Tip For American and Similar Cylinders

[deolslyfox]

If you're not used to working with these cylinders, its helpful to know that while most are drilled for six pins, most are only populated with five pins.

You can use this to your advantage when learning these cylinders. If you always start at the back of the lock and find that empty chamber, you can easily move forward towards to the front. This will ensure that you don't miss that back (5th) pin as you're polling for a binder ....

When you get into this "habit", it will also be helpful for 6-pin cylinders. Just "hit the back of the lock" and move forward thru the stack.

[Comrade627]

Picked a Masterlock pro series 6121 like this yesterday.

[Abe Froman]

Lately I've been working exclusively on American 1105's. I got a bunch of them without keys.

I start at the front. I look into the cylinder at the serrations visible on the first key pin. The more serrations that are visible, the further that pin is from the shear line.

I try the first pin, maybe it's binding, maybe not. Then I will push my hook forward into pin 2, and work through to pin 5. I find it's easier to feel pins by pushing into them instead of pulling from the rear.