Why is lock picking so much fun ? ? ?

Firstly there is nothing criminal about lockpicking, it is the same as someone crawling in a broken window; thats the unlawful part. That lack of permission, add to this all this knowledge is widely available in any public library, available online and is required learning by criminals in jail. Criminals in jail only have one thing to learn, how to become better criminals; what else would they do with their time, (they exercise a lot as well) . . .

Hello, ever wondered how to pick a lock ?

Firstly a word about the law in almost all locations it is lawful to pick a lock open if would otherwise be entitled to open that lock . . .

This has led to the LOCKsport rules such as

Never pick a lock you do not own,
Never pick a lock you rely upon,
Never pick a lock you do not have permission to use.

eg: lock picking can significantly damage locks, so practicing on your front door while legal would weaken your locks strengths over time. A landlord might own a lock but they would need the tenants permission before he chose to pick open his own lock.

In practice most pickers buy old or hardware style locks and just practice upon them, then they swap those different locks with friends for different practice, simply as long as you can clearly show you have a non criminal use for lockpicks the police should have little interest in you. As with everything lawyers need work so you should consult an attorney if you feel you need specific advice on the law, especially if you are currently out on parole etc . . .

There are hundreds of different styles of locks but for the average person we will consider the most averagely challenging, the type of lock on 95 % of house doors. Now to the funny thing about locks, locks are terribly made ( no offense America ) but American locks are among the worst security features in the United States. Let me explain please, basically any lock is designed to restrict entry to only those legally allowed access. So since most locks only really need to keep honest people out they tend to be very simplistic ! ! ! Remember a criminal will simply bypass the lock by entering through a weak window or by removing part of the roof. Since most locks are only there for insurance purposes they tend to be fairly easily defeated , but not by average people.

The average person know little or nothing of lockpicking so without such elementary knowledge a lock can do its protective job. Once any person understands how the lock is designed to work it is easy to work out ways to defeat it ; this skill cannot be prevented from criminals so no one tries to make locks stronger unless they have a specific reason. Locks are sold by price point, cheap hardware locks are almost useless; but high security locks are almost guaranteed to be invulnerable. However who wants to spend 6,000 dollars on their front door lock, especially when a determined person will simply find entry another way; via a window ? This is why physical locks are supplemented by electronic alarms and very scary people with guns or dogs, for example despite all this Fort Knox is still built with concrete walls six feet thick : )

So can you learn to pick a lock? well yes but it is a very hard learning curve and you will need tools , for fun i often make my own lockpicks out of paperclips. The idea is if I need a lock opened then I should be able to use readily available items. Paperclips while not ideal are everywhere so they are good to practice with. But let us talk about real lock picks. Simply put the fewer lock picks you have the better you can open locks ! ! ! There are different styles of lock picks for certain lock types but here we will speak of the pin cylinder lock.

Most people learn by using a practice lock that has six pin holes and removing five so only one pin is available to move. Using a tension wrench you softly turn the cylinder plug. If you try and turn it with any force it will just bind and jam the pins so the key is very slight almost no movement. Along the cylinder are pins that are of different lengths, these heights match up to the depth of the biting cutouts on the locks keyface. There is a tiny difference in the alignment of these holes so the lock picker simply tests each spring loaded pin to see which one wants to move first. Once the first pin is found ( it might be number four in the cylinder stack ) the lock picker then seeks the next weakest pin. Only by holding careful tension can some pins be kept released while other pins are attacked by manipulation; this is the skill and art of lockpicking.

So North America is not very interested in lock security and rely upon basic lock types for physical security, this makes them very fun to practice upon and learn how to defeat. In most other countries they take lock security far more seriously and it is no coincidence every year the worlds best professional lockpickers gather in Europe for locksport, yes it is a SPORT !!! The Europeans add in extra features such as weighted springs or mushroom pins etc. these make things near impossible, but we are not here to speak about magnets or sidebars, lets just open simple locks . . .

So let us again look at our tools, surprisingly the most important item is NOT the lockpick but the tension wrench ! ! ! It is vital the lock turner fits perfectly to allow the picker to hold the cylinder slightly turned. This is the KEY to lockpicking ! ! ! So now we know the most important tool, the tensioner ; let us consider the picks themselves. Part of picking is knowing which different style of pick works best against different types of locks. But most pickers use HOOKS, DIAMONDS, REACHERS, RAKES, and JIGGLERS. Now normally jigglers are used for car doors, but these jigglers are different; these are awesome especially for unskilled people.

Remember it takes hundreds of hours practice to get good at lock picking. But if you want to defeat most types of locks you must learn to master the art of SPP ; Single Pin Picking is the most time consuming and most reliable way to open some lock types. We will not talk about shims, bypasses, guns, or bumping. Let us keep it simple and show you some BOGOTAS ! ! ! Bogotas are called rakes but since they are so different I call Bogotas , jigglers ; they are amazing remember locks protect themselves by having springs to keep the pins in the locked position with Bogotas we aim to set up vibrations within these pin stacks so the pins jump up and down at random, slowly twisting the cylinder catches some different pins at the shear line. This is a skill to be learned and will only work on certain types of locks, the beauty is most of these locks are the very locks you will see in society everyday and that you will practice upon : )

However certain locks can never be opened with jigglers and that is why learning SPP is vital, however the reality is no matter how good you get there will always be locks you will never be able to defeat. Plus as mass manufacturing gets better locks will get stronger and harder to be defeated. So now the next method is raking this is a more methodical attack against the pin stacks. So RAKING is another good way for the amateur lockpicker to open a cylinder lock. The key is to softly and lightly slightly turn the cylinder with the tension wrench as you use the picks to move the pin stacks.

Most people buy simple practice locks that they can rearrange the internal lock pins to practice on. These they place in hand vices or on work benches for comfort reasons, remember you will spend hundreds of hours learning so being comfortable is nice ! ! ! The next thing is your fingers. Hold the tools lightly, you must just push or pull locks slightly because metal is flexible, yes you read correctly metal has slight gives in it prior to it locking tight. It is all these things people learn that combines the four human features of lockpicking, knowledge, skills, attitude and art ( art is your style as you choose methods to defeat each lock.

There are only about 6 things truly useful in this lockpicking kit and they are all those different tensioner wrenches in the middle, plus about 4 different picks, hook, diamond, rake and reacher; the rest you will almost never touch ! ! !

So here is a simple lockpicking guide book online , this guide is fairly well known. The other thing is the tensioners are the most important and even small kits have all the picks you will most likely ever need. Lock pick sets only need about 9 picks and larger sets are made only to increase sales ! ! ! Buying a lockpick set with 20 picks in it helps the seller make more profit and will make you a WORST picker. To many picks prevent pickers from getting fantastic with their few picks ! ! ! These are the picks you need for 95% of locks you will attack, Diamond, Half Diamond, Small Hook, Medium Hook, Rake (3 types), Reacher, Snake... And ; honestly do not buy a batarang ! ! ! yes honestly the batarang pick exists (remember Batman) , I think it was invented for marketing reasons, other picks are Bogotas jigglers and five very different styles of tension wrenches in different shapes and thicknesses . . .

http://www.gregmiller.net/locks/

http://www.gregmiller.net/locks/mitguide/

Thank you 123rf and Pixabar for the pictures...

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