Practice Lock Suggestions?

[far2picky]

Hi. I am new here. I did a brief search (really didn't look more than a page or two back) and can't seem to find a concise list anywhere.

On the faq (http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1744) it mentions a good list for UK'ers, but I live in the USA.

The idea is simple -- I read http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?t=39809 to find out where/what lockpicks I should get, but I'd like to know what practice locks would be good? And what websites sell them?

A few tiers worth of information would really be ideal, if you could. Something like "Oh to start out go buy 3 blah blah's and you can pick those up over at blah, and once you're comfortable with them move on to some blah blah blah's" would really be perfect. Thanks in advance!

[clearmoon247]

I have to say, through personal experience, this is my attack plan. Firstly, I got a couple of different padlocks (different keyways). A great place to get padlocks to practice on is storage facilities. You can call them up, ask them to hold all of the cut locks that they have rather than throw them away. This is great because they are normally free, and have no key. They wont secure anything anymore, but, they wont need to. From there, if you have the time and patients, ebay. On ebay, I got an arrow brand cylinder for $5 bucks, its a 62 pin lock that is very well made. Then I got a modified schlage lock cylinder that uses screw caps for repinning. It also came with a number of spool pins and assorted driver and key pins. That was $22 on ebay, which is very similar to the ultimate practice cylinder, but half the cost, is 5 pin, not 6, and has roughly the same number of extra pins. After you are comfortable with full sets of spool pins, I would recommend either a medeco biaxial cylinder or schlage primus. I went with medeco, because of cost, $20 on ebay. That's where im at now. Best of luck to you and your endevors

[cyrano138]

I'll be the second Floridian to chime in here, I guess.

My progression (still in progress of course) has gone like this so far: began with inexpensive Kwikset, Brinks, and Master 3,5's; then on to sargeant and schlage for more of the same but with tighter tolerances and harder keyways like Y1; and now I've moved up to SFIC cores and American 5200's, and have opened a few of the former and, just recently, opened one of the latter. Hope this helps!

Jack

[cyrano138]

Sorry I forgot to add that so far the best place to get them has been on this forum and others like it. I've had great experiences here and the members will absolutely cut you a fair deal.

[valeguy]

I think you should also take a look at this: http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10665, Illusion made a great guide to making a repinnable tri circle, which is really useful if you don't want to splash out too much on locks:)

[Scajaquada87]

My progression (still in progress of course) has gone like this so far: began with inexpensive Kwikset, Brinks, and Master 3,5's; then on to sargeant and schlage for more of the same but with tighter tolerances and harder keyways like Y1; and now I've moved up to SFIC cores and American 5200's, and have opened a few of the former and, just recently, opened one of the latter.

Agreed. When I first started learning how to pick a pin-tumbler lock I started with an old no-name garage door cylinder with pretty low tolerances. I basically created my own progressively pinned lock, starting with one stack of pins and then working my way up to five stacks. More recently, I started to work with two Schlage cores that I used to create my own progressively pinned lock.

@ the OP: I would suggest learning on something fairly low-end such as a Kwikset, although make sure that it doesn't contain spool pins. These will only frustrate you, as they are designed to impede lockpicking. Once you can pick it with all five pin stacks, I would suggest that you move up to a Schlage, but maybe only start with three pin stacks to get used to the tighter tolerances. My newer Schlage core with all five pins still gives me trouble at times compared to other cylinders I have. I am now just starting to play around with spool pins.

Try to avoid key-in-knob locks, as from my experience, many of these cannot be disassembled to the point that you can re-pin them (particularly the Kwiksets and Schlages designed for residential applications). Also, one drawback of padlocks is that many of the cheaper ones are not designed to be re-pinned and those that are (e.g. padlocks that accept SFICs) are generally fairly high end and have pretty high tolerances. While I wouldn't rule out padlocks by any stretch they might not be the best place to start for a complete beginner.