Wobbly KIK hints?

[theTastyCat]

Hi all - thanks to a miscommunication with my girlfriend over where my keys would be left, I found myself locked out of the house yesterday. Rather than tackle the spooled Schlage on the front door, I opted to try the ancient and cheap KIK non-deadbolt on the back. I tried to SPP and later to rake, but had pretty much no luck at all. There was so much play in the knob that it was very difficult to tell what was going on. When I'd release tension, I would hear a few pins snap back down, but they could easily have been overset - it was all mush to me. I tried using very light tension and increased gradually, but it was really hard to tell how much tension was going to the play in the knob and how much was coming to bear on the cylinder itself. Fortunately, I soon realized that I was able to bypass the lock and the crisis was averted.

Not that I plan on picking this in-use lock any more, but anybody have any tips on how you deal with sloppy, loose KIK locks? I'm sure you smiths have had to deal with these before.

I have another spooled Schlage deadbolt just for picking, and am able to open it either direction in about 30 seconds after a lot of practice, but I figured I'd go for what I thought would be the easier target - maybe I was wrong!

I've been trying to hold my locks up and pick them right-side-up to simulate them being mounted - though picking for me is neither vocation nor crime, we'll all have times when our skill (however little) can come in handy on a mounted door, so why not practice to be effective in these scenarios.

Many thanks.

[Solomon]

I have a couple of locks which have a KIK style cylinder in a housing, from what I've seen they're pretty much always wobbly to some degree. Remember that the play you're feeling isn't the plug, it's the entire cylinder... and nomatter how loose it is, when you apply tension it's gonna stay still unless you're being very jerky with the pick. Same goes for any cylinder with a lot of play in the plug. Just find the right tension and avoid heavy handedness with the pick, that's really all there is to it. Practice makes perfect

[raimundo]

If you come home and find that your lock is significantly looser that you remember it being when you left, look above the keyway where the shoulder stops on the plug, this will be much brighter and larger if someone has impressioned a key, and you may find tiny brass shavings in the keyway or at a nearby surface where someone would look to steady the key while filing it, this could be a window sill or near a bright light, there may be brass dust there also.

[theTastyCat]

Thanks for the tip, Rai - I think it's just a cheap@@@ lock that's seen a lot of hard use. Where I live, a dirtbag would just kick the door in rather than impression/pick/think. But great to know.

I recall that even trying to manipulate pins was causing the lock to wobble all over the place. I suppose I need to find one like it and just pick it to death - that seems to be the best way to learn.