How do you pick a lock successfully?

You want to just lightly tap the controls for rotating it and move the bobby pin from spot to spot till you find the spot that allows for the lock to turn from there once it turns a little move the bobby pin a bit more and keep trying to turn the lock lightly of course until you get to the spot that unlocks it. The best explanation would be a video such as this one.

If you look carefully at the lock, there are lots of "landmarks."

So start in the middle and if it doesn't turn, then half-way clockwise/halfway counter-clockwise until the lock starts to turn. Once you see the lock turn a little you are "close."

From then on, make a note of where the edge of the bobby pin is in relation to any markings on the lock. If you still haven't got it, reposition the bobby pin a little in either direction from the marking and try again.

For Novice locks, you can move the bobby pin more freely between tries, but for the harder locks, the marking positions are more important

DCShannon has a good and thorough procedure, but it seems to understate some of the opportunities for optimization.

Firstly, once you've found a point that moves at all (well, more than just a teeny-tiny jiggle) you need to stop swinging all over the lock's face. You've found a good starting point. No matter how little it moves, you shouldn't go too far away from it for your next check.

Secondly, every point that you check afterwards is telling you something. You don't need to test two more points every time (not even nearly most of the time) to figure out where to go. If a spot moves further than the spot before it did, you're probably headed in the right direction - go just a few degrees further in the same direction and try again. Rinse and repeat until you either unlock the thing or you find a spot that moves less than the one before it.

If you find a spot that moves less than the spot before it, then one of two things happened:

• You went in the wrong direction.
• You went too far in the right direction.

It's hard to give guidance for this that will be both efficient and universally applicable. But keep in mind what I said earlier - every point you check is telling you something. Consider how the lock has responded thus far, and you should be able to logically conclude what the appropriate course is for now. In any case, you definitely need to reverse direction. The question you'll need to work out for yourself is just how far. Work in small increments at this stage, and the lock will tell you soon enough.

As for where to start the whole process, I find the following points (in this order) tend to be the most productive:

1. Part-way left, more or less in line with the "X".
2. Part-way right, about the same distance from center as point 1.
3. Dead-center. (You'd think this should logically be first, but I find the other two points more commonly yield results.)
4. Full-left, or very close to it.
5. Full-right, or very close to it.

Nine times out of ten, one of those points will respond favorably to some degree - usually, it's one of the first three. On the off chance they don't, just start poking around in between them until something does.