How do you pick a best lock lock brand?

[helloman]

I have a best lock it is a kind of l;ock thats really hard to pick and i cant figure it out and i'm really good to i dont have any pics but help me if you can.

[UWSDWF]

well it's a SFIC lock... so you'll need IC tools

try using your search-fu for the rest

[JackNco]

Please try and add a bit more information about the locks you are trying to pick. but as UWSDWF said.

http://www.crypto.com/photos/misc/sfic/ Sounds like ur up against one of these.

Peterson sells the tools for $15 each, there are 3 variations of the tool for different key ways so you will need to identify which key way you have.

All the best

[linty]

those tools are only for if you are trying to pick the control line to remove the lock.
To pick it open or closed, you just pick like a regular lock, but they are 6 or 7 pins with good tolerances. definitely a challenge to pick, just go light on the tension and keep trying.

[jimmysmith]

I checked out jacknco link and i was way confused, lol....sorry about that...but heres what i am thinking..

the link A great paper wrote by matt blaze.

I always thought that best had restricted keys.....meaning [call me on it if i am wrong} no other companys are aloud to make the key blank.....right?

well if you check out that paper by matt blaze...scroll down to the 2 pictures and you see a key sitting inside a BEST lock and the keys made by Ilco....

Is this not odd?

[JackNco]

those tools are only for if you are trying to pick the control line to remove the lock.
To pick it open or closed, you just pick like a regular lock, but they are 6 or 7 pins with good tolerances. definitely a challenge to pick, just go light on the tension and keep trying.

Remove the core = Access to the mechanism. lock opens

And with the 2 shear lines the chances of hitting the same shearline with all the pins grow exponentially.

Ill do the maths as i understand it, remeber best do a 5/6/7pin version of the lock.

Code: Select all

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   <Number of pins
1   2   4   8   16  32 64 < chance of picking it IF you set all the pins correctly on a shear line, so 1 in 64 chance for the 7pin version


[JackNco]

Oh ya thats your chance of hitting either sheer line. so do pick the lock as if you only want to unlock it and leave the control sleeve in place you can go ahead and double that number.

[linty]

it looks that way at first, but applying tension to the plug normally will only get pins to bind on the plug shear line not the removal shear line, that's why there are special tools to apply tension to the removal shear line.

[linty]

I checked out jacknco link and i was way confused, lol....sorry about that...but heres what i am thinking..
I always thought that best had restricted keys.....meaning [call me on it if i am wrong} no other companys are aloud to make the key blank.....right?

best does have restricted keys, but they also have lots of keys that are not restricted. they lost a lawsuit to ilco years ago over their utility patents. there are about 15-20 different best keyways available to locksmiths

[JackNco]

In a perfect world, but any kind of resistance at all, as in the cylinders touching till apply tension to both.

[mercurial]

In a perfect world, but any kind of resistance at all, as in the cylinders touching till apply tension to both.

I must agree with John(JackNco) here - whilst in theory what Linty said is correct, in real life there is going to be some friction between the 'inner plug' and the sleeve that operates on the control-sheer line.

Thus there are going to be pins binding at both the control and operating sheer lines when using a conventional tension wrench.

That said, it is still certainly possible to pick these locks just using a conventional tension wrench, but luck comes into play more than it would when picking a standard pin-tumbler.

There are plenty of posts here where newbies asking for help - they have tried to pick a lock on a door with an SFIC lock, they were using a conventional tension wrench, and all of a sudden the core pops out of the lock.. Thus you can get lucky & end up picking either the control sheer-line or the operating sheer-line when picking these locks using a standard tension wrench.

A Bogota rake is an excellent tool when using a standard tension wrench - it allows such fast manipulation of the pins that you are going to get one sheer-line or the other, sooner rather than later. The number of possible combinations, as calculated by John above shows why this will help.

...Mark

[JackNco]

although that said SFICs are compensated. or are as far as i can tell is there are usualy 3 possible shear lines in the pins not 3. so this will increase your chances. please correct me if i am wrong in this.

[Mr. Glass]

[/quote]
best does have restricted keys, but they also have lots of keys that are not restricted. they lost a lawsuit to ilco years ago over their utility patents. there are about 15-20 different best keyways available to locksmiths[/quote]

Linty: do you have any more specific info on that lawsuit? (I tried google and didn't come up with much.)

[Mr. Glass]

(Ahh! Messed that up, but you get the idea.)

[linty]

http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/FEDERAL/ju ... -1528.html

that's the lawsuit
somebody posted it elsewhere just a few weeks ago.