picked american 5200 !!!

[xkuco]

just wanted to say thanks to this board after reading a while i registered and and learned alot about this freaking lock. finally after two days of trying i picked it after dinner in about a minute using the top method and a rake lol man it most def was like winning the Olympics. thanks again

[OrangePick]

Congrats! I can relate to the feeling (fairly recently).

For what it's worth, I was successful by tensioning just a very shallow portion of the bottom of keyway. Used a twist flex wrench with a fairly short tab. That allowed me an unencumbered view of the pins. Pin 1 was always my last to bind and it was helpful to see it to get a point of reference.

One word of caution -- tensioning this portion of the keyway tends to scrape away brass over time, depending on the thickness of your tensor blade. Mine was a wiper insert. So now, I can still pick the lock like this, but have to stick in a stiffer wrench or screwdriver to turn the plug to open. The first wrench slips out of place when I apply more pressure (due to eroding brass from that portion of the keyway).

[xkuco]

i barely put pressure it was super light to light pressure and thanks for the advice ive only been doing this for about a year and i stopped doing it for a while. i started again recently because i had to open a bathroom for my platoon while we were training lol and i just so happened to have my set on me.

[lock2006]

The top method and a rake for the american lock 5200
works great,but is more fun and exciting when you do
single pin pick
after picking many 5200 american locks i can say
is been a good experience picking and finding out
differents feeling of SPP technique and
tension to locks.