Anyone here ever tried to pick a lock?

I was a locksmith for a couple of years, so yeah, I’ve done it a few times.

Lockpicking is one of those things that’s equal parts skill, art, and luck. It’s not really a reliable way to open a lock; we were taught to only try picking for 5 minutes, tops. If you can’t get it by then, do something else. Any longer than that, it starts to look like you’re either wasting time or you don’t know what you’re doing.

Some locks just won’t pick. I never found the unpickable ones to reliably be old or new, one brand or another. All locks wear and tear uniquely, and lockpicking itself largely depends on machining imprecision to work.

Lockpicking was actually mostly just a thing we did at the shop for fun. Most lockouts we didn’t even bother trying to pick. Most people just wanted in, and they were already on the hook for an hour’s time the moment we were dispatched so we’d first make sure they were okay with buying a new lock, then we’d drill and replace, rekeying to the old lock if they wanted (most did).

A couple of years back, me and some buddies went to a “lockpicking party” in Manhattan. It was literally a bunch of Millennial and GenX hipsters drinking and learning to pick tumbler locks. They even gave out free lockpick kits.

when I was a kid I made some picks and used them on locked bikes at school and switched them around. Probably would have been funnier if they weren’t identical types of locks. Not sure if anyone figured it out. It was about the same time I knocked some teeth out during a bike accident so Karma caught up with me.