How to Pick a Lock - Guide

When we talk about picking locks, tumbler pin locks (the most common type of deadbolt lock) immediately spring to mind. While it isn't crucial that you understand how they work in order to effectively use a lock pick, it can be very helpful to visualize and understand what's going on.

Additionally, having a knowledge of how locks work will make you look much smarter and honest about your pursuit of knowledge should you get caught picking the lock to your own door. You'll be much more convincing if you can explain that this is an educational project of yours or that you've learned how to do this because you're constantly locking yourself out of your room.

A modern lock employs a series of pins that vary in length. Each of these pins, if raised just enough (but not too far) will move out of the way and allow you to turn the key and unlock or lock the deadbolt. When you use a key, notice that you're not just turning the key. You're rotating the entire cylinder around the key. Your object when picking a lock is to lift all five pins to just the right height which will allow you to rotate that cylinder.

There are two essential tools when picking a lock. You've got one tool that turns the cylinder and a second tool that pushes the pins.

The cylinder-turner is called a torsion wrench or a torque wrench. It is L shaped like an allen wrench but at least one end will be flattened so that it can fit into the bottom of the keyhole easily. When you've put the torque wrench into the keyhole, the part sticking out acts as a lever. If you apply a very small amount of pressure to that lever while the pins are out of the way, it will turn the whole cylinder just like the key would. While picking the lock, you want to apply constant (tiny) pressure to the torque wrench. It might take you a few tries to get the feel for how much pressure to put on the lock but practice makes perfect.

The pin-pusher is called the pick. Picks come in a lot of shapes and sizes which each lend themselves to different lock designs, but you can pick a very large number of locks with the most basic tool. The important thing is that it has to be long enough to reach the back pin and thin enough to fit into the keyhole.

Lock picking takes advantage of the fact that physical reality is never as perfect as a diagram or concept. Diagrams will draw pins to show that they all line up perfectly, but the reality is that one pin will be a micrometer slimmer than the pin before it and a pikameter wider than the fourth pin, for example. Pins are rarely the same exact size. If you put just enough pressure on the torsion wrench, one pin will be blocking you (the widest pin) while the other four just wait a micron away.

With a pick, you can gently tap that one pin upward until it is exactly as high as it needs to go. Because you're applying pressure to the torque wrench, the pin will make a very soft click as it slides out of the way and the cylinder will rotate a tiny amount (often imperceivable). Now the next widest pin is blocking you and you can push it out of the way. You do this for each pin and you will find that all the pins are raised and the cylinder is turning at the gentle push of your torque wrench.

This is how it works in theory, and hook picks are great for pushing pins up individually. However, you can't always spend thirty minutes pushing up pins with minute finger movements. Some picks like diamond picks are designed for raking. Raking is when you drag the pick across all the pins back and forth and just sort of jostle them until they all get knocked up. It's the same as individually lifting them since only the next one ready to go will go up, except it can take far less time because it's more of a fluid motion.

Remember when I told you that tumbler locks have a line of pins in them? This is a simplifaction. They actually have a line of pin stacks. Each pin stack has a bottom pin and a top pin (a key pin and a driver pin, respectively). The key pins touch the key that is entered into the keyhole. The driver pins are being pushed down by weak springs.

Putting the correct key in the hole lifts each pin stack so that the divide between the driver and key pins is exactly where it needs to be for each pin and these are typically at the same level so that the top of all the key pins is the same and the bottom of each driver pin is the same.

Bump keys are basically filed down keys with minimal teeth. If a bump key fits in a lock, it touches the key pins but fails to lift them to the height where they all need to be. To use a bump key, you put the filed down key in almost all the way, insert a torque wrench and, while applying minimal pressure to the torque wrench, give the key a short, sharp thwack into the lock. The key moves forward and each tooth on the key will strike a key pin. The key pin will shoot upward and transfer its upward energy to the driver pin enough to push it against the spring. In that split second, the cylinder will turn because the key pins are really low but the driver pins are very high.

Masterlocks are those small combination locks that tons of people use for their lockers. Here's some information and some videos that show how you can open them specifically.

Shim - You can make a shim out of a thin piece of metal or plastic (like if you cut a little piece of soda can metal. I'm not sure why they work, but you just wrap a thin sheet of metal around the inside of the lock and push it down firmly. I guess this is the same principle that allows you to credit card a non-dead bolt lock.

Refer to the YouTube videos for details on construction and use.

Cracking - There are ways to narrow down the possible number of combinations to your typical locker lock or materlock. This isn't perfect, but with a tiny bit of math you can crack a masterlock in 10 to 20 minutes. This is exceptionally useful if you find an old lock that you want to use since you can figure out the combination and not have to buy a new one.

Picking - I've never done it, but you can apparently pick a masterlock the same way you pick any tumbler pin lock since they've got a traditional keyhole.

Car doors used to be pretty simple. You could jimmy open a door lock with a slim jim or lockout tool and Triple A's people still drive around with them to let people back into their cars. But a lot of cardoors now include redundancies to prevent this easy access. A slim jim is really just a thin metal bar that reaches into the crack between your window and the car door and hooks the latch between the doorkey and the lock. It bypasses the whole pin system and goes straight to moving the deadbolt with lateral force.

A lot of videos online show fraudulent keyless entry techniques. Never forget movie magic when looking for advice online. Also: people can just lie. Take the video that floated around the web showing how to open a car doorlock using only a tennis ball with a small puncture. This is totally impossible, but people will fall for anything if they think they've seen it with their own eyes.

It really depends on where you are! Some countries have criminalized the mere possession of lock picking tools while other countries have no legislation at all. Many places rule that possession of lock picking tools must be paired with a proven intent to commit a crime before an arrest can be made or a robbery sentence passed.

The link to the right details the laws in each of the 50 states of the USA. It should be noted that carrying tools is criminalized in Washington DC law.

In the UK an officer with reasonable cause can find a citizen in offence of "going equipped". Some other EU countries have no laws governing these tools at all.

Many times, the law is busy catching up to current trends. For example, bump keys are still not criminalized in many of the places that have passed laws against carrying lock picking tools without locksmith licensing.