Newbie trouble with a schlage

[ahinkle65]

Hello all.

New to this whole lock thing. Been picking for a couple of weeks. Did a bit of investment and have about 15 locks. A couple of padlocks (various sizes), a door lock or two, and several training locks (the clear ones you can see into). I can move thru those in a minute or two each. Focusing on single pin picking only for now. So, I bought this slage door lock that is giving me fits. I have removed the pin stacks down to one, just put a second one in. The problem I am having with this lock, is it is very tight. Just putting the tension wrench in and holding in place wih out pressure seems to bind the driver pins to where they are unmoveable. If get the driver pin to move, so little tension, that the other pin resets when I have two pins in.

Any advice? I was thinking is there a way to 'break the lock in'. Try some lube on it (it came straight out of the box, so, is that kind of cheating?) Have I gotten a hold of a lock with some new security feature?

Sorry in andvnace if it's too simple of newb question.

[GWiens2001]

Put your tension wrench in the top of the keyway (the same part of the keyway as the key pins). That will free up a lot of space in the keyway.

You may need to cut down part of a tension wrench so the part that goes into the lock is shorter to make it easier to keep the wrench in the lock.

Gordon

[ltdbjd]

Sometimes I'll use a thin "top of the keyway" tension wrench, which I lay across the diagonal in the keyway.

The top of the keyway wrench doesn't have a bend or a twist in it. It's basically "Z" shaped. Something like this, but much thinner.

[greengrowlocks]

It's very unlikely adding any "lube" would make it easier to pick. I would follow the advice above and use TOK tension which will give you more room to work with. If it's a keyway like the one below I found that picks between .017" to .022" thicknesses work well. Try and find the right angle to hold the pick so you can work around the warding. Sometimes dragging the pick back and forth over the tips of the pins will help getting that into your muscle memory. Pick the pin that binds the most first and try and memorize the order in which the pins bind after that. Generally the key pin will "drop" letting you know that the driver is set at shearline. Through trial and error you will get it open eventually. Good luck!

[Silverado]

Could be that you're used to applying tension to something that has spring tension to the core (padlocks). Try starting with very light tension on the schlage core and every slightly increase until you find that perfect spot where you can feel what the pins are doing inside the lock.

[jimu57]

Make sure you have it put together correctly and not left a spring in an empty pin chamber or something of that nature.

[Jack002]

One thing to think of (I'm a newbie, so stop me if this is not right) when you have one pin picked and you're going after the next one, sometimes the first pin drops back down on its own weight. Its not being pushed by the spring, just falls back down. Sometimes I think I have a pin I picked pop back under spring tension, but its really only falling back down on its own, the top pin is still behind the shearline. That can happen.

[mseifert]

Very light tension .. When you think it is light enough lighten up some more .. There is a chance that the 2 pins are similar in binding .. Feel for the slights smallest.. Almost unnoticeable setting of a pin .. Could be close tolerances on those pin stacks ...Move pins to different spot and see if you get the same feel..

[billdeserthills]

Instead of trying to 'break this lock' in, why not just get a Kwikset pin tumbler lock to try-
then you can go back to the Schlage when your skills increase