New locks vs. old, abused locks

[Isepic]

A while back, I got a bunch of old locks (key-in-knob and deadbolts of various make) from a local locksmith shop here in town. I can open those fairly easily, and I've finally grown bored with them. I went out today to Lowe's, and picked up a couple deadbolts (one a Kwikset, one a Guardian, I think, some off-brand that I've never heard of on here), keyed on both sides. (Pick resistant, hrm, a challenge!) but I can't get any of them open. One thing I've noticed is that the pins in the new locks seem to grab more, getting to a certain point, and then refuse to be raised anymore, no matter how light a tension I put on the wrench, they just get stuck. Is this just because the new pins haven't been worn down as much as the ones that I got from the locksmith? Or is it just a case of me picking the old 5 cylinders so much that I just instinctively know the pattern? I took apart a couple of the locks, but there don't seem to be any sort of security pins in there, just the regular stuff that I have a dozen dozen of already, so I've ruled that out.

[JackNco]

try repining your old locks and swap some of the pins between them. i might be that you are just used to the locks you already had.

Personally I prefer picking new locks. but older locks are sometimes more receptive and sometimes a real pain in the ass.

You may also now be dealing with security pins that you may not have done before.

OR you could grab a new lock the same as you old ones and see how that goes.

John

[raimundo]

you may have picked up some bad habits while practicing, probably overtensioning. The new locks will open if you work light and read the sticky on picking mushroom/spool pins. Let the plug turn against the tension if it tries to do this, that is how you set one of these security pins.

[Isepic]

It appears that I was just so used to the old locks that I kept in "picking rotation" that I was falsely believing that I was getting better. Muscle memory just let me open them with relative ease. I swapped the pins around, between a couple of the locks (1 old, 1 new) and now I can't get either of them to spin. Oh well, it gives my hands something to practice more on when I'm watching old cheesy kung-fu movies. The only security pins in any of them right now are the ones that are beveled, no mushrooms, spools, or anything like that, there being none in any of the new locks I bought. I figure, with this new revelation of me not being as good as I thought, that those should come later.