Master 140 (long handle) - no pins binding?

[Eazy123]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and have begun learning to pick locks in the last month. So far I've been able to pick a master padlock, three kwikset locks and am tinkering around with a cutaway lock I just got that can be repinned.

I really feel I'm getting the hang of it but this 140 that I bought at Walgreens 3 weeks ago gives me a lot of trouble. I picked it once and that was by accident, but have spent hours and can't do it again. I've read that they all have at least one spool pin, and one YouTube video even shows that one of them has three spools and a serrated. I'm not getting the feedback a spool pin gives, in fact no pins are binding at all.

I do notice that simply putting tension with no picking causes the keyway to click and turn a tiny bit but I'm not sure what that's about. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Mighty]

That's a fairly small lock. Look at the key, are any of the cuts really deep (in particular the first cut, closest to the handle?). You may be oversetting a standard pin as son as you put your pick in. I have a lock with that same issue.

[Eazy123]

I wonder if that's the case. Yes, the key is cut quite deep where pins three and four would go. Is there a trick to dealing with a situation like this?

[Mighty]

Basically just try to make sure you're not accidentally putting pressure on a pin unless it's on purpose. You may want to try some picks with a thin tip, so you're not accidentally hitting 2 pins at once. A pick with a low profile tip (eg. small half-diamond) might be useful if you find you don't have a lot of room to move around, though that wont work on locks that have a lot of high-low-high-low type keying. I think that lock only has 4 pins though, so you may just be oversetting #3 or 4 right off the bat. Maybe give it a shot focusing more on the front 2 pins to start and see if that helps.

If a lock is giving you a lot of trouble, it can be good to look at the key for the first couple of times you open it, to see where the pins should be. That will help you figure out what is going wrong, get a feel, and develop some strategies.

Let me know if any of this helps, or if you get more clues as to what is happening!

[Eazy123]

Thank you for the detailed response! Yeah, according to the key, 3 and 4 should be very low, and 1 and 2 should be high so this shouldn't be so difficult. I'm actually waiting for a few new picks and a couple of smaller tension wrenches to come in the mail tomorrow. Hopefully they'll help.

[Eazy123]

Well, my Peterson gem arrived today - picked the lock with it in two minutes lol. I bet my regular short hook was catching pin 4, but the gem's hook and point targeted pin 3 by itself, which was all I needed. Thanks again for the help!

[Mighty]

That's awesome! And I'm jealous of your Peterson gem- have fun!