Single pin picking help

[NinjaLlama]

I have been picking locks for a couple years now with decent success, however it feels like I am more or less guessing when I try to SPP. I'm not sure I could tell you when a pin is properly set. I just move back and forth across all the pins until the lock opens. Any tips or techniques that I could use to improve my skill and technique? Thanks for any help and suggestions.

[Squelchtone]

I have been picking locks for a couple years now with decent success, however it feels like I am more or less guessing when I try to SPP. I'm not sure I could tell you when a pin is properly set. I just move back and forth across all the pins until the lock opens. Any tips or techniques that I could use to improve my skill and technique? Thanks for any help and suggestions.

progressive pinning. get a cylinder with grub screws on the bible and pin up 1 stack, 2 stacks, 3 stacks, all stacks and this should help you figure out binding order and help feel and hear the clicks when a pin sets. most of the time people insert picks and lift pins up too high over setting them, the other thing is too much brute force tension, so lower that a little as well to give the pins some breathing room while they're moving up and down.

and keep practicing, when I started in 2005, I did 2 hours every night for the first year straight.

Squelchtone

[NinjaLlama]

Thanks for the assistance. I think I have a cylinder like that somewhere around here..

[daniel22747]

You will never get really good at single pin picking untill you can feel the binding pin. Use top of the key way tension. Get a Peterson pry bar light tension tool and a short hook (don't use a half dimond). These two tools give the best feed back.

Use medium tension and push up on each pin a little until you come across one that give more resistance. This is your first binding pin. After setting this find the next binding pin.

Also go buy 2 or 3 master lock 140 brass padlocks. They give great feed back.

[cuttinedge1]

When I started I only has 2 locks. I had a TSA (crap) lock and an American 5200 (pretty good). The TSA lock helped me learn the basics. After that I just tried picking the American everyday until I finally got it. After that I got other locks and I could pick them. The American had lots of serrated pins so it helped me develop my "feel". Locks with out security pins don't have counter rotation and so they give you less feed back. My advice would be find a pretty good lock that you can't rake and just keep trying to pick it until you can.

[NinjaLlama]

Well I dug out my old practice lock and have been adding another pin stack every few days of practice and it seems to be helping. I am starting to open my padlock that I think has a couple of spool pins a fair amount quicker

[Durzo Blint]

Single pin picking is the only method I know, as I've said before I've only been picking a few days. The lock I use is a 5 pin deadbolt. As far as I can tell the binding pins are the 3rd and 5th pins. For some reason I have to set the 3rd pin last. Is this normal or just lack of correct tension?

[NinjaLlama]

For some reason I have to set the 3rd pin last. Is this normal or just lack of correct tension?

The holes in which the key pins reside are not perfectly lined up, due to machining errors when the parts are manufactured, and that is what determines the binding order. This is why two separate locks of the same model can have different binding orders.

[Divinorum]

For some reason I have to set the 3rd pin last. Is this normal or just lack of correct tension?

The holes in which the key pins reside are not perfectly lined up, due to machining errors when the parts are manufactured, and that is what determines the binding order. This is why two separate locks of the same model can have different binding orders.

Adding to that, once you find the binding pin and set it then another pin in the plug will bind. This will happen over and over until all the pins set and the lock will open. Sometimes a binding pin will set but then when you try to set the next binding pin that already set pin will fall down. As an example, you feel pin 3 binding and you set it. Next you feel pin 5 binding and you set it. In the process of setting pin 5, pin 3 falls down. So you reset pin 3 and move on to your next binding pin. Pin 3 may continue to fall and you might have to keep resetting it in order to find the next binding pin. This is known as the gatekeeper effect because pin 3 will keep needing to be set in order to progress. This doesn't happen all the time but will happen sometimes. The key is picking up on it happening and if you can do that it shouldn't be to much trouble.

[blacksmith]

Going back and forth across the pins is called raking, and single pin picking is more about adjusting the torque as you set each pin. The MIT lockpicking guide is a good resource.

http://www.capricorn.org/~akira/home/lockpick/