Customer Reviews

Visual Guide to Lock Picking (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most lockpicking books throw around technical terms without explaining to the user what exactly they mean. Not so with "The Visual Guide to Lockpicking". Not only does the author explain what a "sheer line" is, he shows you with well-drawn illustrations and in-depth depictions.

Beginners will find this book to be an valuable, hands-on guide with plenty of information, but experts will benefit even more. The book will likely replace every reference on their desks with this slim, knowledge-packed title.

One of the very best books on lockpicking I have seen in some time. I recommend it to my customers every time they ask "What book should I buy to learn lockpicking?".

Every now and then i would become interested in lockpicking and buy a new book. Unfortunately they would all talk about some shear line and wards without really explaining what they are or where they are inside the lock. I struck gold with this book since their illustrations clearly show where everything is and how it works. For the first time i was actually able to visualize the parts of my lock move. I would actually close my eyes and think of whats going on inside the lock and feel slight movements inside it. I must complain though, this book left me yearning for more, now i can't wait for the second volume.

This isn't really a stand alone book. It would have been much better as part of another book such as "How To Open Locks With Improvised Tools"

The illustrations are good, but not that good and the text is lacking in depth.

It's certainly NOT worth $24.95. Get it from the library and use it as a reference while reading another book on locks.

This is a pretty good book. It isn't as thorough as the MIT guide to lock picking on the web, but the pictures are better. This is about on par with Steve Hampton's book on lock picking. They cover the same locks and the same techniques. This is a good first book to learn to pick locks with, but it is short, and it doesn't have many methods in it. I got "How To Open Locks With Improvised Tools" at the same time, and that has about 10 times more ways to open locks besides just picking them.

I recently purchased a copy of the book, Visual Guide to Lock Picking, by Mark McCloud. I've finally found a book I can use. It's easy to follow and written in "plain English." I've seen other material written on this subject, but nothing else has been so helpful and user friendly as this one. It's also nice to have illustrations to boost my confidence level that I'm doing things right. This book seems very complete - about the only thing missing from it is a little bit about the history of lock picking. Some information about the background would have been interesting.

The pictures are fantastic and the explanations are superb. It covers picking warded locks and making impressions for them, raking, picking and bypassing pin tumbler locks, impact and vibration picking (pin tumblers) and more (I didn't need the wafer lock bit so I didn't read that). It explains how the locks work internally and provides clear cut away drawings to illustrate. It explains the different kinds of tools you may need and how to use them, plus pros and cons of each. This is an excellent resource for picking locks. There is a section on how master keys work. Although I now understand the concept, I don't think I could just go out and make a master key - but I am pretty confident that I could pick it.

I first tried just borowing that mit guide from a friend. It was interesting reading, but kinda left me confused. So, I decided get some actual books including this Visual Guide. It was so refreshing to find one that so clearly explained everything to me. I had a lot of success at home, though havn't been able to do the advanced locks yet. Beginners should just start here and save yourself a lot of trouble. When it comes to lock picking, this book was really complete and I thought the illustrations helped everything make sense.

When I first received my copy I just buried it on my bookshelf, as it was more of a novelty item. However I was struck by the antique looking picture on the cover and started to flip through the pages. The artwork is very complimentary and helpful, especially compared to others documents I've read. The coil bound edition is especially helpful for keeping the book open handsfree while attempting the techniques described. I highly recommend that you also buy a lock picking set after reading the recommendations from this book! I was just itching to pick my house lock after reading, it sounded so easy ... and it was!

This book has visual helps, but you would expect more and better ones for the price. You can likely learn to pick locks, but the price is too high for the quality and number of the illustrations and the size of the book. Something more should have been included in the way of where the lock picks and other materials can be purchased. This small, expensive book was disappointing to me.

It's a very simple book and a short one too. Don't spect to learn a lot of thinks from this book. If you are only looking for an introduction in lock picking and how a lock works, then this book is fine for you. Maybe you can get a more complete book with no more money.