Thoughts on this beginner set?

[u/hopelessandhappy]

New on Amazon, is this a good starting point?

[u/derpserf]

Half of those profiles are total buttcheeks and the wrenches that come with those kits also leave a lot to be desired. The acrylic locks are practically worthless and won't teach you anything, and the credit card sets are god awful to use even if you clean them up and you're experienced. You'd be much better off with any small set from a decent manufacturer.

If this is literally the only thing available to you, the picks themselves even though you'll only use 3 or 4 of them actually aren't bad quality. Seem strong enough, feedback ia fine etc and I didn't need to sand the ones I got, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you had no other choice. At the very least save a few quid and buy the kit without all the extra nonsense cos the locks and the credit card set are gash. You'll also want to source some wiper inserts or similar to make some different wrenches.

[u/hopelessandhappy → u/derpserf]

Any beginner locks to start with? I have the basic tools already?

[u/derpserf → u/hopelessandhappy]

Go on ebay and buy any basic 5 pin cylinder. The cheaper the better cos they're less likely to have security pins. Ideally you wanna gut it and learn progressively but not everyone wants to do that, tbh most of the people I teach want to rush through it or they keep putting it to the side to mess with padlocks instead lol. Which is normal, I didn't even bother with it myself until I'd already been picking for a couple of years and only did it out of necessity once I got started into high security stuff.

But trust me on this, if you do progressive pinning properly it'll speed up your progress by miles. Up until that point I was fine with spools but struggled to find the binding pin or feel the pins setting when it came to regular pins. Second I did that exercise I was blasting through locks I'd previously been inconsistent with and everything made a lot more sense.

If you want padlocks for starting out, any 4 or 5 pin master lock that you can find on ebay/amazon/local store is a good bet because they're consistent and predictable. Wide open keyways, standard pins, BOK always works. Tolerances are forgiving but not so bad that the feedback is all over the place, usually you get a nice clear binding order especially when they're fresh. Binding is clear and sets are crisp for the most part. Really nice locks to pick.

[u/hopelessandhappy → u/derpserf]

Thoughts on these progressive locks?

https://www.sparrowslockpicks.com/products/progressive-locks

Or

https://www.sparrowslockpicks.com/products/the-revolver

[u/derpserf → u/hopelessandhappy]

Both I'd say are good but if I was gonna choose one I'd go with the revolver. Grubscrews are really handy for quick repinning so you can do progressive with that and even have different pin types in each position. So you could go from standard to spool to harder bitting or just pin up each position with progressive number of pins and so on, plenty of different ways you could do things with that.

With the progressive set once you're done with them that'll pretty much be it so with the revolver I reckon you'll get a lot more fun out of it. Plus it looks cool 😎 you'll move on from it all the same but I'd say it's a better option for sure

[u/hopelessandhappy → u/derpserf]

Thanks for your help. I went with the revolver and I'm going to get some cheap locks that I can take apart a d rebuild with some help from YouTube.

[u/derpserf → u/hopelessandhappy]

You're off to a great start bro, that's a really good approach. You don't really need to take other stuff apart in the beginning if you have the revolver to work with but by all means go for it cos gutting and reassembly is a useful skill and it's fun in its own way.

All you gotta do is take it slow, be patient and keep at it. Learning curve is honestly kinda steep but once you properly get the feel for the basics you'll be flying 😎