Practice Locks Stay legal you dorks

Absolute Beginner

A good place to start are the super cheep, transparent plastic locks. Keep in mind these are extremely easy. You will pick them in seconds and get a great confidence boost, but they won’t really help you improve.

• JAPI Set - a set of cheep picks, crappy tension tools, and plastic lock
• 6 Piece Set - 6 locks in different form factor practice, includes 2 dimple locks

You will feel like a super hero, but get bored with these within 20 minutes.

Next Step

Once you get bored with the toy locks, try these training sets for intermediate lock pickers:

• Sparrow Cutaway Lock - a schlage style lock with standard pins
• Sparrow Progressive Set - 5 identical schlage locks, with progressively more standard pins
• Sparrow Spool Pin Cutaway - fantastic introduction to security spools
• Sparrow Serrated Pin Cutaway - cut away lock with nasty serrated pins

The last two items on the list are a must have if you want to fully understand counter-rotation.

IRL Locks

Some real life locks to use for practice:

• Master Lock #3 - easy, sticky and greasy 4 pin garbage
• Master Lock #7 - same as above, but tiny AF, to practice working in tight spaces
• Master Lock 140 - tackle spools IRL, master that counter-rotation
• ABUS 64TI/50 - yale style keyway with warding, lots of spools
• American Lock 1100 - dark souls of lockpicking, spools, serrated pins, dead core, you will cry