Tubular Lock Pins

[evanman]

Hey I was reading illusion's guide to tubular locks and it made me wonder about why the pins are like this:


I'm talking about how the top pins have a smaller diameter toward the part where the pins touch. It seems to me that this in some ways could make the lock easier to pick. It makes it so that each pin can be in a much wider range of positions and the lock to still be able to rotate. It might only rotate a little bit before catching on the thinner portition of the upper pins but then you can just push each pin in as far as it will go and everything will be lined up correctly. Am I missing something?

Thanks

[Shrub]

They arent all like that and it can be seen theother way in that it makes them harder to pick in that they act like a spool pin on a normal lock.

[pinsetter]

Looks to me like Shrub hit the nail on the head. They're gonna work sort of like spool pins, but with a little weaker design in my opinion. The thing is, if you were picking the lock and had never taken the pins out you wouldn't KNOW the pins were cut like that. I'm sure it'd give a guy a bit of trouble until he figured out what he was up against. BUT, in the worst case scenario, you're going to have to pick each pin twice for every re-locking of the pins, and that's if you're a decent picker and after you've figured out what was going on in the lock.