Locks

This is an unfinished post that will receive additional content and editing in the future.

Overview

I’m in the process of migrating old content onto this blog. Ultimately, I would like this post to catalog all of my coolest locks, with nice pictures and relevant details.

However for now, I’ve been coming across some historic posts about locks, and as I find them, I will add them to this page. I haven’t chosen these specific locks for any particular reason, other than that past Carson uploaded an album of them to imgur.

Split Key DOM ix 10 KG

This is a high security lock from German manufacturer DOM. Han Fey has an excellent write up on this lock which is well worth the read.

My lock in particular is special by virtue of its split key. The idea is they cut the key in half, and split them between two individuals. This way, both individuals must be present to open the lock.

four DOMs, all picked

For a while this was one of my favorite locks to pick, and I temporarily had quite a few examples in my collection.

This DOM was loaned to me by priest144, and I have a very illustrative video of me picking it immediately after unboxing it. This was a pretty cool moment for me, because often you have to try many, many times to pick a lock, and only the best attempt makes it to video.

Here is a video of me picking it. Nov 29, 2019.

There’s also an additional video I made which explains a unique feature of Priest’s lock.

this DOM was loaned to me by Idfaskpure

click the picture to enlarge it

Here’s another DOM, loaned to me by Idfaskpure. Unlike the example from priest144, this one is lacking an interactive element.

Here’s a video of me picking it. Dec 5, 2019.

Here’s an early video of a poor pick of one of my personal DOMs. It’s not a very effective pick, but contrasting it with my picking of priest144’s DOM, you can see how much I improved in technique over time. Nov 23, 2019

Mul-T-Lock Jr

picked on Nov 10, 2019

telescoping pins

Mul-T-Locks are a ton of fun to pick; I used to spend hours picking mine over and over while watching TV. They are made in Israel and feature an interesting pin-in-pin dimple key mechanism.

Sargent Signature

Sargent Signature and Mul-T-Lock Jr, picked with a Peterson Gem in 0.018 and a Multipick Elite G-Pro-10 using a Multipick BMS-08 and Sparrows Flatbar 0.040

gutted Sargent Signature, picked on Nov 10, 2019

The Sargent Signature was the very first high security lock I ever owned, dating back to around 2012. They were used on campus and we were able to get a couple of examples.

An interesting quote from when I first picked my Sargent “Wow. So last night I was practicing on a Mul-T-Lock Jr with only 4/10 pins and decided to try my second cylinder with all 10 pins. I picked it once and couldn’t believe it. This morning I got a video of a pick and gut, and immediately went to see what other purple locks I had.

I started recording a video of me trying to pick a Sargent Signature, and I got it on the second take! About 20 minutes of practice before getting a pick and gut. My pinning tray was still filled with the Mul-T-Lock, so the gutting was more of a controlled dump.. It had a pretty odd double spring, first time I’ve seen that in a commercial lock.”

I recorded this video which shows some of the internals of the Signature.