First lock picked so much I broke it...
Long time enthusiast from a distance, finally decided to bite the bullet and get the set of picks from CI. It arrived in the mail today and decided to celebrate by buying a cheap Masterlock knockoff from Walmart... a poor choice of locks to knock off, honestly. Lmao.
Unsurprisingly, as someone who's watched a lot of lockpicking content prior to getting into locksport, I had no trouble getting it open with every tool in the Genesis set. As seems to be tradition with these cheap laminated locks, it took longer to get out of the package than it did getting open with a tool. Raking, single-pin picking, zipping.
The tolerances on this lock were so bad I could swear that at least once or twice, it popped back open off of a single pin setting. However, once I looked at the key pinning, I laughed because I realized why sometimes it felt so easy. The pins are set almost perfectly aligned with a short hook so inserting it at the right angle LITERALLY acts like a key. Which I found hilarious.
Though what did come to a surprise is that I was playing with it, picking it over and over for about 3 hours before the core decided to turn... without the shackle opening. I hadn't even considered the fact that these locks are probably so cheap because of plastic internals that opening the lock about two hundred times was enough to kill the actuator. Oh well. A funny $5 toy at least.
Clearly I need to move beyond white belt locks pretty much immediately. If anyone has any advice on a fun, relatively cheap lock (IDEALLY WITH METAL INTERNALS SO IT DOESN'T BREAK AGAIN) that I can practice and play with, I'd be greatly appreciative!