repinned a lock for variety - it's now much harder. Why?

[calignosus]

I bought a cheap lock, and I've been working my way up from 1 pin, to 2, and then 3. Up to that point I'd repinned those 3 pins to work first with the original key, then with a house key I had in my pocket. I found those fairly easy, and I felt I wasn't actually getting the practice I needed, because the foremost key pin was so long that even inserting the pick into the lock set it. The other two lengths were similar, too, so it was kind of jiggling open and I wasn't getting a feel for binding pins.

Long story less long, I repinned it randomly, with two very short key pins followed by a long one... and lo and behold, it's now too difficult to unlock! Any idea why this could be?

[criminalhate]

are you going through the binding pins in order?

[Afisch]

when you say followed by, what order are you saying from, the back or the front, if you have a long pin neerest the front of the cylinder (the end the key goes into) then you are most likely oversetting this pin while trying to set the others. This will make picking the lock harder and you may need a longer hook. It is a common reason why one lock is harder to pick than another. You could try tensioning the keyway from the top to allow to get around the long pin1 giving you more room in the keyway.

[calignosus]

well, I didn't get it open, but my girlfriend did (after about two hours, as she reckoned she'd nail it). It's now repinned to match a key again until I have a better feel for the pins. Constant oversetting was the problem, yes - thanks for the advice.

[Gordon Airporte]

This might not have been much of a factor here, but as you progress you'll find that there's a difference between mastering a lock and mastering a particular keying.
You can struggle with a lock for weeks, then once you get to where you can open it consistently part of that ability will be due to memory of the keying, even if it's unconscious and you can't explicitly state the steps you go through to open the lock. Once you go and rekey the lock you have to deal with it on its own terms again.

[Dragunov-21]

Do you find it hard to repin randomly? No matter what I do, I keep imagining the approximate keying...

[Gordon Airporte]

Do you find it hard to repin randomly? No matter what I do, I keep imagining the approximate keying...

I usually shake the pins around in my tray to randomize them and try to sort of blur my eyes when I'm loading the cylinder up. I only pay attention when I'm deliberately trying for a difficult lo-hi pinning or when I'm setting the lock back to the key's code.