Canadian locksport supplier Sparrows makes some of the best advanced picks in the world, but they're also the rank beginner's best friend.
Sparrows sent me a set of their practice locks to play with. This is a set of four locks, with 2, 3, 4 and 5 pins, that you progress through as you practice different pick techniques. I kept them in my pockets over a week of intense travel with a lot of standing in line and attending meetings, and used them to keep my hands busy.
First I worked through the whole set with a rake, then a pick, and then a half-diamond. The locks stood up to my hamfisted clunking admirably, and were cheap enough ($30 for a set of four) that I didn't worry too much about all the times I dropped them. There's lots of practice-sets on the market, but as with everything from Sparrows, these were reliable, and thoughtfully well-made.
If you are looking to learn how to lock pick one of the methods to use is working with progressive locks. By Changing the number of pins that are inside a lock you can increase or decrease the difficulty to picking that lock. A two pin lock is much easier to pick than a five pin lock. A progressive lock set help you learn by providing locks that get progressively harder. This set includes a 2pin, 3 pin, 4 pin and 5 pin standard lock with Schlage Key way. Each lock is also laser engraved so that you can easily keep track of what pin configuration is inside. So you might ask why no 1 pin lock …. trust us you don't need it. Start at 2 pin.
