Tubular lock with strangely behaving tumbler

[edamame]

Hello everyone,

For fun and XP, I'm trying to pick a Kensington 7-pin tubular lock (apparently your average run-of-the-mill laptop lock). Although I have some minor lockpicking experience, I am by no means an expert. I am aware that I may need to pick it multiple times for it to fully open.

Everything generally seems to go quite well, but there is this one tumbler which is acting peculiarly. Unlike the others, it does not allow itself to be pressed down very far at all. (It is the longest tumbler of the 7.) This is the case even without any tension applied. All the others, even the longer ones, I can press down fully.

Is anyone aware of some special security mechanism that this one odd tumbler implies?

Many thanks.

[Squelchtone]

Are your keys orange, green, black, or silver? There is a new thing they started using to stop the toilet paper tube attack, it was either an extra strong spring or something goofy in there that has to be pressed down lower than the face of the lock.

We can help a lot better if you post a pic of your exact lock on tinypic.com and paste the http://file.jpg link here.

let us know,
Squelchtone

[raimundo]

Im guessing thats an "ace" type lock

look at the visible tumblers, they should appear to be yellow (brass)

if your immoveable tumbler appears to be steel, (grey or shiny) this is not a tumbler at all, its immoveable because this is a type of ward to
keep other keys out, these will sometimes appear in an ace-type lock
usually inbetween the regular octogonal spacing of the tumblers.

[edamame]

Hey,

Thanks for the replies. I finally matched to take a photo of our patient. The tumbler looks like any other (marked in red).



Here's one of the lock in full:



Something to counter that toilet paper roll attack seems like a likely culprit.

thanks!

[cledry]

Mine all have 1 dead pin in them. It is common on ACE locks.

[dontlook]

I just finished picking a similar lock. It always seemed to pick over a bit and then stop, so I'm not sure if there was some sort security pin in there(it never popped back on its own).
Also there was one pin that isn't actually a pin but appears to be a non-moving (vertically speaking) piece of the core.


It does pick, but it takes a bit of work.