Lock Picking and Lock Bumping News — locksmith

As the country's largest lock pick supplier, we get a lot of questions about Locksmithing - How do I become a Locksmith? How much should a Locksmith cost? Well, I thought I'd ask someone who knows - a professional locksmith with nearly two decades in the game.

Hello Lock Pickers

One of the most common emails I receive (apart from the endless 'Thank you for a great service and super-dooper, ultra-discount lock pick' ones, of course) is one of the many variations on the 'Will these picks open this lock?', accompanied by a blurry picture of an old rim-cylinder, padlock, bike lock, or tubular lock on an old safe. This email - if you know anything about lock picking is as simple as it is complicated to answer. For instance, were it a 6 pin cylinder, generic keyway, then yes, sure, a set of rakes, a pick gun, a pick set - even Mica - can open that lock. But it depends on a lot of things out of my control. What condition is the lock? Is it full of sand (locksmiths who live in hot countries by the beach - even cold countries near the beach - will know the amount of trouble sand can cause locks), is it full of bent and/or damaged pins where you (or someone) has tried to force it, snap it, drill it, etc. Without knowing the state of the lock I don't really know what will certainly work on it, and I never could. Assuming the lock is in perfect working order, what are your abilities as a lock picker? You may have bumped a couple of locks, you may have had a few lucky rakes (and as much as I love raking, isn't all raking a little bit lucky? That's the beauty of it, surely?). In many walks of life a small amount of success can give us a false sense of our own abilities, and then, faced with a new lock, you think 'I can do that!', I'll just send a photo to the nice people at UK Bump Keys and they'll send me the CORRECT lock smith tools.