• Best Lock Pick Set
• Lock Pick Set Amazon
• Best Lock Pick Sets

Southord picks are also good beginner picks, a little more expensive, but still pretty cheap. THIS is the set you should get if you want Southord picks. HPC picks are next. Most professional locksmiths use HPC picks. They are relatively cheap and pretty good quality. THIS is the HPC set of choice for beginners. While this guide has been more geared towards what lock pick set to buy, and where to get some of your first practice locks, you may also be curious about how to actually get started lock picking. This YouTube series by Schuyler Towne is probably the best place for a beginner to start. Click here to watch it.

I constantly see people posting wondering where to start, well here ya go, a defacto guide to getting into lock picking.

Lock Picks

A question constantly asked is 'What is a good 'Beginner Kit' for lock picks?'

Personally, avoid prefab kits, as they contain a lot of useless picks (or very small scope of use). Start off with a couple of good quality hooks. I have tried several brands of picks and find that for mainstream brands, the best I've found is Peterson:

There government steel picks are nice and do a great job for the price, but when starting out, go for either carbon steel or spring steel.

• Long Reach Hook - $2.75

• Hook 1 - $4.25

• Peterson Gem - $2.65

• Hook 1 DCAP - $2.75

• Lifter Pick 1 - $2.75

For a really budget conscious picker, go with KLOM picks (10 pack of various hooks). They are extremely cheap, $5 for a set which I would say, for the price point, makes them disposable picks.

A lot of people suggest the PXS-14 set from SouthOrd, but, I find that it is overpriced for what you are getting. It comes with the following:

• Ball pick - good for wafer locks; rarely used, especially for beginners

• Half Ball pick - like a worn down half diamond pick; pointless

• Batarang Rake - poor design, very common to break

• Key Extractor - commonly mistaken for a half diamond, it is not a pick

• City Rake - you may have some luck, but, you aren't really picking at that point

• S-Rake (Snake Pick) - Somewhat useful for raking, takes some technique to get used to it

• Half Diamond - Good concept, but the diamond is too large to be useful for many locks (e.g. padlocks)

• Short Hook - Good pick, quiet useful.

• Several Tensioners - All useful, but similar widths limits usage for smaller/restricted keyways

So, for what I would consider 3 picks and 4 tension wrenches, $27 is just too high of a price tag when you can get individual picks for much cheaper.

DIY Lock Picks

Now if you are good at crafting things and want to make your own picks, it can lead to damn good results. Some of my best picks are ones that I've made myself.

The go to for most people with making your own picks is to use hacksaw blades. Personally, I find that they are extremely brittle, leave rough edges, and depending on what brand you get, could have a coating of paint on the blade that does not work well when forming the pick or sanding it down.

What I would recommend is going to your local hardware supply store and invest in a 20' roll of 1/4' Flat Sewer Rod. If you go to lowes, the item number is 24641. The current price locally is $7 which can easily yield 30-50 picks.

If you want to be more precise with your DIY picks, you may want to go with scientific feeler guages, such as Starrett Steel Thickness Feeler Gage (Amazonsupply.com). A good thickness for lock picks is 0.013'-0.18'. This will vary in price, from $1.84-$3.87 each and are 1/2' wide, so you will need to to remove more material to make your pick.

Now that you have your material, how do you go about removing the material?

There are several ways of going about this:

• Dremel with the following attachments: ** 9901 Tungsten Carbide Cutter - for intricate shaping ** EZ406 Metal Cutoff Wheel (EZ Lock is your friend) - for bulk removal/rough cuts ** TR470 Sanding bands (or similar) - for smoothing out the shaft and adding curves hooks ** Avoid stone bits as they get destroyed by the hard metal

• Belt Sander

• Grinding wheel

• Hand Files

Templates

Okay, so you have the metal, you have the tools, now what the heck are you going to cut? There are a few good techniques for making the design of lock picks:

• Print templates with laser printer and transfer to metal (amazing guide can be found here: http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?t=18714)

• Print and cut out templates and trace on paper (I've had very little success with)

• Trace out picks you have onto metal to make duplicates

• Free hand designs with sharpie (If you don't like the design, rubbing alcohol will erase it)

Here are a few good sources of lock pick templates:

Tension Wrenches (Torsion Wrenches)

Now on to tension wrenches, the second half of the picking combination. If you want to get some professionally made wrenches, again, Peterson wins in my book.

I have grown to love my Peterson Pry Bar ($8.00) http://www.thinkpeterson.com/tensiontools.html

However, you can go a much cheaper route. I have found that the best tension wrenches are made from either the underwire from a bra or windshield wiper blade inserts. You can either change your current wiper blades and use the old ones, or go to your local auto parts store and check the garbage cans or even go inside and talk to the store manager to see if they would be willing to keep them for you. So, how do you go from wiper to wrench, well, here is a great guide that just requires a pair of plyers and some elbow grease.

Where to buy Locks

Okay, now that you have your tools of the trade, what's next? Well, we need to get our hands on some locks to use our fancy new picks with, but which ones? You could go to home depot and buy up all of the padlocks they have on the shelves, but most of them are practically the same lock. What you want to do is get a variety of different locks from different manufacturers.

Here is where I would recommend looking for very inexpensive locks:

• Craigslist - You may get lucky and find a locksmith going out of business

• Local Locksmith - Talk to them about getting cheap or scrap locks, you may be able to get them for cost of scrap, so pounds of locks for a couple of bucks

• Local scrap yard - Get down and dirty and you may find that pot of gold

• Lockpicking Forums: http://www.lockpicking101.com and http://www.keypicking.com are the best sites to learn about all things locks and they both have great Buy, Sell, Trade sections with a lot of cheap locks. Additionally, participate in the chat of keypicking.com to get to know some great people while you're there.

• Home Depot/Lowes - Retail prices for lower quality locks. You will find locks like Master, Kwikset, & Schlage here, but you will normally pay full price for them (save as a last resort)

• Walmart - They normally have a good selection of residential locks for cheaper than hardware stores with a decent range of locks, from cheap defiant to decent quality brinks locks.

• Habitat for Humanities: ReStore - They have great deals on all types of construction hardware, including locks.

• Local Thrift stores - You may have luck finding some locks at your local thrift shops, like salvation army or goodwill.

• Ebay - You can get good deals on 'lots' of locks (e.g. Lot of 25 assorted locks)

Best Lock Pick Set

Here are some good ebay search terms:

Lock Pick Set Amazon

• lock cylinder lot

• No key padlock lot

• Browse the category: Business & Industrial =>MRO & Industrial Supply=>Safety & Security=>Locks, Safes & Locksmith Gear

What kind of Locks to buy?

Now that you know where to get them, what should you get?

As I've said before, variety is the spice of life. A good assortment will give you a feel for how different lock times are, e.g. tolerances, spring tensions, keyways, etc. Personally, a good starter collection should include:

• 1-2 regular Master Padlocks

• 1 Magnum Master Lock (has a boron carbide shackle)

• 1 Brinks padlock (uses security pins, for more advanced picking)

• 1-3 American padlocks (uses different security pins, fun for advanced picking)

• 1 Commando padlock (newer company, quality build)

• 1-3 Schlage & Kwikset locks (door or deadbolt)

• Variety of other lock cylinders, including:

• Corbin Ruswin

• Abus

• Sargent

• Yale

• Weiser

Note: Mortise and RIM are both varying form factors of lock cylinders (mainly used for commercial buildings) and have the same mechanics as regular lock cylinders, deadbolts, doors, and padlocks.

If you get a cutaway lock, use it to understand the mechanics of how locks work or to do a demonstration, but not to practice picking, as you won't get proper feedback of a real lock.

For more expensive & secure locks, I would recommend the following:

• SFIC or LFIC locks (Best locks) - Very secure locks, dual sheer lines, very difficult to pick

• Medeco (Classic, Biaxial, M3) - Great high security locks, very difficult to pick

• Schlage Primus - Another good high security lock

• Assa Abloy Protec - Probably the best high security lock on the market, no means of non-destructive entry, minimal ways of key duplication.

Best Lock Pick Sets

How To Pick Locks

There are many avenues to learn how to pick locks, here are a few that I would recommend:

• Great intro to lock picking: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL66CD42F86F3A1F85

• MIT Guide to Lock Picking - Lysator (Google is your friend)

• Deviant Ollam - Distinguishing Picks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e07VRxJ01Fs

• Deviant Ollam - The Four Types of Locks http://vimeo.com/31179906

• Deviant Ollam - Lockpicking & Physical Security http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JupQ3BpKGYg

• Realistically, all of Deviant Ollams videos - http://deviating.net/lockpicking/videos.html

• Datagram - Intro to Lockpicking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZtOiWjIuwM

• Practical Lock Picking: A Physical Penetration Tester's Training Guide - Deviant Ollam

• Lockpicking Detail Overkill - Solomon (Google is your friend)

I know that there were a couple of videos from Schuyler Towne, who has a bad rep in the lock picking community, but his videos are great and he does know what he is talking about, despite the whole kickstarter debacle

Hope that this can help out some people. Let me know what you guys think.