american series 5200

[dmux]

well i am in the army and the main lock the army uses is the american lock 5200 series.. it is a very tough lock to pick, i have not been able to pick it yet.. has anyone here picked one and if so please give some tips

[stick]

American makes some good locks, and likes to stick serrated pins in their locks. Odds are, you've got several in there, especially since it's a military lock. Go with light force on your wrench, find the pin that's binding, and lift it slowly all the way up. If you can feel bumps in the wrench as it goes up, it's a serrated pin. Just learn to find serrated pins, and learn to feel the difference between a bump and a set, and you'll get it.

[quickpicks]

There are probably 6 pins. Theese are pretty hard and they have spools too.

[daniel_ellinger]

does anyone know how to get ahold of a pinning set for american locks?

[raimundo]

Matt blaze talks of decoding such locks by using a pin lifter, and a cheap otoscope from wal mart. look for references on matt blazes site, and get all the american padlock keys you can find, caliper the cuts, until you have a reader list of depths, when you find a pin near the front of a lock that you can see the shear on measure that depth,
oh forget that, I was just winging it to see what I would do. These locks are pickable, just not easy, has anyone used a bump key on one of these? If you can find any key with a series of deep cuts on it, it may work as a bump key. if all the cuts on your lock happen to be higher than the expedient bumpkey

[Disgustipatedatu]

Yeah...American lock 5200 theres two variants that i know of so far the goverment version with US stamped into the body. Then theres the regular version.. The regular version has 5 sets of pins the driver pins and key pins are all serated also there are two spool pins which are serated as well. Dissassemble the lock and take the spool pins out and practice picking the serated pins for awhile the work the spool pins in there sometime..Speaking of spool pins is there anyplace i can get a falle tension tool online...dont care aout the rest of the set just the tension tool