of those kik cylinders cost me about $60 plus the time to get them out! With a simple re-pinning / security pin kit, you can create a bunch of different skill level locks that you can play with. Pick one, grab another, pick that one, grab another...... then you are not picking the same lock over and over!
After covid restrictions settle down, keep metal recyclers in mind for finding cheap practice locks!