has anyone picked the "best p-1" lock?

[majorburt]

i'll have a pic of it once i figure out how to upload an image lol. im new to the site btw

but, my question is, has anyone ever picked the "best p-1" lock? the one i have has almost no clearance for the pins to be picked by anything other than something as tall as two sheets of construction paper. idk if its just a really good barrel that got installed, or what, but it looks really difficult to pick

[Squelchtone]

i'll have a pic of it once i figure out how to upload an image lol. im new to the site btw

but, my question is, has anyone ever picked the "best p-1" lock? the one i have has almost no clearance for the pins to be picked by anything other than something as tall as two sheets of construction paper. idk if its just a really good barrel that got installed, or what, but it looks really difficult to pick

Hi,

Looks like you've been a member for a while, nice to see your first post.

It sounds like you are picking a lock that might be installed somewhere and in use. That goes against the ethics and rules of our hobby. I also don't think there's a BEST SFIC model called the P-1, that P-1 is most likely an identifier that was stamped onto the lock by your locksmith or in house locksmith to help ID the cylinder and which keys and which master system it belongs to. If this lock is at your work, school, apartment building, and it isn't really yours we really recommend not touching it and if you are a hobby picker, get some locks on ebay to practice picking on.

Picking locks in the wild can seem like a lot of fun, but when a new picker does something like drops out a master wafer out of a BEST lock, or gets it stuck 180 degrees out of synch, then the teardrops start and people get in trouble or lose their security deposits.

If you want to share a photo, please upload it to http://imgur.com or to http://tinypic.com and then Copy/Paste into your reply here.

If I got that all wrong, perhaps your photo will help clear it up, thanks,
Squelchtone

[majorburt]

i'll have a pic of it once i figure out how to upload an image lol. im new to the site btw

but, my question is, has anyone ever picked the "best p-1" lock? the one i have has almost no clearance for the pins to be picked by anything other than something as tall as two sheets of construction paper. idk if its just a really good barrel that got installed, or what, but it looks really difficult to pick

Hi,

Looks like you've been a member for a while, nice to see your first post.

It sounds like you are picking a lock that might be installed somewhere and in use. That goes against the ethics and rules of our hobby. I also don't think there's a BEST SFIC model called the P-1, that P-1 is most likely an identifier that was stamped onto the lock by your locksmith or in house locksmith to help ID the cylinder and which keys and which master system it belongs to. If this lock is at your work, school, apartment building, and it isn't really yours we really recommend not touching it and if you are a hobby picker, get some locks on ebay to practice picking on.

Picking locks in the wild can seem like a lot of fun, but when a new picker does something like drops out a master wafer out of a BEST lock, or gets it stuck 180 degrees out of synch, then the teardrops start and people get in trouble or lose their security deposits.

If you want to share a photo, please upload it to http://imgur.com or to http://tinypic.com and then Copy/Paste into your reply here.

If I got that all wrong, perhaps your photo will help clear it up, thanks,
Squelchtone

nope, this is my fathers lock. i wouldn't go around picking locks i did not own or have permission to pic lol thats a very easy way to get thrown in jail




thanks for the tip on uploading.
this is the lock in question. it looks extremely hard to pick (at least with my southord set) as there isnt a lot of clearance for the pic. i could be wrong tho

he challenged me to pick it, and im 99% sure that ts not gonna happen unless i get some really low profile pics for it

[jeffmoss26]

That is one of the PKS series, Wx keyway cores. Probably has security pins.

[Squelchtone]

That is one of the PKS series, Wx keyway cores. Probably has security pins.

I never knew BEST had security pins! are they spool pins or something exotic?



majorburt: Thanks for sharing the pic, for some reason I imagined a mortise cylinder on a door, didnt even think it was a core in a padlock.

try an S rake. insert it all the way, then put the wrench in the bottom of the keyway and apply light light tension, and pull the snake rake out quickly while at the same time applying just a dash more pressure on the wrench. Keep doing that until it opens. Half diamond may give you good results as well.

Squelchtone

[ggpaintballer]

I would also try and squeeze a diamond in, or use a dimple pick.

[Divinorum]

That is one of the PKS series, Wx keyway cores. Probably has security pins.

I never knew BEST had security pins! are they spool pins or something exotic?



majorburt: Thanks for sharing the pic, for some reason I imagined a mortise cylinder on a door, didnt even think it was a core in a padlock.

try an S rake. insert it all the way, then put the wrench in the bottom of the keyway and apply light light tension, and pull the snake rake out quickly while at the same time applying just a dash more pressure on the wrench. Keep doing that until it opens. Half diamond may give you good results as well.

Squelchtone

Never knew you could zip rake Best cores. hmmm I will have to try this

[nite0wl]

BEST does have security pins but you rarely see them in the wild since they are a special order item which many facilities people (ie non-lockies who get stuck overseeing the day to day maintenance stuff) aren't familiar enough to specify when they order their cores. With the PKS series security pins became more common but still not guaranteed. The P-1 is a stamp applied either by the locksmith who put it together or a facilities manager who had to keep track of it in their keying system.

When trying to pick SFIC cores I have found that having the thinnest pick you are comfortable with is a huge help, even in the relatively open A keyway. The keyway may seem pretty wide but those tight angles are exactly where you are going to have to place your pick's shaft and the pins will usually hand down quite close to the 'shelf'. A basic SouthOrd set may not have anything as thin as 0.018" or 0.015" which I have used much more comfortably than my default 0.025" tools and if you don't have anything with a 'euro-style' shaft you may have a hard time maneuvering past the front pins without over-setting them. You may get lucky with the raking but you may find yourself needing a hook of some type, if the pinning was done by a good locksmith on a well designed pinning system you are probably going to encounter a good number of rapid high-low changes.
Ultimately persistence is the most important factor, like "Master-Ring" locks, SFICs have two different shear-lines which are not-interchangeable; one is to operate the retaining collar while the other allows the plug to turn to operate the latch, if even one pin stack is set to the other shear-line nothing will happen.

The keyway of your lock looks to me like a WH keyway but I am not an expert, if you are curious or want to get it keyed up compare it to the charts and photos in this rather useful thread here: http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=59258

[Robotnik]

I would also try and squeeze a diamond in, or use a dimple pick.

Dimple pick was my first thought looking at that keyway. May have some difficulty if a pin stack has to be raised high, though.

[GWiens2001]

WC keyway. Here is one from my collection.



It is a regular mess to pick. Yes, it does have spool security pins, too.

Hear the spool pins are available as a special option from Best, but most distributors I have tried talking to say they never heard of Best brand spool pins. There are some aftermarket spool pins, but only in three sizes if memory serves me correctly. I can dig through my bookmarks and find where I got them before if you like.

Like two shear lines and that wicked keyway is not enough to stop 98% of pickers.

Gordon

[Squelchtone]

that keyway looks like someone about to sit down on a cold toilet.

[nite0wl]

The A keyway is bad enough. I can get a couple of my A keyway cores open about 30% of the time, on a really good day. I shudder to think what would happen if I added security pins to those.

[GWiens2001]

Have had a very hard time SPPing the Best H keyway:



But I can rake them open with a Bogota in seconds. Go figure.

Gordon

[nite0wl]

Have had a very hard time SPPing the Best H keyway:



But I can rake them open with a Bogota in seconds. Go figure.

Gordon

I would think that the bitting of the individual lock comes into play there. Then again, most of my BEST cores are pretty beat up and tend to need a lot of coaxing, I might just be a bit worried about what they would do to my bogotas, I broke one a couple of weeks ago and I really can't afford to replace any more.

[spandexwarrior]

I've had decent luck with the PKS keyways, H keyway, and some Keymarks using the Sparrows Diamond and Offset Diamond. They're pretty flat/low profile and if you don't have a super deep cut in there, they can work if you're careful. Sometimes putting the pick in before tensioning helps. Also heavy tension has been useful to kind of freeze things up if you need to pass under a long pin with a tool that can barely make it.

I'd be curious to see if a postal pick is thin enough to go strait up from the bottom. If not, I wonder if a music wire bent at 90 degrees could be useful from the bottom of the keyway... Now I have something to try tomorrow.

-Brian