Picking a Practice Lock in Slow Motion

03 Apr 2016

Some time ago I recorded a slow motion clip of myself picking a cut-away lock. This kind of lock is used for lock picking practice, as it lets you see the pins and springs that make the lock work.

In this clip we can see the racking method. Racking a lock is the Rambo approach to non-destructive lock picking: You jam a racking pick into the lock (half diamond, snowman, saw… Pretty much any pick but a hook) and move it around; you play with the force applied in the tension wrench until all the pins lock in place.

This technique works beautifully here because we don’t have any security pins in the lock. Security pins usually require a more precise approach and need to be carefully picked pin by pin.

Slow motion

Regular speed

This is the same video at real time speed. As you can see, the whole process is pretty quick.

Explaining the video

Too much pressure in the tension wrench caused the first pin to overset (the lower part of the first pin got stuck between the cilinder -the piece that turns when the lock is opened- and the case).

After reducing the force applied in the wrench we can see the pin drop and lock into position. The lock is now ready to be opened.