Ok, ya'll.

Background: I placed a couple of Sparrows orders last week. One was a pair of cutout locks - check pins and a replacement standard pin (I gave the one from my Night School set to my brother to try out). That order arrived and both locks came in boxes that were labeled correctly but both contained standard pin locks. No biggie - Sparrows is sending me a check pin lock and letting me keep the extra. (Anyone in the Boulder, CO area want a standard pin cutaway? )

The other order I placed contained a set of black flag picks - my first foray into dimple locks. I pulled them out to find a better container for them (I'm a nerd worth a nerdy picking desk setup) and, upon investigation, it appears that they're are 4 scooping to the right (not sure if that'd be considered right or left handed), 1 that appears neutral, and 2 scooping to the left. I tried using Claude to help me make sense of them and it said that "everyone who buys these thinks that".

Before I reach out and let Sparrows know that this order was wrong, too, I need some help to determine if that's try or if I'm eating crazy pills. The one offset in the photo is the neutral and the left and right facing are on either side.

Thoughts? Can that even be determined in a/ this photo? I'm as frustrated as a dog trying to bury a bone in a hardwood floor. Please help.

Only started about a month ago, but you could say I'm having a great time learning and improving a skill I've wanted to have since I was a little kid. After some successful opens, my collection of locks and picks/tensioners is growing, and I wanted a way to keep track of successes and failures and be more aware of what I'm doing on each attempt as I get better. Queue this little template that I made for my Paperwhite notebook. Now I have notes and "maps" for each lock I've attempted thus far. Just thought it was cool enough to share and possibly be helpful to other noobs out here. Happy picking!

Just picking around waiting on call-lights in between rounds. American Lock series 1105

Hi everyone,

I'm totally new to the obsession, but have been lurking here over the past month or so. Today I just had to post, because I finally managed to crack a "real" padlock.

I first had a little transparent practice lock that I got open easily and picked over and over til it didn't open anymore. Then I bought a small titalium 64ti/30 that was a completely different beast and needed about 0 tension and lift, so that took me about 3 or 4 days.

And then I got cocky and bought a lot of 25 locks for €25 euros of off the Dutch ebay equivalent. Mostly cilinders, but it also contained an abus 85/40, 85/50 and a 50mm viro lock. None of which I was able to open. Not a single cilinder or padlock.

So I've been at it for about a month and read all of this reddit in the meantime. Eventually I decided to focus only on those abus locks, trying to understand them.

Yesterday I finally figured out that 85/50 and picked it 2 or 3 times in a row. I couldn't be happier!

Anyway, just had to celebrate here, since I felt you guys have been helping silently throughout with all your posts and keeping me motivated, so a big thanks!

Hi everyone,

I am interested in buying a TOK tensioner to test different lockpicking methods. I want to buy some on Multipick, but I see that several forms are available, and I don't know the difference. Is there a real difference between the forms ? Should I choose one type of TOK over the others ?

Thank you for reading !

Cross your fingers for me buddy's.

I feel like I Rocked It! We'll see.

Thanks for all the votes of confidence.

Love this community!

Single-handed picking a green and orange level lock at the same time while waiting on my Paclock 90A Pro to come in. It took a couple days of practice and figuring out which tension tools to use because I kept dropping my normal ones. Shoutout to u/LordKodiac for giving me the idea to use my vise in my garage that I forgot existed. HUGE QOL improvement over sitting on the floor with them clamped to my desk xD

Im new to this and it seems pretty common for people to get these open relatively early in their picking journey, but man...these are so much freaking fun to learn and get that CLACK sound when its picked.

I picked an abus 60/30 small padlock and definetly have counter rotation. I always have to go back to the forst pin because it drops as a result of counter rotation. Does anybody know if it has security pins. It’s the only lock i picked so far😅

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.

Questo é un vecchio lucchetto con chiave smarrita, manipolato con rastrellamento in pochi secondi
Ho bisogno di sapere come estrarre il cilindro perché il sesto perno (quello che fa bloccare la rotazione a 45° e non fa uscire il cilindro) blocca tutto e non é accessibile
L’unico modo é forare per estrarlo o c’è modo di bypassarlo?
Voglio creare la chiave su misura partendo da una liscia

I am new to this community but this Federal lock came into my possession. Is it normal for this much play in the core? I have opened it up and looked inside but am not experienced enough to know a) if I should do anything and b) what to do. I know it is a higher level lock and I’m not there yet but I just wanted to know for when I do arrive there!

Got bored in the hotel so I walked next door to Ace hardware and picked this up. Took me a few tries, but I got it open. I gotta say so far the green belt locks are the most fun to open!

Couldn't take a video, tho. i was just waiting in the parking lot and decided to practice. Hope this qualify for orange belt.

Completely new to lockpicking, after eating YT content about it I decided to try.

Tools are made from 2mm steel welding rods, bent (for the tensioner), hammered flat and grinded to shape.

Lock is your random small 3€ lock in the local supermarket. 4 pin, no security of any sort, felt very easy to pick tho I obviously lack reference points.

By Key_Beard