difficulty of locks

[josephhkim]

What are the difficulty of the different lock brands? I am new to lockpicking and i was going to buy two locks, an easy one and a slightly harder one. I know that Kwikset and Weiser are farily easy. I have a Schlage lock on my front door. Also, i know that Medeco locks are pretty hard. Could someone list the different common brands and their difficulty in picking? Thanks.

~Joseph Kim

[raimundo]

work the kickset to get the idea, then work the schlage, do some master padlocks, then be aware of locks found on the street and in trash, carry a swiss army knife with a phillips screwdriver to remove locks from doors that are thrown out with hardware on the.

[josephhkim]

Aight, Thanks. It would still be nice if someone could list the difficulties of the locks. Is the medeco difficult?

[mcm757207]

I would list popular brands like this: (from most easy to hard)

Warded padlocks (Masterlock and others)
Cheap wafer cam locks (Ilco, Chicago, etc.)
Kwikset
Masterlock
Schlage
Arrow
Corbin/Russwin/Yale
Best/Falcon SFIC
And then I generally throw all of the high security (Medeco, ASSA Twin, Mul-T-Lock etc.) into one catagory, as they are virtually impossible for anyone but true masters of the art to pick (with the exception of the bumping method I suppose).

But that's all opinion of course. For example, some may think that Arrow is easier than Schlage, or Yale is easier than Corbin/Russwin. It's all a matter of opinion.

[josephhkim]

Alright, thanks alot.

[BrownDwarf]

In padlocks, the laminated steel Master #3 and #5 locks are generally pretty easy. And there's a big, shiny Master [don't remember the designation, but it's common] that's rekeyable, with six pins. As it comes from the store, it's hard enough -- and when you get good with it, you can have new pins swapped in it that will make it seem like a new lock. A good locksmith can choose the new pins to make it especially difficult to pick.

You might also ask around for old padlocks without keys. Friends and neighbours might be willing to give them to you.

And then there's eBay, where you can generally find lots of things pretty cheaply.

[begginerlockpicker]

There is always your local locksmith...some locksmiths are friendly. Some are not. Most of them, will give you practice locks.
Where I live there is a club near by where they have lockers and I asked the janator(spl?) if i could have locks that where going to be cut off and he said it was fine with him.
Just use your head... You dont have to buy ALL your locks.

happy picking