"Over picking"

[SilverDegree]

I am fairly new to lock picking and I have found myself instantly obsessed with this new found hobby of mine, it seems as though everywhere I go I have a lock and picks in my hand. I am understanding how a lock works pretty well and understand the concept of security pins. However, whenever I'm reading about picking I sometimes see someone mention something about "over picking."

Can someone give me the whole run down on over picking? Thank you!

By the way, I love the community and help that I find here, such a useful site.

[SilverDegree]

Oh, also, I am seeing a lot of people talk about "over setting," I assume over setting and over picking are the same thing but correct me if I'm wrong. I've used the search function and can't seem to find my answer either. Thanks again.

[Solomon]

Oversetting and over picking could be the same thing, people have their own terminology for a lot of things. What they may be referring to though, is "reverse picking". It's a technique where you raise all the pin stacks to their highest point, apply heavy tension then remove the pick and reduce tension very carefully. The idea is that the drivers will catch on the shear line as they drop down in their reverse binding order. It's tricky to get the hang of and isn't a particularly reliable method of picking, but it does work for some locks.

Hope that helps!

[LocksmithArmy]

you will have to look at your context clues to figure out what is ment by the terms over picking or oversetting or over lifting.

they could refer to the method of picking mentioned by solomon or it could refer to the mistake in picking where you accidentally raise the pin too high and now none of the other pins will set.

as solomon mentiond the 2 terms you mentioned as well as over lifting are often interchaned among different speakers. it is personal terminology.

[SilverDegree]

Thank you for your replies, they have helped a lot. But how can you possibly lift a pin so high that you can not pick any of the other pins? What happens in the lock to cause that?

[mhole]

If you lift a pin to high, you can raise the key pin above the shear line. If you do this, and trap the pin with tension, you will appear to have set this pin, but will actually have trapped the key pin in the body of the lock. With the pin trapped like this, all you tension is being taken by the incorrectly set pin, and no other pins will bind, so you can't set them.

If the pin is correctly set, a tiny movement of the plug will trap the driver pin at the shear line, and cause another pin to bind up. When this pin is set, the plug moves a tiny bit more, and so on until the lock is picked. If the plug can't turn, you can't pick the lock.

[SilverDegree]

Thank you so much mhole, you just cleared things up so much for me, it all makes sense now hah