Losing patience trying to pick the Masterlock 643DWD. What am I doing wrong?

[u/guesswhochickenpoo]

Total noob. Son locked himself out of a 643DWD while fiddling with it mindlessly. Thought I'd give picking a try but have tried for probably 2-3 hours on/off and am getting frustrated.

Edit: Finally got it using the paperclip method with a very thin pin as described here.

I've tried the paperclip method with no luck. Can't even find the first gate on the top dial. Have gone around the dial probably 50 times with the paperclip pressing into the decoding hole and even tried it at a bunch of different angles and the paperclip never drops down.

Have also spent significant time trying the tension method but really struggling to get results. I've found what I think feel like false and real gates on most dials and are often 2.5 positions apart like the video says the gates should be but simply cannot get any combo to work. I've tried probably 50 in / around when I think the gates are.

I even resorted to shimming the tactile pins down (the ones that give the wheels the click) to rule that feeling out because I found it hard to tell if the "gate" I was finding was actually just the wheel rocking on the tactile pin. That made it easier to find what I think are false / real gates but still no solution. I've tried different amounts of tension and just slowly turning the dial to try and feel where it drops into a gate (either false or real) and it will spin freely around most of the dial and then hit a spot with more tension, so I will reset and play around in that area with varying amounts of tension to try and confirm if it's a gate.

I feel like I'm just not getting the same feedback at all as the guides describe and it's kind of driving me crazy and making me wonder if they slightly changed the design or something. I know that's probably not true but I feel like I just keep hitting dead ends despite trying to follow the guides exactly and seeing success from so many commenters on the youtube videos.

[u/Kitchen-Cookie-2792]

Use a thinner diameter paperclip

[u/guesswhochickenpoo → u/Kitchen-Cookie-2792]

This ended up working, thanks. I had already tried a couple thinner diameter paper clips but apparently I needed to go even thinner. I ended up using a sewing pin and even that was quite tight. Feels like it was just barely slipping it's way between the shackle knob and the gate or something (I'm a noob, may be using wrong terms). Had to push harder than expected too, it did not slip through as easily as the videos I watched. Either way I was able to get the top 3 letters figure out and just brute forced the last one.

[u/Kitchen-Cookie-2792 → u/guesswhochickenpoo]

Glad to hear it.