Learn to pick a lock by following these few and easy steps

As a prepper or a survivalist, you should know that some skills that seem useless nowadays may save your life in the future. Among these skills, one seems undervalued in today’s society: the art of lock picking. In these few and easy to remember steps, you can learn to pick a lock.

Lock picking has a bad reputation because it’s associated with thieves and other criminals. Knowing that the goal of lock picking is to open a door or a lock without keys, you may ask yourself why would you need to learn to pick a lock if not for malicious acts.

The fact is that most people learn it for two main reasons, some of them learn it as a game and see the locks as challenges, others learn lock picking to have a better understanding of locks mechanism and therefore developing a better insight on the security of their goods and personal interests.

So what can lock picking give you? Here are the answers…

When we start understanding the basics of lock picking, we see quickly that locks are just an illusion. Locks promises security while they provide really small protection when they face an individual with a little knowledge of lock picking.

By learning yourself how locks work, you will have a higher sight on your personal security, which will help you develop it.

Sun Tzu says in his famous book “the art of war”: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not to fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”.

In your daily life or in an emergency situation, you will never have enough information on the people who want to harm you and their skills.

Ignoring their techniques put you in a big disadvantage compared to them, while giving it a try will help you discover your weak points and reinforce them.

In an emergency situation, you have to be discreet and sneaky, that’s one of the big advantages of lock picking. It will help in various situations like when you need to go into a building without being noticed.

Picking a lock is better than destroying it, you can then use it again later.

For example, you can pick the lock of a room you want to use as a shelter, so you can close it again to keep yourself safe, that’s better than destroying the door.

Some firearms are also protected with an integrated lock, in this kind of situation, you don’t want to destroy the lock and the material you need with it.

A lock is composed of 5 to 6 pins. In order to open the lock, you simply have to align the junctions between the pins with the edge of the cylinder.

In reality, lock picking uses a weakness in the locks, the weakness exists because, for standard models,  it’s impossible to create in an industrial way 5 perfectly aligned pins.

The following diagram, which is a representation seen under the cylinder, shows the positioning of the pins in the cylinder.

To pick a lock, you will need a tension tool or a wrench tool and a hook to reproduce the rotating movement of the key in the lock, this will let you push the pins one by one, a complete lock pick set will provide you with all the tools you need.

While pushing the right pins, you will gradually feel the cylinder slowly rotating, that’s the sign that you found the right depth for the first pin. Keep going to the following 4. Nothing is better than a video to show the process.

Note that every time a pin is found, the finger pushing on the wrench tool move down lightly, the lock then opens pin by pin.

All the doors can’t be broken, all the locks can’t be forced. In an urban environment, you will likely need to go to closed places that are protected by reinforcing doors without having the keys.

These places can hide food, medicines, firearms or simply a shelter. What a waste to not have the necessary skills to go there. It’s easier to keep a lock picking kit with you than a big stove.

This is like a magic wand that gives you a bigger advantage in your urban environment.