I recently purchased SouthOrd's PXS-17 kit and bought 5 padlocks and have been learning a lot.
I won a Schlage cylinder off e-Bay this week and will be going through Dimension's lock-picking tutorial once it arrives.
Anyways, I can pick my no-name Fortress lock and my MasterLock #3 in only a few seconds. But this lock I am showing here has me completely stymied! It is a loose lock. The pins are spaced far apart, there are only 4 pins, the keyway is wide open and the pins themselves are very loose.
But the keying of this lock is killing me!
As you can see by the cuts, the first and third pins are extremely shallow.
I quickly ruled out raking for this lock. It just doesn't work. The shallow pins get over-set at the drop of a hat.
Even the deep hook in my set of picks can't get by that first pin.
Because this is such a cheap lock, I am assuming that the problems I am experiencing are related to my technique and not the tools that SouthOrd offers in their PXS-17 kit - I mean, this lock is common and cheap and it would be ridiculous for the kit to not provide the tools to pick it.
But no matter how I try (using the smallest tension wrench and the deep hook), there is just no room for the tools to avoid raising that first pin.
I'd really appreciate any tips. Should I buy some additional tools? Are there thinner picks available?
Anyways, pics below:
