June 20, 2025 • 61 mins
Imagine having a skill that weighs nothing, costs little to learn, and could provide access when you need it most. Pat from Uncensored Tactical reveals the fascinating world of tactical lock picking—a discipline that's simultaneously practical, accessible, and surprisingly ethical.
With over a decade of law enforcement and Coast Guard experience, Pat has developed a curriculum that transforms this niche expertise into an invaluable tool for everyone from soccer moms to special forces operators. "The amount of time it takes to learn: very small. The amount of money to get involved: very small. The weight and price of tools: very small. But what they open: very big."
During this eye-opening conversation, Pat demonstrates how complete beginners can successfully pick their first lock within minutes using just two simple tools. But this skill set goes far beyond tools and techniques—it's about developing a strategic mindset that enhances problem-solving capabilities in unpredictable situations. Unlike linear skills such as marksmanship, lock picking requires you to make a machine accept an input it wasn't designed for, creating a unique cognitive challenge.
Addressing common misconceptions head-on, Pat explains why teaching tactical lock picking doesn't enable criminals (who overwhelmingly prefer breaking windows or kicking doors) and how understanding lock vulnerabilities actually leads to smarter security decisions. As he puts it, "Three-inch screws in your door frame are probably a better investment" than exotic locks for most homeowners.
The conversation explores the differences between hobby lock sport, locksmithing, penetration testing, and tactical applications, highlighting why Pat's approach—which combines practical techniques with operational decision-making—has attracted clients ranging from local law enforcement to international special forces units. Whether you're interested in self-reliance, professional development, or simply fascinated by physical security, this episode offers rare insights into a skill that combines immediate utility with endless depth.
Ready to develop skills that could save the day when traditional options fail? Listen now and discover why tactical lock picking might be the most practical security training you've never considered.
Find out more about Big Tex Ordnance at bigtexordnance.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I now teach a curriculum that didn't exist
before, but it's incrediblyunique and powerful and useful.
Whether you're a soccer mom orwhether you're in a first
responder or special forces, weteach people how to get through
locked obstacles in a very fastand efficient manner.
The stats here are so powerfulthat the amount of time it takes
to learn very small, the amountof money it takes to get
(00:21):
involved very small, the weightand the price of the tools to
put in your pocket very small,but what they open very big.
I found this kind of diamond inthe rough of something that's
just so hard to say no to it.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to the Big Tech's Ordinance Podcast.
I'm Ike, we have Tara as ourco-host and our guest today is
Pat from is it UncensoredTactical?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Uncensored Tactical.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Perfect.
So if you want to kind of tellus a little bit about yourself
and kind of what you do and howyou ended up there, and then
we'll, I guess, go from there,sure.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So there's like an eight-hour long story and
there's like a 30-second version.
So we'll start with the shortone.
So we'll start with the shortone.
I was in law enforcement forover a decade.
I did international operationswith the Coast Guard for, I
think, 10, 11 years-ish.
Oh wow, I also did some time asa local patrol officer in the
state of Florida.
So I did both those jobs and Ijust found, you know what.
(01:21):
I had this story on my brainyesterday.
I'm going to tell it becauseit's part of that.
It's attached to my history.
(01:45):
So I first got into the CoastGuard and I'm sure anyone that's
ever attended any type ofgovernment or bureaucratic
training.
You finish the training and theinstructor goes here's your
printed printer sheet stapledtogether, packet of the slides.
It's in black and white.
You can keep that.
There you go and everyone'slike okay, I get it Cool, better
than nothing.
And a lot of those will saylike there's a bunch of arrows
pointing to an image and thearrow says, if this wire is red
and everything's gray, thatdoesn't help me.
So, coast Guard, the same thing.
I got to a ship and it was likelearning a whole new language.
We're out in the middle of theocean and I had to get qualified
very quickly in order to beuseful to the crew.
So I needed to be able to standwatch by myself.
(02:07):
So I had to learn what's themasthead light color and what's
the port side and starboard siderunning light colors and you
know how many of them can therebe and what if there's two of
them.
And we had this packet that wasblack and white and there were
arrows saying red, green, butthey were just white circles in
a black field.
I'm like this is incredible.
(02:29):
So I went out and got ahighlighter and colored in the
colors as best I could and Imade it.
I got qualified and then we gota new batch of people on the
next deployment and I said youknow what?
I'm going to help these kidsout.
So I went into the computerroom and I pulled up their PDF
and I replaced their image withan updated image with colors in
it, old MS paint, and I printedout the sheets myself and
(02:51):
stapled them together myself andthen we handed them.
I handed them to the new guysand said here's your packet.
You'll notice that these photosare in color.
That should help you.
They're pictures of coloredlights.
And they went oh yeah, duh, I'mlike you have no idea how and I
got in trouble.
They were like, did you do this?
I'm like, yeah, we were dealingwith black and white and trying
(03:14):
to explain colors to people andthey went without asking.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I said yeah, without asking.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I did add color to something that doesn't have
color.
So that's my origin story.
I saw that training was notwhat it should be and there was
a very easy way to level that up.
So fast forward, two decades.
I now teach a curriculum thatdidn't exist before, but it's
incredibly unique and powerfuland useful whether you're a
(03:43):
soccer mom or whether you're ina first responder or special
forces.
So it's kind of like people getexcited about gunfighting stuff
and then they go oh, I shouldalso know medical too and I can
use it if there's not a gunfight.
So it's just, it's a veryholistic thing that makes you a
useful human, and it's not justreserved to gunfighting but can
(04:05):
be helpful during the gunfight.
My skill set's the same thing.
We teach people how to getthrough locked obstacles in a
very fast and efficient manner.
The stats here are so powerfulthat the amount of time it takes
to learn very small.
The amount of money it takes toget involved very small.
Like the weight and the priceof the tools to put in your
pocket very small, but what theyopen very big.
(04:28):
So it's just, I found this kindof diamond in the rough of
something that's just so hard tosay no to it, but it's also,
it's largely misunderstood.
So it's kind of tough whenyou're talking to people and
going, hey, do you want to takethis course?
And they go, oh, what is it?
And I go well, it's not justlock picking, but it's lock
picking.
And they go and they just theygo into their brain and they go
pick a lock.
(04:48):
I'm going to pay money to picka lock and it's it's largely
unknown.
Right, tv and movies don'treally help.
They see the.
You know there's, there's, whatis it?
Uh, what's that FBI show orwhatever.
They are NCIS.
Oh yeah, take a pocket knife,put it in the keyway, blink,
door opens up.
God.
So no, that's not it.
(05:09):
But there are a lot of thingsand I'll teach you, live here if
you want.
There's a lot of things that,with limited tool, limited money
, limited time, give you a hugeoutput, and so I'm very systems
oriented.
It's not just about this tooland the technique, and that's
really the first thing we showour operators.
We sit operators down in aclass and we go, hey, here's
your lock, here's your tools.
Go, here's your crash course.
(05:31):
Just see what you can do.
Throw you in the deep end, seewhat you do.
Immediately.
We don't do any PowerPoint orany slideshows, no lectures.
Everything in the courses thatI teach is all hands-on, nice,
and I even created a high.
I forgot to bring one man.
I have two books out, volumeone and volume two.
Oh wow, and they're hardcover,full size, full color page
(05:52):
photos, lots of descriptions.
We don't even use them in thecourse.
You get it when you sit down.
I go, you can read it if youwant.
But we're right here, we'regoing to be working.
So they pick up their tools,they pick up their lock and
we'll have you try this here.
Just set up oh no we had enoughfor everybody, so there's one.
(06:12):
So here is your 60 second crashcourse, doing it live yeah,
that's why I said oh no you takeyour hand and you put it around
the lock like a fist and youjust extend one finger and push
down on this tension wrench hereand that kind of spins this
keyway just a little bit niceand light.
You're not going to mash itdown, just nice and light.
(06:33):
Then you take another tool witha couple peaks or bumps on it
and that goes in above that andthe tops of these peaks touch
the pins inside the lock andthis tool just kind of like a
toothbrush, up and and down, inand out, and you hold tension
here, nice, springy tension, andyou just rake up and down here
and eventually that lock willopen.
That's it.
That's the only two variables.
(06:53):
You twist and then you rake.
So I'll pass that over to you.
That goes in your left hand andwe'll set another one up for
you.
Same thing Left hand, onefinger, hold some nice light
tension the other hand.
Look what I'm doing here withmy fingers.
Everything is nice and delicate, like you're playing an
(07:15):
instrument Nice and loose, niceand delicate.
You don't have to mash anythingdown.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
There it is.
What was that?
Like 15 seconds?
Yeah, that's awesome here.
All right, your turn, ike.
These two locks should havepretty identical components on
the inside, so they're about thesame level, but even so, you
could just get unlucky and itcould be a bad lock.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Or it could be better , or you could be much better.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So welcome to the world of covert entry.
You guys are now experts and westart almost every course this
way.
We go, you're in, you're live,you're doing it, and so it's
very powerful, it's very usefuland it's also great that you
don't.
I think simunitions is one ofthe best things to hit the
firearm world in the lasthundred years.
Just live force on force.
(08:00):
And the lock stuff is greatbecause you don't need to have a
shootout or a SWAT call out toget those field successes and to
be a basically combat lockexpert.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Right.
What's really fascinating to meis how quickly and easily, with
you know two small tools,you're able just to bust that
lock open.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And it will open hundreds and hundreds of
different locks.
Right?
So tons of makes and models,locks of locks on doors, locks
on padlocks, all sorts of things, and so that teeny tiny crash
course boom, explosion and skillset right having a rough go of
it.
That's great, so I plan that.
Well, it's doable, um, and youcould just be one degree away.
(08:43):
You might need just a tiny bitless tension on your finger.
Yeah, I can feel it binding onone of these yeah something's
happening which is good, and theother unique thing here is this
is a nonlinear skill set.
So I think, for the most part,shooting is pretty linear, and
(09:05):
what I mean by that is the morestraight you hold your gun and
the more confident your grip isand the more your eye sees the
sights and the target when youpush that trigger to the rear.
It's pretty linear.
You know what you're seeking.
You want the bullet or theround to hit the target the
right way, the right time, right.
This is not that way.
You can't just do another repand push harder and get it to
open faster.
So you, actually, what you'redoing is you're doing something
that's not supposed to work.
(09:26):
These locks are not supposed tobe opened by something other
than the key.
So you actually I had a studentonce this is not my idea, but
I've stolen it from this student.
He was in one of my classes andI had a class full.
Oh, there it goes.
Hey, jackpot, there, it is Verygood.
That's not bad either.
(09:53):
That's what?
60 seconds, two minutes,probably, probably closer to
four.
So it is a machine designed towork a certain way, and I had a
class with some spooky secretasian people, and some of them
were, um, kind of engineering,spooky people, and they all
looked at each other and theysaw what I was doing, I was
teaching, and they were mystudents and they went hey
that's?
They said that's an engineeringconcept.
They said you're taking machinea with input a to get output a.
(10:13):
And they went you want machinea with input b to get output a.
So they said you're, you'retrying to make this machine do
something other than the correctinput to get the correct output
.
So it's just you're playing withvariables that are not supposed
to work.
And that's, if I can get mystudents to understand, to not
(10:34):
get frustrated if it doesn'topen, but instead to go back to
that list and go machine A,input B, output A no, input C no
.
What about input B and Ctogether?
No, so you're playing withvariables and just like with
your hand setup, one hand is avariable how much tension am I
pushing?
The other hand is a variablewhich is not as important, just
(10:55):
that raking motion.
You can get a monkey in here todo that.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
The tension is a really important part To feel a
little bit of feedback, kind oflike a car If you're turning the
corner and you feel the tireskid, that's feedback.
So here you need to feel thatfeedback in your finger and go,
oh, what could this mean?
And because we can't seethrough the locks, we have to
guess with lots of repetition,lots of homework, lots of
knowledge.
So it's a skillset that I like.
(11:21):
Another useful kind of stat ofthis is it's a very low barrier
to entry.
You just started Right In 60seconds, two minutes, you just
got started, but the end pointyou can take this really deep
and you can go with crazy nuanceand crazy dedication.
You can get really successfulreally quickly with lots of high
(11:41):
percentages.
So it's just, it's the coolestthing I've found in my life.
It's just it's a really uniqueniche.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Right, I can definitely see your passion
around, but what actuallysparked you to create this
curriculum?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Sure.
So when I was a kid my fatherwas in law enforcement and I
always saw him, even off duty.
This was back in the eightiesand nineties, like pre nine 11.
So he was always saw him, evenoff duty.
This was back in the 80s and90s, like pre-9-11.
So he was always on duty evenwhen he was off and we would
drive in the family car andthere'd be a car pulled over on
the side of the road and dadwould pull the car over and stop
and go, oh, you locked out,hold on.
He'd go to the back, grab aSlim Jim from the trunk and pop
(12:19):
someone's door open and go hey,have a nice day, so have a nice
day.
So I knew that locks.
I knew that they weresusceptible to other types of
entries.
When I was a kid I saw it allthe time in action.
We get locked out of the houseand credit card through the door
.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Damn, oh we're in Done that a hundred times.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Awesome.
So I knew of this.
I was prepared for this when Igot into the military I can't
remember 19, 20 years old-ish Abuddy of mine had gone to Sears
School and this was post-9-11.
And he came back and said ohwell, they have this urban block
in survival school, now thatyou know, they taught us how to
pick a lock.
So he grabbed one of these andtwo tension wrench and a rake
(12:56):
two little tools, and he and Iwere hanging out and he popped
this lock open and I went oh,that's right, I know that this
is a thing.
And so I went online.
I ordered a lock pick set and Iordered a couple locks and
seven days a week, multiplehours a day, I dove way into it.
But at that time this must'vebeen around.
I know exactly when it was.
(13:18):
It was late 2007,.
I believe.
There were almost no books onthis.
There were no video courses.
That didn't exist back then.
You didn't go online and find avideo course.
There were no training schoolsto go to, except like a
locksmith school, which reallydoesn't fit what we're trying to
accomplish here.
(13:39):
So I had decades, decades worthof data, field experience,
successes and a lot of failures,and I tried to dive as deep as
I could into this skill set andI collected all that and then in
the military and then in lawenforcement work, I used this
skill set quite a bit and I loveto type too.
(13:59):
So whenever I had a successfulcase or failure, I would go to
my laptop, open up a notepad,just type, type, type, type,
type and say what happened.
Well, I used this tool, I usedit this way, I thought the lock
spun to the left, but I waswrong.
It actually spins to the right.
And as I was typing andlearning I would go oh, I
thought it went this way, itactually went that way.
You know that's happened to mebefore file where I go common
(14:27):
problems, check left and checkright.
If you're pretty sure it goesto the right and you're not
getting it, just take some time,see if it spins left, and that
would solve problems.
So I created a fieldapplication curriculum that
didn't previously exist.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
That's interesting, that's really interesting.
That's life.
So how does lock picking andlocksmithing differ from each
other?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Sure.
So there's actually about Idon't know five or six or seven
different fields of peopleprofessionally that will make
entry through locks.
Locksmithing is the biggest,but it has so much stuff
involved in it that picking alock open is less than 10% of
the job.
So I've worked with tacticalcompanies that say, hey, we used
(15:08):
to have a locksmith guy thatkind of taught our SWAT guys,
but it didn't really work outand I'd go oh yeah, because he's
probably no offense to thepeople but probably teaching
them to be locksmiths, which iswhat you can't do.
There are penetration testers orred teamers or pen testers.
They are security assessmentpersonnel, so they assess the
(15:30):
physical or digital security ofyour business, your house, your
military base, whatever, andthey also do lock picking and
entry stuff.
But they also have a bunch ofstuff that's not relevant to a
tactical entry.
So they're doing things likedraft they're called drafting
behind someone through an opendoor or like a smoking door and
they're doing things likecalling on the phone and asking
for entry, pretending to besomeone else.
(15:51):
But if you're a police officeror an EMS person and you're
driving your truck but you'restopped at a gate and it's a
rural gate, it's not electronic,it's just a padlock on a chain.
That red teaming stuff ofdrafting in through an open door
doesn't help you right.
So there's a chunk of thatstuff that doesn't apply to
tactical operations.
Chunk, there's a chunk thatdoes but a chunk that doesn't.
(16:13):
So there's locksmithing,there's pen testing.
Um, there is the hobby of locksport, which is incredibly
popular and exploding.
It's growing really quickly.
Um, it's legal in almost all 50states.
I'm pretty sure anyone you haveto check yourself but in most
of the 50 states now I think youcan own lock picks and carry
them in public and as long asyou're not also doing something
(16:35):
illegal, you can have them.
So people meet up in public atlike bars and restaurants and
public parks and they bring abunch of padlocks and a bunch of
picks and they'll just picktogether and it's great, it's
super.
Even that doesn't apply to yourfirst responder type operations,
because you have all the timein the world and police officers
(16:56):
and your other first responderscan't just show up and take a
whole bag and dump it out on thetable and go which tool do I
want?
So your resources are limited,you're limited, your time is
limited and in that hobby oflock sport.
There is no mission, it's just.
Here's the puzzle.
Can I solve the puzzle Inoperations?
Sometimes the right answer Iteach my students all the time
(17:16):
Sometimes the right answer iskick that door in, go.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
If the situation calls for it or it's, abandon
this, don't make entry at alland leave.
So there's all these answersthat you still win if you don't
pick the lock.
So you have locksmithing, hobbylock picking, you have
penetration testers, red teamers, and you have what I offer,
which is tactical lock picking.
It doesn't mean tactical, likethere's a gunfight going on, but
(17:43):
it means tactical, as in you'rechoosing a tactic because of an
operation, and so there is areal curriculum.
It's not just tools andtechniques, it's also the
application and thedecision-making that really
makes this stuff gold, which I'msure you'll see in a couple of
weeks here.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
So what can the students expect in the upcoming
class in July?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Sure, it's a two-day course, so most students that
have no exposure to this.
Your jaw is going to dropwithin the first hour once,
maybe twice, and so I'llactually show you that second
one, that second jaw drop moment, which is they're also going to
learn a lot of case studieswhere they're going to succeed
(18:25):
and they're going to fail, andthat's okay and that's part of
the class, and they're alsogoing to get, which is really
hard to quantify, but what Ibelieve truly is world-class
level instruction, regardless ofthe skill.
It is so, so easy to find aninstructor that just doesn't
connect with students, yeah,just kind of phones it in,
exactly, and I think most of thereasons that I've been able to
(18:52):
operate at a high level withhigh-end clients is the
instruction, is the product andthe tools and techniques are
kind of secondary.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And you have a passion for it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Oh my God, I love it that makes a huge difference.
So let's try this.
Let's say you struggle withthat little brass lock again, Go
ahead and close that shackleand so now you have those tools
that worked but took a while.
So that's a window scale.
So now we're diving deeper intoactual curriculum, not just the
tools and techniques.
You also have one of these inyour wallet which you can take
(19:27):
and if you identify the rightmake and model of lock and the
right tool you can insert.
Oh gosh you're just pushing upthose pins.
That's yeah, it's called anover lift with a comb tool and
and you're in.
That's crazy the timeline forthat.
If it's the right lock and ifit's the right tool and if there
are no exceptions, thattechnique should work in about
five seconds or less.
You get it lined up, you lift,you twist with a very, very high
(19:50):
success rate, like 99%, plusyour raking technique that you
did earlier might never work.
It might work right away, itmight work in 30 seconds, it
might work a minute later or youmight be here all day with no
answers.
The real kicker is what if thistool is nearby, like out in the
trunk of your car?
What if you have the picks inyour pocket and you're using
(20:12):
them and you go oh, this hastaken a while.
If there's an operation, andyou go, we need to get in very
quickly.
You have to go.
Should I use these tools in mypocket or should I go out to my
car and get a tool that's morelikely to work faster?
Right, and that's theapplication of the craft.
It's not anyone could teach youhow to take a lock and the
(20:33):
right tool and open it.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So that's.
It is interesting and useful,but that's not what makes us
special.
What's special is taking anoperator and going.
Oh, it depends on the mission.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Or if there's two of us and maybe I know how to pick
locks and you guys don't, I cango.
Hey, I need you guys to goaround the building, look for
open doors.
I'll start here.
So now I'm stacking resourcesand I'll try to make entry now
and if you guys see a door, takea picture of it with your phone
and when you get back to me Ican very quickly assess and go
okay, that door, no, oh yeah,that one that looks really good.
(21:05):
So I'm using my resources, data, and I'm stacking resources on
the scene.
I'm stacking my timeline in myfavor.
And it's way different than ifyou just go to a mediocre course
and the instructor goes here'sthe pick, here's the lock.
You graduated Right.
That operator might notwrongfully, but they might just
not know.
So they might get to the frontdoor and go all right, everybody
(21:25):
, stop, I got this.
Let me take one tool and tryone technique until well, hey,
there you go.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
That's a tough one, but once you get it, you'll
start to get much more quickly Ihad to get it right on the pin,
so I over inserted it first andit got locked up in there you
can go too deep or too shallow.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
That's, that's the tough part, but that's my long,
long answer.
Um, what they can expect isexactly this it's you see a tool
, you see a lock, you learn atechnique, you get it to work,
but then there's way more to itand the back end is what I think
.
It would be very hard to findanother course at our level that
do you twist it or just, orjust break it you get the.
(22:03):
So you're not.
Uh, it's not random.
You're just going to insert thetool and lift it up towards the
pins and then, once you'relifted, rotate to the right.
It's.
It's very it's tough to dowithout a couple diagrams.
Um, you might just get, getlucky.
If you get it, it shouldn'ttake a lot of force.
Actually, on my third book thatI published, I just moved across
(22:27):
the country so I don't have anystuff right now.
The third book that I published.
There's a really good diagramin there that explains what's
happening in there and withoutseeing that, the learning curve
is a lot more deep.
But you're going to the correctdistance with those prongs
inside and lifting up andtwisting.
So now you have two tools forone lock.
And what if neither of themwork?
(22:49):
What do you do next?
So the thought process and theapplication is really what makes
tactical lockpicking a veryspecial art form.
And now we do have curriculum,we have certifications.
So back in the 2000s this stuffdidn't exist, but now it does
because of our work.
So we work with high-levelagencies.
(23:09):
We work with special forces,international too.
So we have students frominternational SF units that will
fly across the globe to cometrain with us from international
SF units that will fly acrossthe globe to come train with us.
And then we also get contractedto go out of country to go
teach SF groups, foreign andallied and domestic.
So we're very busy, we love it,we operate at a very high level
and because I'm local andbecause we have a mutual friend,
(23:31):
I thought you know what, let'sdo a little bit of work for the
community here.
We'll do a low impact courseand we'll just share some of
this with you guys yeah, I'm I'mexcited, for I think it's gonna
be great oh, me too, especiallyafter hearing a little bit
about it.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I'm about to give up on this yeah, that one was a
little bit more difficult.
I was trying to get a, get itexactly lined up.
So how long have you haduncensored?
How long have you been doinglike the?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So I've been teaching people.
Almost the same week I startedlearning, I started teaching and
that's you know the phrase likewhat business are you in Like?
So you think you're in thebusiness of A, but you're
actually in a business of B Likeif you really like these
trinkets but you sell a lot ofthem, you're in the sales
business.
You're not in the trinketbusiness.
Same thing here.
(24:22):
Teaching is the business thatI'm in.
That's what makes us special.
I've sold some tools.
I've written some books.
I love writing too.
I love writing and publishingbooks, both my own and other
tactical books for people.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I'm working on two other projects for two other
authors right now to help thembring their tactical books to
life.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That's actually a business that you have, is that
correct?
So the business started.
I was actually in GuantanamoBay on a deployment and I
cracked open my laptop and I'dbeen teaching for a decade at
that point, just privately andto other military units, just
because we were in the same room.
But officially, the businesspart of that started in 2016,
2017-ish.
Oh wow, I was in Guantanamo Bayon a deployment and I said, okay
(25:09):
, let's start a website.
Okay, let's start writingarticles.
Okay, let's start a podcast.
And I did all those things.
And then I actually sold myfirst kind of public enrollment
course to say, hey, would youlike to pay me money and I'll
teach you how to do this.
So my first sale of the course,which was separate from hey,
we're on a deployment, sit down,I'll teach you.
That's a teaching experience.
(25:30):
But selling the course thefirst one I actually sold was in
Guantanamo Bay.
So a bunch of the dudes I wasdeployed with I said it was, it
was nerve wracking because I wasnot comfortable with money or
sales or any of that stuff.
And I told a bunch of dudes,hey, if you give me 50 bucks,
hey, I got it.
Now.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
He's a cheater, he's cheating.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
So I told the dudes you give me 50 bucks.
We still got three or fourmonths left on the deployment.
I'll give you full access to me, daytime, nighttime.
You'll have access to all myentry tools.
If you're just bored, just comeover to my little we call them
hoochies the little hooch I livein.
Just come on over, we'll hangout at the coffee table, we'll
pick some locks.
50 bucks for like four monthsof one-on-one training.
(26:12):
Yeah, I sold like eight or nineseats, which hooray, but that's
what 400 bucks total.
So that bought me dinner acouple of nights.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
No big deal Was that about like two cents an hour.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Oh my God, yeah, break it up, but they enjoyed it
, they learned a lot, I learneda lot.
And then I did my.
As soon as we got back incountry, I did a real open
enrollment course for the public.
So I started probably within ayear getting back, I had two
courses back to back that Itraveled across the country to
go teach it, uh, which was great, um, one was in Ohio, one was
in Indiana, I think.
(26:46):
Um, but man, it's just beennonstop ever since, yeah, and
we've almost, we've almostdoubled the size and scope of
our operations every single yearsince that year.
So before it was two courses,the next year was four courses
and it was X price, and that wasX times two was the price, and
then it was we have no books.
(27:07):
We have one book, and the nextyear we wrote two more books,
and so we've just been exploding.
And I think it's just.
I think it's because it's sopowerful and unique and people
just don't know about it.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And so the more we get all these touch points with
different students in theclasses, different agencies we
work with, it just has such ahuge return on investment that
it's just been a wild ride.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So you were talking about books.
I counted three so far thatyou've authored a couple other
projects and stuff.
How many books do you have out?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I have.
If you go on Amazon, I havethree books available there
right now.
The Amazon printing processisn't as high quality as the
other companies I use.
Oh yeah, so Amazon's print ondemand Like the KDP stuff.
Yeah, I don't have any controlover that quality control, but
(28:02):
the books, the content of thebook is still good.
It's you probably won't noticeit but the pages for the Amazon
books are kind of powdery orkind of matte, but the books
that I get elsewhere that I sellare like high gloss pages, so
little things like that.
You probably won't noticeunless you're a super nerd like
me.
I have those three books.
It's volume one, which istactical lock picking, which is
this stuff you're seeing.
Volume two, which is tacticallock picking, which is this
stuff you're seeing.
Volume two, which is keygeneration, field key generation
(28:23):
, which is really sweet.
So how to take someone's key,get the information from it,
hand it back to them and then gocut your own copy, but not like
a locksmith, actually to do soin field operations with limited
gear, limited time, limitedresources in a fast speed.
So that's my second book is KeyGeneration.
I have a tools and techniquemanual which is a little field
spiral that just lists oh,that's cool, it's this lock,
(28:45):
this tool.
Go this lock, this tool.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Oh, that's kind of like a little handy reference,
right yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Oh, that's neat and that's really powerful.
We started giving all thestudents in our courses get that
book.
Now I don't think this courseis going to have it.
We did a reduced price for youguys and I just moved across the
country A lot of the printingstuff.
When I do good orders from agood printing company could be
two or three weeks for the booksto arrive, so I don't even know
if they'd get here in time.
I have those three.
(29:11):
I wrote one kind ofphilosophical book but I've
taken it off the market since.
I wrote that three or fouryears ago.
It was just about the study ofhow large and small agencies
operate with their incentivestructure.
Because I was frustrated withthe military and with law
enforcement, I just took asystems approach view of it,
(29:33):
wrote basically my thesis on thefindings.
I published that One, two,three, four.
And then I wrote two magazinescovert entry magazine just with
a couple articles aboutlockpicking stuff.
I will be producing more ofthose.
Oh wow, am I missing anything?
And I'm currently jugglingthree writing projects right now
(29:54):
, one for myself and two um fortwo separate friends of mine in
the tactical world so you hadmentioned in the back about that
, that one project that you'rewriting for yourself I'm writing
, writing for right now oh wow,can you talk about that, that
fiction one, or is it?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
are you not ready?
No, I can talk about it, okayum, I love.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Do you?
Do you guys do much reading?
Do you know the richardmarchenko books?
I don't think so.
Rogue Warrior, red Cell, greenTeam, orange Team.
So he wrote.
Former DevGrew guy wrote like 10or 12 books.
I loved him when I was a kid.
Then there's the Vince Flynnbook series.
The character's name is MitchRapp.
I read probably seven or eightof those books, loved them,
(30:42):
loved them.
And I do enjoy writing and I doenjoy fiction quite a bit.
But my business supported muchmore nonfiction work.
So I've been paying the billswith fiction, which I enjoy, but
I've always wanted to get intononfiction.
Sorry, vice versa, my mistake,but I also, and it's the same
way you talked about, there'ssome books that talk about
gunfighting and they just missthe mark.
They say the wrong thing.
I read a book once.
I had a lot of hate for it.
(31:02):
I did a review of a leadershipbook and they said I racked my
upper slide to the rear and I'mlike I think there's just the
slide.
It's not maybe not the upperslide of a Beretta, it's just
because there's no lower slide,there's no lower slide.
But sometimes books miss themark on purpose or an accident,
or just they don't care aboutgunfighting, and I wanted to
bring my version of accuratetactics but to a covert entry
(31:26):
story.
So I wanted to be the oppositeof NCIS and go well, it would be
stupid to shove my pocket knifeinto the keyway because that
does nothing.
So I wanted to kind of givedetails and proper tool names
and proper techniques.
But I wanted to teach a littlebit kind of secretly in the book
and go if you have read it,then you have learned on
accident, and I thought that waskind of a cool concept, that's
(31:48):
neat.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Like everyone knows that if you're going to store a
key for a door, it's probablywithin arm's length of the door.
It's probably not a mile away,right?
If you're going to search, justdo a quick search in this area.
Or if there's a code for thislock, and if there's a hidden
code nearby, it's also probablywithin arm's length.
So let me just look.
Oh, there's a four digit codewritten on the wall.
(32:10):
Maybe that's it.
Yeah, so you can say thesethings in a story and people
will hear them and go oh, thatmakes sense.
So we can kind of get peopleinvolved in this really unique
skillset and kind of draw theminto the world.
So that's the fiction projectI'm working on now.
It probably won't be ready foranother two years.
It's a long project, but I'mreally enjoying.
(32:33):
It Sounds pretty cool.
It'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
So I want to jump back into the class portion.
A lot of people think that,like doing these types of
classes and, you know, offeringthese tools, like just teach
criminals how to break into, youknow, there's going to be
somebody in the comments.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I already know.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, and that's that's really I really want to.
You know, I want you to explainyour your take on that.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Sure, uh, sure, and this should not be unexpected
from people that are in the gunworld.
Oh no, you're teaching peopleto murder people, teaching
Exactly Deep breath.
So I want to try and say thiswithout being angry at someone,
some invisible person.
I'm having an invisibleargument with me.
If the person is willing tolisten, I would ask them
(33:19):
questions so that they cananswer it.
It's not me telling you thatwhat I'm doing is right or wrong
.
It's asking a set of questionsthat, if the listener or watcher
is willing to ask them tothemselves, they can form their
own opinion a little bit better.
And the perspective is reallyimportant.
So if you're mad that there arepeople teaching others to pick
(33:41):
locks, then are you also madthat you could become a
locksmith with a criminal recordand with a $50 LLC and a stamp
from the state?
So that's the barrier to entryroughly.
There's some exceptions hereand there, but you could be a
locksmith tomorrow and then youcould be the secret special
(34:01):
person with almost no barrier toentry.
So I have a barrier to entry.
My classes are.
Yours is a discounted class,but my classes are more than a
thousand dollars a seat.
That's a very high barrier ofentry for someone that just
wants to be a street levelcriminal.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And I see your face.
I get your name, I get youremail, I get your phone number.
You're in public with otherpeople.
I have photos of you, yeah, sothere's quite a bit of high and
low here, risk reward.
So, number one are you also madthat it doesn't take much to be
a locksmith?
Probably not, oh, okay.
So if you're mad that I'mteaching people, are you also
(34:40):
mad that there are martial artsschools that you can go with no
background check and that theycould basically teach a criminal
to beat people up?
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Well, no, I'm probably not mad about that.
I never thought about that.
Okay, cool, we'll put a pin inthat I'm not giving someone the
answer, I'm just askingquestions.
Mm-hmm, put a pin in that I'mnot giving someone the answer,
I'm just asking questions.
So if I like this one too, ifyou're locked out of your house
and it's your house and it'syour lock, and your keys are
locked somewhere, do you havethe right as a human to, even
(35:12):
without training, just to guessand to put something into your
keyway and hope it opens?
You'd probably think, well,yeah, it's my house, okay, great
, is it wrong for me to teachthat same human to do that thing
for their own house better?
Well, probably no, but okay.
And then there's exception,exception, exception.
What if this, what if that?
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, you can play the what if game all day, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Another big one that's really common in our
field is these are notproprietary, meaning there's no
secret information in herethat's inaccessible.
You could take this lock andyou can cut it in half and you
can look at it and go oh, Icould probably push this thing
and that'll open it, meaninganyone has access to learn how
to do this, even without me.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
If there's a 12-year-old at home that can
open this with paperclipswithout any training, are you
mad at that 12-year-old fortrying, and are you mad at me
for teaching adults how to bemore prepared?
So there's just so many thingsthat I think and I don't think
it's people's fault I'm notsaying how dare you not know
better?
I screw stuff up all the time.
(36:17):
I'm not saying how dare you not?
know better.
I screw stuff up all the time,right, and I get new perspective
all the time and I go oh no, Iwas so wrong, whoops, but this
stuff is, it's so very it's notit's another word, but neutral.
Basically.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
It's so very neutral.
I've been doing this for 20years and I have a skill set
that I think is top tier,without a doubt, and I still
haven't pulled off a heist yet.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
There's probably no building in this county that I
couldn't get intosurreptitiously or covertly, and
every single day I get a realpaycheck.
I don't go out and steal frompeople.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Still haven't committed a crime yet.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
You know, haven't broken in anybody's house, so
just it's.
The perspective is tough and Idon't blame people.
It's something that you don't.
If it's something that youdon't understand, I get it.
How people have a snap judgment.
But, man, I'll throw one morein and then you know.
Whatever.
It's up to you guys where we gonext.
But the last one would be if yougo to the FBI's website, they
(37:24):
have what's called crime statsor crime statistics.
It's all open source.
They give you all these details.
So every time even a localpolice officer they go on a call
, they go there was a burglaryand they're clicking buttons on
their report form.
And they go how did the burglarget in?
Well, there's a smashed window,click, okay.
Well, how'd they get out?
They unlocked the front doorfrom the inside, click, okay.
(37:45):
What'd they take this?
Click.
What time did it happen?
Click, and all these stats.
They don't stay.
At the end of every year theyshow their crime stats and the
last time I checked the methodof entry for burglaries in the
US for things that were covertor lockpick related were less
(38:07):
than 1% of 1%.
So sure I'm teaching somethingthat if a bad person wants to
learn it, the chances of themdoing it.
If we look at it statistically,based off, the whole scale of
burglaries is less than 1% ofless than 1% Right.
Much less than that too.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Also, too, if you think about like your average
criminal is trying to break inthe front door or whatever, I
would venture to guess thatprobably 99 times out of 100,
maybe even 999 times out of1,000, he's going to just be
kicking the door or busting thewindow.
I don't think they're reallyspending the time.
Busting out a window takes acouple seconds.
Picking a front door lock, Iwould imagine, takes at least
(38:49):
maybe a minute, unless youreally know what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So there's a lot of it depends, and this is not a
good lock.
Picking into a structure is nota good plan.
Like we talked about earlier,it's engineering, it's input A,
sorry, it's machine A.
Input B hopefully can getoutput A.
So you're guessing.
Even the best people on theplanet that have this skill set,
that are super spies behindclosed doors, they shouldn't be
(39:14):
planning to pick a lock on theway in.
They should really have a keyor use some other very reliable
method.
We can get you more reliablewith this, but at the end of the
day, you're guessing Right.
So if I look at the lock on thestore over here and I go, oh, I
know the make and model of that, I'll buy one on Amazon and
I'll practice at home.
I think that was featured inthat Chris Pratt show recently.
(39:38):
I'll practice at home.
I think that was featured inthat Chris Pratt show recently.
So, yes, that would make mefamiliar with the lock in the
privacy of my own training roomand then when I came here, I
would have a leg up.
But there are still exceptionsin which it's possible that I
could pick this lock on my desk,this training lock that looks
like that one, and I could stillget to yours, and the pin stack
could be different or theenvironment could be different,
(39:59):
and for some reason I just can'topen it.
So it's not a guarantee.
So it's a.
It's a very bad plan.
It's very useful to be foldedinto operations.
If you have a split second to go, oh, should I kick the door?
Or oh, let me try this otherthing real quick.
It's not working.
Okay, cool, move on.
Yeah, it's great for that,super great.
(40:20):
If you come up to a keypad andyou're going to smash the door,
do you have a second to go?
One, two, three, four.
Oh, my God, it worked.
If it works, use it, yeah.
If it doesn't, you have achance to go oh, should I do
something different now?
Should I use another covertentry method or another covert
entry method, or you know what?
Just bring the breacher, let'sgo.
So it's really good in additionto it's not really good on its
(40:44):
own and I fully acknowledge that.
But the other thing is youcould keep these in your pocket
and you can't keep a batteringram in your pocket.
So it's it's.
It's got a really large spreadof application, but at the end
of the day, you're still thebest people in the world.
You're still guessing.
Hopefully it works.
I don't know if I got way offtopic there.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
No, I think that was right on topic.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Right on topic.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Thorough answer.
Thorough answers are good.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
So are there any locks that are unpickable?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
In theory?
No, in theory, any lock, givenenough time, some super smart
person can find a way into it.
The in practice answer iswhat's reasonable?
So we get the operational scope.
There's a guy that came outwith another huge mammoth book
recently on security and oninsecurity, on locks and
(41:49):
insecurity, something like that.
Mark Weber, tobias, I think, ishis name.
I get those three names not inthe right order.
Sometimes it's a huge, big redand black encyclopedia.
It's like 700 pages.
He specializes in.
A lock company will design a newlock, a very high-end, super
(42:09):
secure lock, and they'll send itto him and his team and they'll
say find out how to break intothis covertly.
And so he gets paid to do that.
So there's people thatspecialize in that.
But some of his methods andhe'll even tell you in the book
some of those methods are well,first you need a drill bit of
this size and you need to gothis specific depth into the
lock and then you need to take abobby pin and straighten it and
(42:31):
hit it with a hairdryer andthen poke through this plastic
membrane.
Yeah, which, yes, would open ahigh security lock.
But no, if I just showed up tothe lock, I wouldn't go oh, I
have an idea, let me Right, Iwould not do those things Right.
So every lock is susceptible insome way, even the huge
government bunkers that canwithstand a nuke Well, yeah,
(42:55):
they can withstand a nuke butnot a team with a bunch of drill
bits and three months worth oftime to just sit outside and
drill, drill, drill drill.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
You'll get in eventually.
So it really is a game of whatis the purpose of the lock and
what are the types of attackersyou're trying to keep out.
And a lot of these reallyhigh-level locks are not really
primarily for security.
A lot of them are really forinsurance.
(43:25):
So there's things like if youown a jewel store or a bank,
you're not allowed to have aresidential lock on the front
door.
It has to be a lock from acertain company, from a certain
make and model, in order foryour bank to have an insurance
(43:46):
policy on the structure.
So that means that people thattake my course probably cannot
pick into a vault.
Sorry, there are people thatcan do that, but it's a
different skill set.
So a lot of this stuff is justman, just like gunfighting, or
just not even gunfighting guns.
There is so much width and depthto the gun world that you could
be a hobbyist, you could be anOlympic sharpshooter, you could
be a sniper in the military, youcan be just a designated
(44:07):
marksman, you can just be goodwith a rifle, like there's all
these different things.
There's revolvers, there'spistols, there's everything in
between, and then each of thoseone things can go so deep you
can be the world's best pistolshooter it's been 60 years at it
but someone hands you a rifleand you can go.
This is clunky.
So we have the same thing herewith covert entry and with lock
(44:28):
picking.
Every single one of these locksand every one of these tools
and every one of these miniatureskill sets can go so deep.
It's incredible, and every daywe're adding new locks to the
field, new makes and models, newtools.
People are discovering newtechniques.
So, um, it's just, it's amazingkind of being on this frontier
(44:49):
of stretching the skill set andproviding this to top tier
operators.
It's just, it's been superexciting for me.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Yeah, Well, it also opens your eyes to.
You know, a lot of people getkind of like a false sense of
security, thinking, oh, I've gotmy deadbolt, I've got, you know
, these locks on my doors, likeI'm good, and even you know I've
got locks like these on theshed in my backyard, you know.
So I saw how easy that was.
That was really kind of like anaha moment.
Yeah, I think the class willdefinitely open your eyes to how
(45:21):
insecure you actually are inyour own home.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
So I'll give you a feedback response to that which
is a lot of our students.
The first thing they think whenthey pick open locks is they go
.
Oh no, I have to change mykeyway on my door or change my
lock on my door, Breathe.
So yes, you could, but, likeyou brought up earlier, most
criminals aren't picking locks,they're kicking doors in, Right?
So, yes, your front door isprobably that easy to get into.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
But if you want to be secure, you have to pair your
security with your expectedattacker.
Three-inch screws are probablya better investment.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Much better investment, much, much better.
Yeah, and a camera, three-inchscrews and a ring camera so they
can see themselves as they walkup and go.
Hmm, let me take a secondthought.
Should I do this?
And they kick the door threetimes, four times, and they go,
ooh, should I keep doing this?
We'll go to the next one.
You're buying time and you'repairing.
Your defense and offense shouldbe paired.
If you're worried about JasonBourne killing you in the middle
(46:19):
of the night, there's probablynothing you can do.
But if you want to keep outyour street-level criminals, you
probably want to harden youractual hardware of your door,
not the lock exactly.
Yeah, you can.
You certainly can upgrade yourlock.
Yeah, um, but you probablydon't have to for most attackers
let's talk about, like thetools and the gear and stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
oh yeah, um, do you have any favorite places to get
the stuff from?
Or like what if somebody's outthere looking to jump into this?
So I'll answer it very short.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
I don't buy any of my entry gear on Amazon, even the
stuff on there that can work.
There's just so many.
There's so many qualitywebsites that cater specifically
to the covert entry crowd andthe lock picking crowd, and the
tools are so high quality and solow priced that really there's
(47:12):
no reason for me to get stuff onAmazon that's punched out en
masse.
Yeah, and even if it might work, it's not worth the might, so I
push that to the side.
I don't get anything on Amazon.
If you just Google lockpickingtools, you will find covert
entry websites that offer allthe stuff you saw here, just a
little handheld sets and more.
(47:33):
And you can even go to mostlocksmith websites here in the
US and for the most part theywill sell to you without any
special licensing or permissions.
And they do have lock entrytools.
But you'll see on the sidebarthey have a bunch of stuff
that's not related to lockpicking.
It's lock setting, it'shardware, it's pins, it's
upgrades.
So one Google search will solveyour problems.
(47:56):
Oh, and YouTube.
If you see something cool onYouTube, almost everyone in the
lockpicking world that doesYouTube videos they'll say hey,
I'm using this new set, here'swhere I got it, go buy one.
So YouTube is just your bestfriend if you're learning this
skill set.
Here's where I got it go buyone.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
So youtube is just your best friend if you're
learning this skill set at homeyeah, there's a couple uh, lock
picking lawyer I'm sure you'reprobably familiar with all of
them that and then there'sanother guy, um, like, is it?
Is it bonsai bill?
Speaker 1 (48:20):
bosnian bill bosnia bill.
Yeah, great instructor bosnianbills.
Uh, a lot of his earlier worksare are deep structured how-to
videos and they're fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, their stuff's always super interesting.
He's always playing with likenew locks and stuff and like
trying to get into them.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
So when you see stuff like that and you go and you're
learning and you go, oh, I sawthis guy, bosnian Bill.
He opened this one lock, allthese different ways, but then
this one really unique way.
Okay, we'll try to find thatpadlock if you can find it by
make and model and buy it.
And then try and buy thosetools that he had and line them
up and just go through the videowith them, just monkey, see
monkey do so.
It doesn't have to be superstructured.
(49:03):
If you want to learn this skillset, you can literally go.
I saw this, let me try it.
If it doesn't work.
There's also a bunch ofcommunities I know Reddit has a
subreddit or lockpicking.
They don't do any covert entrystuff or really any bypasses.
They are specifically whathappens in the keyway.
Can we make this work?
That's very restricted and theyhave very tight, very
(49:26):
well-enforced rules.
If you send them a picture of alock that's in use, they kick
you out.
Or if you're like, hey, Ilocked my cabinet, they're like
we don't care, you're booted.
They are strictly.
Here's the puzzle, inside thislittle keyway.
Here's the tools.
This is how we solve it, likeit's very academic and very it's
also a very hobby sport andthey have very strict rules, but
(49:47):
they give a lot of informationfor free.
So if you want to learn how topick each of those pins
individually, go on Reddit, goto rlockpicking and just follow
their rules.
But it's free and they loveanswering questions.
So a new person goes hey, Ifound this lock, but I can't get
through this one spot.
People will give you walls oftech and resources and digital
(50:09):
PDFs and they'll just send themto you and they're happy to do
it.
Oh wow, so it's a really coolcommunity.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
So you mentioned kind of bypassing and lockpicking.
The course that we have comingup here in July is that kind of
both or is it more?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
So we're doing three things in your course, which is
my core curriculum.
So, as far as the tools andtechniques go, it's lock picking
, it's bypassing and it'sdecoding.
So three of the main ways thatwe teach are foundational entry
methods.
There's much more than that,but that's what we make our
foundation.
You also get the curriculumbehind that, which is how to
apply it.
(50:43):
That's really the special stuffin getting that too.
So you're getting lock picking,which is what happens in the
keyway.
You're getting bypassing, whichmeans if there's a key or a
code for this lock, we useanything except for the key and
the code.
Sorry.
So that would be on like asimple residential or commercial
office door.
Here you have the keyway on theoutside, but you have the
(51:04):
doorframe where there's a latchthat goes into the doorframe.
But you have the door framewhere there's a latch that goes
into the door frame, so you canuse a flexible or a rigid item
to affect that latch and thenjust pull the door open without
even touching the keyway.
That's a bypass, or you can gounder the door and pull that
handle down.
Oh, yeah, a little.
Yeah, I've seen those.
That's a bypass, and evenbypasses have their own realms.
(51:24):
So you have a lot of latchbypasses.
That's kind of one area.
You have, um, what's called aRex bypass request to exit R E X
, um, and those are all thetypes of bypasses where you're
tricking a door or a lock intothinking that you're leaving.
So, like a vehicle gate, if thegate has a passive automatic
(51:45):
exit where they have a groundloop detector, so if you're
driving out of a parking garageand there's that big metal loop
and once you hit the loop thegate automatically opens, well,
the gate has a request to exitfrom your car.
Well, if you're on the outsideof the gate trying to get in and
you take an industrial magneton a skateboard and you roll
that skateboard over that loop,that gate will think there's a
(52:06):
car there and it will open soyou can drive out the in or
sorry in.
I'm a mess today so you candrive in the out.
So that's a request to exit,bypass, and so again, just so
much width and depth to all theskills.
But you'll be picking locks,you'll be bypassing padlocks,
you'll be picking and bypassingdoors, We'll be decoding a
(52:28):
couple locks.
If we have time, we'll breakinto a vehicle or two and again
you'll just it's a lot of.
It is a foundational skill.
Everyone's going to pick a lock, Everyone's going to decode a
lock, Everyone's going to slip alatch.
But behind that, so much of myclass is fluid, meaning I have
(52:49):
to watch two things at the sametime.
I have to watch individuals andsay, does he get this?
Okay, let me help him, or Ihave to go.
Is the class bored and like, asa whole, did they dominate this
and they're ready for the nextthing?
Or are they all like, oh hey,how about this lock, how about
this lock?
And they're like they'replaying?
Then I have to let that be.
(53:10):
So that's also.
That's the experience that webring to our top tier clients,
is it's not?
We don't go down a checklist.
So if I'm reading the class andsome classes spend a lot of
time in one area and a littletime here and other classes flip
it, but really that's the value.
So as long as I can get them tounderstand the concept of how
to fold this into operations,and as long as I can give them
to understand the concept of howto fold this into operations,
and as long as I can give them apretty good foundation of
(53:31):
different tools, differenttechniques, then we just we play
for two days, three days.
Most of my military andgovernment clients, we do a
five-day course, but it's a weekof just as in-depth as we could
possibly be and it's fun too.
It is not.
I don't do any yelling atpeople.
I don't set my students up forfailure.
There's no pushups.
One of my least favoriteinstructor traits is going to a
(53:53):
class for topic A and theinstructor turns it into a
martial arts class and goes here, grab my arm.
I get that in some places.
There's a time and place forthat.
I don't like that.
I don't do that.
So there will be no secretkarate moves.
I won't be chopping anything.
It'll be all professional, Justthe same way.
We've talked here is exactlywhat you get to classroom.
(54:14):
Nice it is.
Hey, try this.
Oh, it didn't work, oh, cool.
Well, let me go to thewhiteboard and draw you a
picture.
Oh, okay, Do you get it Likethis, is it?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
So on your podcast.
If somebody wants to go lookthat up, where can they find it?
Speaker 1 (54:26):
You could still find some traces of it out there.
I pulled it from production.
Oh, okay, not a bad thing.
We just we took a huge shiftover the last two years, so we
will be coming back with a freshnew podcast, but we're going to
tighten up the focus of it andkeep it strictly the craft of
(54:47):
entry.
We did a lot of kind of one-offepisodes about different things
that didn't really relate tothe craft.
If they wanted to find it, theycan just search on Google and
there will be some other typesof production, kind of third
parties that have traces of itout there Gotcha but it's
probably not on Apple or Spotifyor anything.
Okay, but we'll be back.
Nice, we've had 250-ishepisodes.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yeah, that's a lot of episodes, man.
We'll be back Nice.
We've had 250-ish episodes.
Yeah, that's a lot of episodes,man, Just curious what period
of time did it?
Speaker 1 (55:15):
how long did it take you to amass 250?
I aimed for God when I firststarted.
I wanted to do five a week.
That quickly didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Wow, I turned that into one a week.
Still, that's a very aggressiveschedule.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
Yeah, well, when I was on a deployment I had that
time, yeah.
And then post-deployment, I hadthat time and then when life
caught up, I didn't have that.
Yeah.
Now that I'm much moreexperienced and now that my
schedule is different, my livingsituation is different I can
definitely do a podcast a week,especially audio, because that's
just cut paste.
There's almost for me, for whatI want to achieve.
(55:50):
There's almost no editing.
I don't cut out the ands andahs, the intro, outro, I just
talk and I hit publish.
So that's pretty quick.
I will be back with more onthis craft.
Yeah, to answer your question,it took me maybe three or four
years to hit 250.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Still, that's pretty pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
I think I don't remember if we had a quarter
million downloads or a half amillion downloads, but we were,
I think, successful by mostmeasures.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
I would definitely say so.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
We got a lot of very positive feedback, but again we
went so off topic for so manyepisodes that, as a business, I
think we're we'll be much betterin the future, just refocusing,
because we could cover a lot.
Yeah, I don't know how longwe've been here, but I could go
for it.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
We're almost at an hour here and like I feel like
we just got started.
Yeah, I could.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
I could talk on this stuff.
Yeah, it seems like you got alot more in you but that's also
a signal that there is a lot ofdepth to this.
It is not just take this pickand this thing and make it open
Like there's so much to it.
What's your website?
So I just started a new one.
(57:02):
I have the old one, which isUTACio.
You can type the whole thing.
That's a shortcut.
You can type the whole thing inuncensoredtacticalcom.
It's where my gear store usedto be.
I used to host my podcastepisodes on their own page there
.
That's mostly been gutted witha recent move across the country
and with the restructuring ofthe business.
It's really just a placeholderright now and I started a new
(57:27):
website which is just tacticallockpickingio, and that's going
to be our forum.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
And the purpose of that one is for the people that
are doing this in a professionalcapacity to make real entry
into real operational structures.
That's going to be a placewhere we can share information
and access in real time.
It's a private, closed offforum that we're mostly going to
offer to the alumni of ourcourses and it's not exclusively
(57:54):
, but mostly, going to begovernment operators of some
capacity, because it's a very,very niche field that you can't
just take our course and flyback to wherever state you came
from and go hey, who here wantsto also share their other top
tier secrets about covert entry.
You walk into a bar and you saythat you'll get zero response.
You could say, hey, who in thearea wants to shoot?
(58:16):
And you can find a lot ofshooters.
But this stuff is so unique thatthis will be the only place
that anywhere on the planet, youcan have access to other people
that do this same teeny, tinyniche thing as you.
So we just started that lastweek.
Oh, just popped up Nice.
So it's brand new, it's ugly.
We have a lot of work to dobehind the scenes with the
(58:38):
details and design, but it's up.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
That's the first first half of the battle.
Well, thanks for coming on andchatting with us for a little
bit and giving us a livein-person demonstration of
raking, and I guess what was theother thing.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
So that's a comb tool , a comb Like you comb your hair
.
It's also known as anoverlifting attack, but that's
only specific to a very few makeand models.
The first technique you learnraking opens up thousands of
different makes and models oflocks.
So again, that's the game ofwhat are my resources, what are
my options, how do I stack thesethings?
Speaker 2 (59:14):
and again, that's the skill set gotcha well, cool, uh
, yeah, thanks again for comingon.
This was fun.
Appreciate you.
Yeah, appreciate it.
I think that should about do it.
Uh, y'all like comment,subscribe all that good stuff,
tell your mom, tell friends andwe'll see you next time.
I now teach a curriculum that didn't exist
before, but it's incrediblyunique and powerful and useful.
Whether you're a soccer mom orwhether you're in a first
responder or special forces, weteach people how to get through
locked obstacles in a very fastand efficient manner.
The stats here are so powerfulthat the amount of time it takes
to learn very small, the amountof money it takes to get
(00:21):
involved very small, the weightand the price of the tools to
put in your pocket very small,but what they open very big.
I found this kind of diamond inthe rough of something that's
just so hard to say no to it.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to the Big Tech's Ordinance Podcast.
I'm Ike, we have Tara as ourco-host and our guest today is
Pat from is it UncensoredTactical?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Uncensored Tactical.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Perfect.
So if you want to kind of tellus a little bit about yourself
and kind of what you do and howyou ended up there, and then
we'll, I guess, go from there,sure.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So there's like an eight-hour long story and
there's like a 30-second version.
So we'll start with the shortone.
So we'll start with the shortone.
I was in law enforcement forover a decade.
I did international operationswith the Coast Guard for, I
think, 10, 11 years-ish.
Oh wow, I also did some time asa local patrol officer in the
state of Florida.
So I did both those jobs and Ijust found, you know what.
(01:21):
I had this story on my brainyesterday.
I'm going to tell it becauseit's part of that.
It's attached to my history.
(01:45):
So I first got into the CoastGuard and I'm sure anyone that's
ever attended any type ofgovernment or bureaucratic
training.
You finish the training and theinstructor goes here's your
printed printer sheet stapledtogether, packet of the slides.
It's in black and white.
You can keep that.
There you go and everyone'slike okay, I get it Cool, better
than nothing.
And a lot of those will saylike there's a bunch of arrows
pointing to an image and thearrow says, if this wire is red
and everything's gray, thatdoesn't help me.
So, coast Guard, the same thing.
I got to a ship and it was likelearning a whole new language.
We're out in the middle of theocean and I had to get qualified
very quickly in order to beuseful to the crew.
So I needed to be able to standwatch by myself.
(02:07):
So I had to learn what's themasthead light color and what's
the port side and starboard siderunning light colors and you
know how many of them can therebe and what if there's two of
them.
And we had this packet that wasblack and white and there were
arrows saying red, green, butthey were just white circles in
a black field.
I'm like this is incredible.
(02:29):
So I went out and got ahighlighter and colored in the
colors as best I could and Imade it.
I got qualified and then we gota new batch of people on the
next deployment and I said youknow what?
I'm going to help these kidsout.
So I went into the computerroom and I pulled up their PDF
and I replaced their image withan updated image with colors in
it, old MS paint, and I printedout the sheets myself and
(02:51):
stapled them together myself andthen we handed them.
I handed them to the new guysand said here's your packet.
You'll notice that these photosare in color.
That should help you.
They're pictures of coloredlights.
And they went oh yeah, duh, I'mlike you have no idea how and I
got in trouble.
They were like, did you do this?
I'm like, yeah, we were dealingwith black and white and trying
(03:14):
to explain colors to people andthey went without asking.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I said yeah, without asking.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I did add color to something that doesn't have
color.
So that's my origin story.
I saw that training was notwhat it should be and there was
a very easy way to level that up.
So fast forward, two decades.
I now teach a curriculum thatdidn't exist before, but it's
incredibly unique and powerfuland useful whether you're a
(03:43):
soccer mom or whether you're ina first responder or special
forces.
So it's kind of like people getexcited about gunfighting stuff
and then they go oh, I shouldalso know medical too and I can
use it if there's not a gunfight.
So it's just, it's a veryholistic thing that makes you a
useful human, and it's not justreserved to gunfighting but can
(04:05):
be helpful during the gunfight.
My skill set's the same thing.
We teach people how to getthrough locked obstacles in a
very fast and efficient manner.
The stats here are so powerfulthat the amount of time it takes
to learn very small.
The amount of money it takes toget involved very small.
Like the weight and the priceof the tools to put in your
pocket very small, but what theyopen very big.
(04:28):
So it's just, I found this kindof diamond in the rough of
something that's just so hard tosay no to it, but it's also,
it's largely misunderstood.
So it's kind of tough whenyou're talking to people and
going, hey, do you want to takethis course?
And they go, oh, what is it?
And I go well, it's not justlock picking, but it's lock
picking.
And they go and they just theygo into their brain and they go
pick a lock.
(04:48):
I'm going to pay money to picka lock and it's it's largely
unknown.
Right, tv and movies don'treally help.
They see the.
You know there's, there's, whatis it?
Uh, what's that FBI show orwhatever.
They are NCIS.
Oh yeah, take a pocket knife,put it in the keyway, blink,
door opens up.
God.
So no, that's not it.
(05:09):
But there are a lot of thingsand I'll teach you, live here if
you want.
There's a lot of things that,with limited tool, limited money
, limited time, give you a hugeoutput, and so I'm very systems
oriented.
It's not just about this tooland the technique, and that's
really the first thing we showour operators.
We sit operators down in aclass and we go, hey, here's
your lock, here's your tools.
Go, here's your crash course.
(05:31):
Just see what you can do.
Throw you in the deep end, seewhat you do.
Immediately.
We don't do any PowerPoint orany slideshows, no lectures.
Everything in the courses thatI teach is all hands-on, nice,
and I even created a high.
I forgot to bring one man.
I have two books out, volumeone and volume two.
Oh wow, and they're hardcover,full size, full color page
(05:52):
photos, lots of descriptions.
We don't even use them in thecourse.
You get it when you sit down.
I go, you can read it if youwant.
But we're right here, we'regoing to be working.
So they pick up their tools,they pick up their lock and
we'll have you try this here.
Just set up oh no we had enoughfor everybody, so there's one.
(06:12):
So here is your 60 second crashcourse, doing it live yeah,
that's why I said oh no you takeyour hand and you put it around
the lock like a fist and youjust extend one finger and push
down on this tension wrench hereand that kind of spins this
keyway just a little bit niceand light.
You're not going to mash itdown, just nice and light.
(06:33):
Then you take another tool witha couple peaks or bumps on it
and that goes in above that andthe tops of these peaks touch
the pins inside the lock andthis tool just kind of like a
toothbrush, up and and down, inand out, and you hold tension
here, nice, springy tension, andyou just rake up and down here
and eventually that lock willopen.
That's it.
That's the only two variables.
(06:53):
You twist and then you rake.
So I'll pass that over to you.
That goes in your left hand andwe'll set another one up for
you.
Same thing Left hand, onefinger, hold some nice light
tension the other hand.
Look what I'm doing here withmy fingers.
Everything is nice and delicate, like you're playing an
(07:15):
instrument Nice and loose, niceand delicate.
You don't have to mash anythingdown.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
There it is.
What was that?
Like 15 seconds?
Yeah, that's awesome here.
All right, your turn, ike.
These two locks should havepretty identical components on
the inside, so they're about thesame level, but even so, you
could just get unlucky and itcould be a bad lock.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Or it could be better , or you could be much better.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So welcome to the world of covert entry.
You guys are now experts and westart almost every course this
way.
We go, you're in, you're live,you're doing it, and so it's
very powerful, it's very usefuland it's also great that you
don't.
I think simunitions is one ofthe best things to hit the
firearm world in the lasthundred years.
Just live force on force.
(08:00):
And the lock stuff is greatbecause you don't need to have a
shootout or a SWAT call out toget those field successes and to
be a basically combat lockexpert.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Right.
What's really fascinating to meis how quickly and easily, with
you know two small tools,you're able just to bust that
lock open.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And it will open hundreds and hundreds of
different locks.
Right?
So tons of makes and models,locks of locks on doors, locks
on padlocks, all sorts of things, and so that teeny tiny crash
course boom, explosion and skillset right having a rough go of
it.
That's great, so I plan that.
Well, it's doable, um, and youcould just be one degree away.
(08:43):
You might need just a tiny bitless tension on your finger.
Yeah, I can feel it binding onone of these yeah something's
happening which is good, and theother unique thing here is this
is a nonlinear skill set.
So I think, for the most part,shooting is pretty linear, and
(09:05):
what I mean by that is the morestraight you hold your gun and
the more confident your grip isand the more your eye sees the
sights and the target when youpush that trigger to the rear.
It's pretty linear.
You know what you're seeking.
You want the bullet or theround to hit the target the
right way, the right time, right.
This is not that way.
You can't just do another repand push harder and get it to
open faster.
So you, actually, what you'redoing is you're doing something
that's not supposed to work.
(09:26):
These locks are not supposed tobe opened by something other
than the key.
So you actually I had a studentonce this is not my idea, but
I've stolen it from this student.
He was in one of my classes andI had a class full.
Oh, there it goes.
Hey, jackpot, there, it is Verygood.
That's not bad either.
(09:53):
That's what?
60 seconds, two minutes,probably, probably closer to
four.
So it is a machine designed towork a certain way, and I had a
class with some spooky secretasian people, and some of them
were, um, kind of engineering,spooky people, and they all
looked at each other and theysaw what I was doing, I was
teaching, and they were mystudents and they went hey
that's?
They said that's an engineeringconcept.
They said you're taking machinea with input a to get output a.
(10:13):
And they went you want machinea with input b to get output a.
So they said you're, you'retrying to make this machine do
something other than the correctinput to get the correct output
.
So it's just you're playing withvariables that are not supposed
to work.
And that's, if I can get mystudents to understand, to not
(10:34):
get frustrated if it doesn'topen, but instead to go back to
that list and go machine A,input B, output A no, input C no
.
What about input B and Ctogether?
No, so you're playing withvariables and just like with
your hand setup, one hand is avariable how much tension am I
pushing?
The other hand is a variablewhich is not as important, just
(10:55):
that raking motion.
You can get a monkey in here todo that.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
The tension is a really important part To feel a
little bit of feedback, kind oflike a car If you're turning the
corner and you feel the tireskid, that's feedback.
So here you need to feel thatfeedback in your finger and go,
oh, what could this mean?
And because we can't seethrough the locks, we have to
guess with lots of repetition,lots of homework, lots of
knowledge.
So it's a skillset that I like.
(11:21):
Another useful kind of stat ofthis is it's a very low barrier
to entry.
You just started Right In 60seconds, two minutes, you just
got started, but the end pointyou can take this really deep
and you can go with crazy nuanceand crazy dedication.
You can get really successfulreally quickly with lots of high
(11:41):
percentages.
So it's just, it's the coolestthing I've found in my life.
It's just it's a really uniqueniche.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Right, I can definitely see your passion
around, but what actuallysparked you to create this
curriculum?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Sure.
So when I was a kid my fatherwas in law enforcement and I
always saw him, even off duty.
This was back in the eightiesand nineties, like pre nine 11.
So he was always saw him, evenoff duty.
This was back in the 80s and90s, like pre-9-11.
So he was always on duty evenwhen he was off and we would
drive in the family car andthere'd be a car pulled over on
the side of the road and dadwould pull the car over and stop
and go, oh, you locked out,hold on.
He'd go to the back, grab aSlim Jim from the trunk and pop
(12:19):
someone's door open and go hey,have a nice day, so have a nice
day.
So I knew that locks.
I knew that they weresusceptible to other types of
entries.
When I was a kid I saw it allthe time in action.
We get locked out of the houseand credit card through the door
.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Damn, oh we're in Done that a hundred times.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Awesome.
So I knew of this.
I was prepared for this when Igot into the military I can't
remember 19, 20 years old-ish Abuddy of mine had gone to Sears
School and this was post-9-11.
And he came back and said ohwell, they have this urban block
in survival school, now thatyou know, they taught us how to
pick a lock.
So he grabbed one of these andtwo tension wrench and a rake
(12:56):
two little tools, and he and Iwere hanging out and he popped
this lock open and I went oh,that's right, I know that this
is a thing.
And so I went online.
I ordered a lock pick set and Iordered a couple locks and
seven days a week, multiplehours a day, I dove way into it.
But at that time this must'vebeen around.
I know exactly when it was.
(13:18):
It was late 2007,.
I believe.
There were almost no books onthis.
There were no video courses.
That didn't exist back then.
You didn't go online and find avideo course.
There were no training schoolsto go to, except like a
locksmith school, which reallydoesn't fit what we're trying to
accomplish here.
(13:39):
So I had decades, decades worthof data, field experience,
successes and a lot of failures,and I tried to dive as deep as
I could into this skill set andI collected all that and then in
the military and then in lawenforcement work, I used this
skill set quite a bit and I loveto type too.
(13:59):
So whenever I had a successfulcase or failure, I would go to
my laptop, open up a notepad,just type, type, type, type,
type and say what happened.
Well, I used this tool, I usedit this way, I thought the lock
spun to the left, but I waswrong.
It actually spins to the right.
And as I was typing andlearning I would go oh, I
thought it went this way, itactually went that way.
You know that's happened to mebefore file where I go common
(14:27):
problems, check left and checkright.
If you're pretty sure it goesto the right and you're not
getting it, just take some time,see if it spins left, and that
would solve problems.
So I created a fieldapplication curriculum that
didn't previously exist.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
That's interesting, that's really interesting.
That's life.
So how does lock picking andlocksmithing differ from each
other?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Sure.
So there's actually about Idon't know five or six or seven
different fields of peopleprofessionally that will make
entry through locks.
Locksmithing is the biggest,but it has so much stuff
involved in it that picking alock open is less than 10% of
the job.
So I've worked with tacticalcompanies that say, hey, we used
(15:08):
to have a locksmith guy thatkind of taught our SWAT guys,
but it didn't really work outand I'd go oh yeah, because he's
probably no offense to thepeople but probably teaching
them to be locksmiths, which iswhat you can't do.
There are penetration testers orred teamers or pen testers.
They are security assessmentpersonnel, so they assess the
(15:30):
physical or digital security ofyour business, your house, your
military base, whatever, andthey also do lock picking and
entry stuff.
But they also have a bunch ofstuff that's not relevant to a
tactical entry.
So they're doing things likedraft they're called drafting
behind someone through an opendoor or like a smoking door and
they're doing things likecalling on the phone and asking
for entry, pretending to besomeone else.
(15:51):
But if you're a police officeror an EMS person and you're
driving your truck but you'restopped at a gate and it's a
rural gate, it's not electronic,it's just a padlock on a chain.
That red teaming stuff ofdrafting in through an open door
doesn't help you right.
So there's a chunk of thatstuff that doesn't apply to
tactical operations.
Chunk, there's a chunk thatdoes but a chunk that doesn't.
(16:13):
So there's locksmithing,there's pen testing.
Um, there is the hobby of locksport, which is incredibly
popular and exploding.
It's growing really quickly.
Um, it's legal in almost all 50states.
I'm pretty sure anyone you haveto check yourself but in most
of the 50 states now I think youcan own lock picks and carry
them in public and as long asyou're not also doing something
(16:35):
illegal, you can have them.
So people meet up in public atlike bars and restaurants and
public parks and they bring abunch of padlocks and a bunch of
picks and they'll just picktogether and it's great, it's
super.
Even that doesn't apply to yourfirst responder type operations,
because you have all the timein the world and police officers
(16:56):
and your other first responderscan't just show up and take a
whole bag and dump it out on thetable and go which tool do I
want?
So your resources are limited,you're limited, your time is
limited and in that hobby oflock sport.
There is no mission, it's just.
Here's the puzzle.
Can I solve the puzzle Inoperations?
Sometimes the right answer Iteach my students all the time
(17:16):
Sometimes the right answer iskick that door in, go.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
If the situation calls for it or it's, abandon
this, don't make entry at alland leave.
So there's all these answersthat you still win if you don't
pick the lock.
So you have locksmithing, hobbylock picking, you have
penetration testers, red teamers, and you have what I offer,
which is tactical lock picking.
It doesn't mean tactical, likethere's a gunfight going on, but
(17:43):
it means tactical, as in you'rechoosing a tactic because of an
operation, and so there is areal curriculum.
It's not just tools andtechniques, it's also the
application and thedecision-making that really
makes this stuff gold, which I'msure you'll see in a couple of
weeks here.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
So what can the students expect in the upcoming
class in July?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Sure, it's a two-day course, so most students that
have no exposure to this.
Your jaw is going to dropwithin the first hour once,
maybe twice, and so I'llactually show you that second
one, that second jaw drop moment, which is they're also going to
learn a lot of case studieswhere they're going to succeed
(18:25):
and they're going to fail, andthat's okay and that's part of
the class, and they're alsogoing to get, which is really
hard to quantify, but what Ibelieve truly is world-class
level instruction, regardless ofthe skill.
It is so, so easy to find aninstructor that just doesn't
connect with students, yeah,just kind of phones it in,
exactly, and I think most of thereasons that I've been able to
(18:52):
operate at a high level withhigh-end clients is the
instruction, is the product andthe tools and techniques are
kind of secondary.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And you have a passion for it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Oh my God, I love it that makes a huge difference.
So let's try this.
Let's say you struggle withthat little brass lock again, Go
ahead and close that shackleand so now you have those tools
that worked but took a while.
So that's a window scale.
So now we're diving deeper intoactual curriculum, not just the
tools and techniques.
You also have one of these inyour wallet which you can take
(19:27):
and if you identify the rightmake and model of lock and the
right tool you can insert.
Oh gosh you're just pushing upthose pins.
That's yeah, it's called anover lift with a comb tool and
and you're in.
That's crazy the timeline forthat.
If it's the right lock and ifit's the right tool and if there
are no exceptions, thattechnique should work in about
five seconds or less.
You get it lined up, you lift,you twist with a very, very high
(19:50):
success rate, like 99%, plusyour raking technique that you
did earlier might never work.
It might work right away, itmight work in 30 seconds, it
might work a minute later or youmight be here all day with no
answers.
The real kicker is what if thistool is nearby, like out in the
trunk of your car?
What if you have the picks inyour pocket and you're using
(20:12):
them and you go oh, this hastaken a while.
If there's an operation, andyou go, we need to get in very
quickly.
You have to go.
Should I use these tools in mypocket or should I go out to my
car and get a tool that's morelikely to work faster?
Right, and that's theapplication of the craft.
It's not anyone could teach youhow to take a lock and the
(20:33):
right tool and open it.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So that's.
It is interesting and useful,but that's not what makes us
special.
What's special is taking anoperator and going.
Oh, it depends on the mission.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Or if there's two of us and maybe I know how to pick
locks and you guys don't, I cango.
Hey, I need you guys to goaround the building, look for
open doors.
I'll start here.
So now I'm stacking resourcesand I'll try to make entry now
and if you guys see a door, takea picture of it with your phone
and when you get back to me Ican very quickly assess and go
okay, that door, no, oh yeah,that one that looks really good.
(21:05):
So I'm using my resources, data, and I'm stacking resources on
the scene.
I'm stacking my timeline in myfavor.
And it's way different than ifyou just go to a mediocre course
and the instructor goes here'sthe pick, here's the lock.
You graduated Right.
That operator might notwrongfully, but they might just
not know.
So they might get to the frontdoor and go all right, everybody
(21:25):
, stop, I got this.
Let me take one tool and tryone technique until well, hey,
there you go.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
That's a tough one, but once you get it, you'll
start to get much more quickly Ihad to get it right on the pin,
so I over inserted it first andit got locked up in there you
can go too deep or too shallow.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
That's, that's the tough part, but that's my long,
long answer.
Um, what they can expect isexactly this it's you see a tool
, you see a lock, you learn atechnique, you get it to work,
but then there's way more to itand the back end is what I think
.
It would be very hard to findanother course at our level that
do you twist it or just, orjust break it you get the.
(22:03):
So you're not.
Uh, it's not random.
You're just going to insert thetool and lift it up towards the
pins and then, once you'relifted, rotate to the right.
It's.
It's very it's tough to dowithout a couple diagrams.
Um, you might just get, getlucky.
If you get it, it shouldn'ttake a lot of force.
Actually, on my third book thatI published, I just moved across
(22:27):
the country so I don't have anystuff right now.
The third book that I published.
There's a really good diagramin there that explains what's
happening in there and withoutseeing that, the learning curve
is a lot more deep.
But you're going to the correctdistance with those prongs
inside and lifting up andtwisting.
So now you have two tools forone lock.
And what if neither of themwork?
(22:49):
What do you do next?
So the thought process and theapplication is really what makes
tactical lockpicking a veryspecial art form.
And now we do have curriculum,we have certifications.
So back in the 2000s this stuffdidn't exist, but now it does
because of our work.
So we work with high-levelagencies.
(23:09):
We work with special forces,international too.
So we have students frominternational SF units that will
fly across the globe to cometrain with us from international
SF units that will fly acrossthe globe to come train with us.
And then we also get contractedto go out of country to go
teach SF groups, foreign andallied and domestic.
So we're very busy, we love it,we operate at a very high level
and because I'm local andbecause we have a mutual friend,
(23:31):
I thought you know what, let'sdo a little bit of work for the
community here.
We'll do a low impact courseand we'll just share some of
this with you guys yeah, I'm I'mexcited, for I think it's gonna
be great oh, me too, especiallyafter hearing a little bit
about it.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I'm about to give up on this yeah, that one was a
little bit more difficult.
I was trying to get a, get itexactly lined up.
So how long have you haduncensored?
How long have you been doinglike the?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So I've been teaching people.
Almost the same week I startedlearning, I started teaching and
that's you know the phrase likewhat business are you in Like?
So you think you're in thebusiness of A, but you're
actually in a business of B Likeif you really like these
trinkets but you sell a lot ofthem, you're in the sales
business.
You're not in the trinketbusiness.
Same thing here.
(24:22):
Teaching is the business thatI'm in.
That's what makes us special.
I've sold some tools.
I've written some books.
I love writing too.
I love writing and publishingbooks, both my own and other
tactical books for people.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I'm working on two other projects for two other
authors right now to help thembring their tactical books to
life.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That's actually a business that you have, is that
correct?
So the business started.
I was actually in GuantanamoBay on a deployment and I
cracked open my laptop and I'dbeen teaching for a decade at
that point, just privately andto other military units, just
because we were in the same room.
But officially, the businesspart of that started in 2016,
2017-ish.
Oh wow, I was in Guantanamo Bayon a deployment and I said, okay
(25:09):
, let's start a website.
Okay, let's start writingarticles.
Okay, let's start a podcast.
And I did all those things.
And then I actually sold myfirst kind of public enrollment
course to say, hey, would youlike to pay me money and I'll
teach you how to do this.
So my first sale of the course,which was separate from hey,
we're on a deployment, sit down,I'll teach you.
That's a teaching experience.
(25:30):
But selling the course thefirst one I actually sold was in
Guantanamo Bay.
So a bunch of the dudes I wasdeployed with I said it was, it
was nerve wracking because I wasnot comfortable with money or
sales or any of that stuff.
And I told a bunch of dudes,hey, if you give me 50 bucks,
hey, I got it.
Now.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
He's a cheater, he's cheating.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
So I told the dudes you give me 50 bucks.
We still got three or fourmonths left on the deployment.
I'll give you full access to me, daytime, nighttime.
You'll have access to all myentry tools.
If you're just bored, just comeover to my little we call them
hoochies the little hooch I livein.
Just come on over, we'll hangout at the coffee table, we'll
pick some locks.
50 bucks for like four monthsof one-on-one training.
(26:12):
Yeah, I sold like eight or nineseats, which hooray, but that's
what 400 bucks total.
So that bought me dinner acouple of nights.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
No big deal Was that about like two cents an hour.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Oh my God, yeah, break it up, but they enjoyed it
, they learned a lot, I learneda lot.
And then I did my.
As soon as we got back incountry, I did a real open
enrollment course for the public.
So I started probably within ayear getting back, I had two
courses back to back that Itraveled across the country to
go teach it, uh, which was great, um, one was in Ohio, one was
in Indiana, I think.
(26:46):
Um, but man, it's just beennonstop ever since, yeah, and
we've almost, we've almostdoubled the size and scope of
our operations every single yearsince that year.
So before it was two courses,the next year was four courses
and it was X price, and that wasX times two was the price, and
then it was we have no books.
(27:07):
We have one book, and the nextyear we wrote two more books,
and so we've just been exploding.
And I think it's just.
I think it's because it's sopowerful and unique and people
just don't know about it.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And so the more we get all these touch points with
different students in theclasses, different agencies we
work with, it just has such ahuge return on investment that
it's just been a wild ride.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So you were talking about books.
I counted three so far thatyou've authored a couple other
projects and stuff.
How many books do you have out?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I have.
If you go on Amazon, I havethree books available there
right now.
The Amazon printing processisn't as high quality as the
other companies I use.
Oh yeah, so Amazon's print ondemand Like the KDP stuff.
Yeah, I don't have any controlover that quality control, but
(28:02):
the books, the content of thebook is still good.
It's you probably won't noticeit but the pages for the Amazon
books are kind of powdery orkind of matte, but the books
that I get elsewhere that I sellare like high gloss pages, so
little things like that.
You probably won't noticeunless you're a super nerd like
me.
I have those three books.
It's volume one, which istactical lock picking, which is
this stuff you're seeing.
Volume two, which is tacticallock picking, which is this
stuff you're seeing.
Volume two, which is keygeneration, field key generation
(28:23):
, which is really sweet.
So how to take someone's key,get the information from it,
hand it back to them and then gocut your own copy, but not like
a locksmith, actually to do soin field operations with limited
gear, limited time, limitedresources in a fast speed.
So that's my second book is KeyGeneration.
I have a tools and techniquemanual which is a little field
spiral that just lists oh,that's cool, it's this lock,
(28:45):
this tool.
Go this lock, this tool.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Oh, that's kind of like a little handy reference,
right yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Oh, that's neat and that's really powerful.
We started giving all thestudents in our courses get that
book.
Now I don't think this courseis going to have it.
We did a reduced price for youguys and I just moved across the
country A lot of the printingstuff.
When I do good orders from agood printing company could be
two or three weeks for the booksto arrive, so I don't even know
if they'd get here in time.
I have those three.
(29:11):
I wrote one kind ofphilosophical book but I've
taken it off the market since.
I wrote that three or fouryears ago.
It was just about the study ofhow large and small agencies
operate with their incentivestructure.
Because I was frustrated withthe military and with law
enforcement, I just took asystems approach view of it,
(29:33):
wrote basically my thesis on thefindings.
I published that One, two,three, four.
And then I wrote two magazinescovert entry magazine just with
a couple articles aboutlockpicking stuff.
I will be producing more ofthose.
Oh wow, am I missing anything?
And I'm currently jugglingthree writing projects right now
(29:54):
, one for myself and two um fortwo separate friends of mine in
the tactical world so you hadmentioned in the back about that
, that one project that you'rewriting for yourself I'm writing
, writing for right now oh wow,can you talk about that, that
fiction one, or is it?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
are you not ready?
No, I can talk about it, okayum, I love.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Do you?
Do you guys do much reading?
Do you know the richardmarchenko books?
I don't think so.
Rogue Warrior, red Cell, greenTeam, orange Team.
So he wrote.
Former DevGrew guy wrote like 10or 12 books.
I loved him when I was a kid.
Then there's the Vince Flynnbook series.
The character's name is MitchRapp.
I read probably seven or eightof those books, loved them,
(30:42):
loved them.
And I do enjoy writing and I doenjoy fiction quite a bit.
But my business supported muchmore nonfiction work.
So I've been paying the billswith fiction, which I enjoy, but
I've always wanted to get intononfiction.
Sorry, vice versa, my mistake,but I also, and it's the same
way you talked about, there'ssome books that talk about
gunfighting and they just missthe mark.
They say the wrong thing.
I read a book once.
I had a lot of hate for it.
(31:02):
I did a review of a leadershipbook and they said I racked my
upper slide to the rear and I'mlike I think there's just the
slide.
It's not maybe not the upperslide of a Beretta, it's just
because there's no lower slide,there's no lower slide.
But sometimes books miss themark on purpose or an accident,
or just they don't care aboutgunfighting, and I wanted to
bring my version of accuratetactics but to a covert entry
(31:26):
story.
So I wanted to be the oppositeof NCIS and go well, it would be
stupid to shove my pocket knifeinto the keyway because that
does nothing.
So I wanted to kind of givedetails and proper tool names
and proper techniques.
But I wanted to teach a littlebit kind of secretly in the book
and go if you have read it,then you have learned on
accident, and I thought that waskind of a cool concept, that's
(31:48):
neat.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Like everyone knows that if you're going to store a
key for a door, it's probablywithin arm's length of the door.
It's probably not a mile away,right?
If you're going to search, justdo a quick search in this area.
Or if there's a code for thislock, and if there's a hidden
code nearby, it's also probablywithin arm's length.
So let me just look.
Oh, there's a four digit codewritten on the wall.
(32:10):
Maybe that's it.
Yeah, so you can say thesethings in a story and people
will hear them and go oh, thatmakes sense.
So we can kind of get peopleinvolved in this really unique
skillset and kind of draw theminto the world.
So that's the fiction projectI'm working on now.
It probably won't be ready foranother two years.
It's a long project, but I'mreally enjoying.
(32:33):
It Sounds pretty cool.
It'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
So I want to jump back into the class portion.
A lot of people think that,like doing these types of
classes and, you know, offeringthese tools, like just teach
criminals how to break into, youknow, there's going to be
somebody in the comments.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I already know.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, and that's that's really I really want to.
You know, I want you to explainyour your take on that.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Sure, uh, sure, and this should not be unexpected
from people that are in the gunworld.
Oh no, you're teaching peopleto murder people, teaching
Exactly Deep breath.
So I want to try and say thiswithout being angry at someone,
some invisible person.
I'm having an invisibleargument with me.
If the person is willing tolisten, I would ask them
(33:19):
questions so that they cananswer it.
It's not me telling you thatwhat I'm doing is right or wrong
.
It's asking a set of questionsthat, if the listener or watcher
is willing to ask them tothemselves, they can form their
own opinion a little bit better.
And the perspective is reallyimportant.
So if you're mad that there arepeople teaching others to pick
(33:41):
locks, then are you also madthat you could become a
locksmith with a criminal recordand with a $50 LLC and a stamp
from the state?
So that's the barrier to entryroughly.
There's some exceptions hereand there, but you could be a
locksmith tomorrow and then youcould be the secret special
(34:01):
person with almost no barrier toentry.
So I have a barrier to entry.
My classes are.
Yours is a discounted class,but my classes are more than a
thousand dollars a seat.
That's a very high barrier ofentry for someone that just
wants to be a street levelcriminal.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And I see your face.
I get your name, I get youremail, I get your phone number.
You're in public with otherpeople.
I have photos of you, yeah, sothere's quite a bit of high and
low here, risk reward.
So, number one are you also madthat it doesn't take much to be
a locksmith?
Probably not, oh, okay.
So if you're mad that I'mteaching people, are you also
(34:40):
mad that there are martial artsschools that you can go with no
background check and that theycould basically teach a criminal
to beat people up?
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Well, no, I'm probably not mad about that.
I never thought about that.
Okay, cool, we'll put a pin inthat I'm not giving someone the
answer, I'm just askingquestions.
Mm-hmm, put a pin in that I'mnot giving someone the answer,
I'm just asking questions.
So if I like this one too, ifyou're locked out of your house
and it's your house and it'syour lock, and your keys are
locked somewhere, do you havethe right as a human to, even
(35:12):
without training, just to guessand to put something into your
keyway and hope it opens?
You'd probably think, well,yeah, it's my house, okay, great
, is it wrong for me to teachthat same human to do that thing
for their own house better?
Well, probably no, but okay.
And then there's exception,exception, exception.
What if this, what if that?
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, you can play the what if game all day, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Another big one that's really common in our
field is these are notproprietary, meaning there's no
secret information in herethat's inaccessible.
You could take this lock andyou can cut it in half and you
can look at it and go oh, Icould probably push this thing
and that'll open it, meaninganyone has access to learn how
to do this, even without me.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
If there's a 12-year-old at home that can
open this with paperclipswithout any training, are you
mad at that 12-year-old fortrying, and are you mad at me
for teaching adults how to bemore prepared?
So there's just so many thingsthat I think and I don't think
it's people's fault I'm notsaying how dare you not know
better?
I screw stuff up all the time.
(36:17):
I'm not saying how dare you not?
know better.
I screw stuff up all the time,right, and I get new perspective
all the time and I go oh no, Iwas so wrong, whoops, but this
stuff is, it's so very it's notit's another word, but neutral.
Basically.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
It's so very neutral.
I've been doing this for 20years and I have a skill set
that I think is top tier,without a doubt, and I still
haven't pulled off a heist yet.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
There's probably no building in this county that I
couldn't get intosurreptitiously or covertly, and
every single day I get a realpaycheck.
I don't go out and steal frompeople.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Still haven't committed a crime yet.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
You know, haven't broken in anybody's house, so
just it's.
The perspective is tough and Idon't blame people.
It's something that you don't.
If it's something that youdon't understand, I get it.
How people have a snap judgment.
But, man, I'll throw one morein and then you know.
Whatever.
It's up to you guys where we gonext.
But the last one would be if yougo to the FBI's website, they
(37:24):
have what's called crime statsor crime statistics.
It's all open source.
They give you all these details.
So every time even a localpolice officer they go on a call
, they go there was a burglaryand they're clicking buttons on
their report form.
And they go how did the burglarget in?
Well, there's a smashed window,click, okay.
Well, how'd they get out?
They unlocked the front doorfrom the inside, click, okay.
(37:45):
What'd they take this?
Click.
What time did it happen?
Click, and all these stats.
They don't stay.
At the end of every year theyshow their crime stats and the
last time I checked the methodof entry for burglaries in the
US for things that were covertor lockpick related were less
(38:07):
than 1% of 1%.
So sure I'm teaching somethingthat if a bad person wants to
learn it, the chances of themdoing it.
If we look at it statistically,based off, the whole scale of
burglaries is less than 1% ofless than 1% Right.
Much less than that too.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Also, too, if you think about like your average
criminal is trying to break inthe front door or whatever, I
would venture to guess thatprobably 99 times out of 100,
maybe even 999 times out of1,000, he's going to just be
kicking the door or busting thewindow.
I don't think they're reallyspending the time.
Busting out a window takes acouple seconds.
Picking a front door lock, Iwould imagine, takes at least
(38:49):
maybe a minute, unless youreally know what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So there's a lot of it depends, and this is not a
good lock.
Picking into a structure is nota good plan.
Like we talked about earlier,it's engineering, it's input A,
sorry, it's machine A.
Input B hopefully can getoutput A.
So you're guessing.
Even the best people on theplanet that have this skill set,
that are super spies behindclosed doors, they shouldn't be
(39:14):
planning to pick a lock on theway in.
They should really have a keyor use some other very reliable
method.
We can get you more reliablewith this, but at the end of the
day, you're guessing Right.
So if I look at the lock on thestore over here and I go, oh, I
know the make and model of that, I'll buy one on Amazon and
I'll practice at home.
I think that was featured inthat Chris Pratt show recently.
(39:38):
I'll practice at home.
I think that was featured inthat Chris Pratt show recently.
So, yes, that would make mefamiliar with the lock in the
privacy of my own training roomand then when I came here, I
would have a leg up.
But there are still exceptionsin which it's possible that I
could pick this lock on my desk,this training lock that looks
like that one, and I could stillget to yours, and the pin stack
could be different or theenvironment could be different,
(39:59):
and for some reason I just can'topen it.
So it's not a guarantee.
So it's a.
It's a very bad plan.
It's very useful to be foldedinto operations.
If you have a split second to go, oh, should I kick the door?
Or oh, let me try this otherthing real quick.
It's not working.
Okay, cool, move on.
Yeah, it's great for that,super great.
(40:20):
If you come up to a keypad andyou're going to smash the door,
do you have a second to go?
One, two, three, four.
Oh, my God, it worked.
If it works, use it, yeah.
If it doesn't, you have achance to go oh, should I do
something different now?
Should I use another covertentry method or another covert
entry method, or you know what?
Just bring the breacher, let'sgo.
So it's really good in additionto it's not really good on its
(40:44):
own and I fully acknowledge that.
But the other thing is youcould keep these in your pocket
and you can't keep a batteringram in your pocket.
So it's it's.
It's got a really large spreadof application, but at the end
of the day, you're still thebest people in the world.
You're still guessing.
Hopefully it works.
I don't know if I got way offtopic there.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
No, I think that was right on topic.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Right on topic.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Thorough answer.
Thorough answers are good.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
So are there any locks that are unpickable?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
In theory?
No, in theory, any lock, givenenough time, some super smart
person can find a way into it.
The in practice answer iswhat's reasonable?
So we get the operational scope.
There's a guy that came outwith another huge mammoth book
recently on security and oninsecurity, on locks and
(41:49):
insecurity, something like that.
Mark Weber, tobias, I think, ishis name.
I get those three names not inthe right order.
Sometimes it's a huge, big redand black encyclopedia.
It's like 700 pages.
He specializes in.
A lock company will design a newlock, a very high-end, super
(42:09):
secure lock, and they'll send itto him and his team and they'll
say find out how to break intothis covertly.
And so he gets paid to do that.
So there's people thatspecialize in that.
But some of his methods andhe'll even tell you in the book
some of those methods are well,first you need a drill bit of
this size and you need to gothis specific depth into the
lock and then you need to take abobby pin and straighten it and
(42:31):
hit it with a hairdryer andthen poke through this plastic
membrane.
Yeah, which, yes, would open ahigh security lock.
But no, if I just showed up tothe lock, I wouldn't go oh, I
have an idea, let me Right, Iwould not do those things Right.
So every lock is susceptible insome way, even the huge
government bunkers that canwithstand a nuke Well, yeah,
(42:55):
they can withstand a nuke butnot a team with a bunch of drill
bits and three months worth oftime to just sit outside and
drill, drill, drill drill.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
You'll get in eventually.
So it really is a game of whatis the purpose of the lock and
what are the types of attackersyou're trying to keep out.
And a lot of these reallyhigh-level locks are not really
primarily for security.
A lot of them are really forinsurance.
(43:25):
So there's things like if youown a jewel store or a bank,
you're not allowed to have aresidential lock on the front
door.
It has to be a lock from acertain company, from a certain
make and model, in order foryour bank to have an insurance
(43:46):
policy on the structure.
So that means that people thattake my course probably cannot
pick into a vault.
Sorry, there are people thatcan do that, but it's a
different skill set.
So a lot of this stuff is justman, just like gunfighting, or
just not even gunfighting guns.
There is so much width and depthto the gun world that you could
be a hobbyist, you could be anOlympic sharpshooter, you could
be a sniper in the military, youcan be just a designated
(44:07):
marksman, you can just be goodwith a rifle, like there's all
these different things.
There's revolvers, there'spistols, there's everything in
between, and then each of thoseone things can go so deep you
can be the world's best pistolshooter it's been 60 years at it
but someone hands you a rifleand you can go.
This is clunky.
So we have the same thing herewith covert entry and with lock
(44:28):
picking.
Every single one of these locksand every one of these tools
and every one of these miniatureskill sets can go so deep.
It's incredible, and every daywe're adding new locks to the
field, new makes and models, newtools.
People are discovering newtechniques.
So, um, it's just, it's amazingkind of being on this frontier
(44:49):
of stretching the skill set andproviding this to top tier
operators.
It's just, it's been superexciting for me.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Yeah, Well, it also opens your eyes to.
You know, a lot of people getkind of like a false sense of
security, thinking, oh, I've gotmy deadbolt, I've got, you know
, these locks on my doors, likeI'm good, and even you know I've
got locks like these on theshed in my backyard, you know.
So I saw how easy that was.
That was really kind of like anaha moment.
Yeah, I think the class willdefinitely open your eyes to how
(45:21):
insecure you actually are inyour own home.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
So I'll give you a feedback response to that which
is a lot of our students.
The first thing they think whenthey pick open locks is they go
.
Oh no, I have to change mykeyway on my door or change my
lock on my door, Breathe.
So yes, you could, but, likeyou brought up earlier, most
criminals aren't picking locks,they're kicking doors in, Right?
So, yes, your front door isprobably that easy to get into.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
But if you want to be secure, you have to pair your
security with your expectedattacker.
Three-inch screws are probablya better investment.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Much better investment, much, much better.
Yeah, and a camera, three-inchscrews and a ring camera so they
can see themselves as they walkup and go.
Hmm, let me take a secondthought.
Should I do this?
And they kick the door threetimes, four times, and they go,
ooh, should I keep doing this?
We'll go to the next one.
You're buying time and you'repairing.
Your defense and offense shouldbe paired.
If you're worried about JasonBourne killing you in the middle
(46:19):
of the night, there's probablynothing you can do.
But if you want to keep outyour street-level criminals, you
probably want to harden youractual hardware of your door,
not the lock exactly.
Yeah, you can.
You certainly can upgrade yourlock.
Yeah, um, but you probablydon't have to for most attackers
let's talk about, like thetools and the gear and stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
oh yeah, um, do you have any favorite places to get
the stuff from?
Or like what if somebody's outthere looking to jump into this?
So I'll answer it very short.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
I don't buy any of my entry gear on Amazon, even the
stuff on there that can work.
There's just so many.
There's so many qualitywebsites that cater specifically
to the covert entry crowd andthe lock picking crowd, and the
tools are so high quality and solow priced that really there's
(47:12):
no reason for me to get stuff onAmazon that's punched out en
masse.
Yeah, and even if it might work, it's not worth the might, so I
push that to the side.
I don't get anything on Amazon.
If you just Google lockpickingtools, you will find covert
entry websites that offer allthe stuff you saw here, just a
little handheld sets and more.
(47:33):
And you can even go to mostlocksmith websites here in the
US and for the most part theywill sell to you without any
special licensing or permissions.
And they do have lock entrytools.
But you'll see on the sidebarthey have a bunch of stuff
that's not related to lockpicking.
It's lock setting, it'shardware, it's pins, it's
upgrades.
So one Google search will solveyour problems.
(47:56):
Oh, and YouTube.
If you see something cool onYouTube, almost everyone in the
lockpicking world that doesYouTube videos they'll say hey,
I'm using this new set, here'swhere I got it, go buy one.
So YouTube is just your bestfriend if you're learning this
skill set.
Here's where I got it go buyone.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
So youtube is just your best friend if you're
learning this skill set at homeyeah, there's a couple uh, lock
picking lawyer I'm sure you'reprobably familiar with all of
them that and then there'sanother guy, um, like, is it?
Is it bonsai bill?
Speaker 1 (48:20):
bosnian bill bosnia bill.
Yeah, great instructor bosnianbills.
Uh, a lot of his earlier worksare are deep structured how-to
videos and they're fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, their stuff's always super interesting.
He's always playing with likenew locks and stuff and like
trying to get into them.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
So when you see stuff like that and you go and you're
learning and you go, oh, I sawthis guy, bosnian Bill.
He opened this one lock, allthese different ways, but then
this one really unique way.
Okay, we'll try to find thatpadlock if you can find it by
make and model and buy it.
And then try and buy thosetools that he had and line them
up and just go through the videowith them, just monkey, see
monkey do so.
It doesn't have to be superstructured.
(49:03):
If you want to learn this skillset, you can literally go.
I saw this, let me try it.
If it doesn't work.
There's also a bunch ofcommunities I know Reddit has a
subreddit or lockpicking.
They don't do any covert entrystuff or really any bypasses.
They are specifically whathappens in the keyway.
Can we make this work?
That's very restricted and theyhave very tight, very
(49:26):
well-enforced rules.
If you send them a picture of alock that's in use, they kick
you out.
Or if you're like, hey, Ilocked my cabinet, they're like
we don't care, you're booted.
They are strictly.
Here's the puzzle, inside thislittle keyway.
Here's the tools.
This is how we solve it, likeit's very academic and very it's
also a very hobby sport andthey have very strict rules, but
(49:47):
they give a lot of informationfor free.
So if you want to learn how topick each of those pins
individually, go on Reddit, goto rlockpicking and just follow
their rules.
But it's free and they loveanswering questions.
So a new person goes hey, Ifound this lock, but I can't get
through this one spot.
People will give you walls oftech and resources and digital
(50:09):
PDFs and they'll just send themto you and they're happy to do
it.
Oh wow, so it's a really coolcommunity.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
So you mentioned kind of bypassing and lockpicking.
The course that we have comingup here in July is that kind of
both or is it more?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
So we're doing three things in your course, which is
my core curriculum.
So, as far as the tools andtechniques go, it's lock picking
, it's bypassing and it'sdecoding.
So three of the main ways thatwe teach are foundational entry
methods.
There's much more than that,but that's what we make our
foundation.
You also get the curriculumbehind that, which is how to
apply it.
(50:43):
That's really the special stuffin getting that too.
So you're getting lock picking,which is what happens in the
keyway.
You're getting bypassing, whichmeans if there's a key or a
code for this lock, we useanything except for the key and
the code.
Sorry.
So that would be on like asimple residential or commercial
office door.
Here you have the keyway on theoutside, but you have the
(51:04):
doorframe where there's a latchthat goes into the doorframe.
But you have the door framewhere there's a latch that goes
into the door frame, so you canuse a flexible or a rigid item
to affect that latch and thenjust pull the door open without
even touching the keyway.
That's a bypass, or you can gounder the door and pull that
handle down.
Oh, yeah, a little.
Yeah, I've seen those.
That's a bypass, and evenbypasses have their own realms.
(51:24):
So you have a lot of latchbypasses.
That's kind of one area.
You have, um, what's called aRex bypass request to exit R E X
, um, and those are all thetypes of bypasses where you're
tricking a door or a lock intothinking that you're leaving.
So, like a vehicle gate, if thegate has a passive automatic
(51:45):
exit where they have a groundloop detector, so if you're
driving out of a parking garageand there's that big metal loop
and once you hit the loop thegate automatically opens, well,
the gate has a request to exitfrom your car.
Well, if you're on the outsideof the gate trying to get in and
you take an industrial magneton a skateboard and you roll
that skateboard over that loop,that gate will think there's a
(52:06):
car there and it will open soyou can drive out the in or
sorry in.
I'm a mess today so you candrive in the out.
So that's a request to exit,bypass, and so again, just so
much width and depth to all theskills.
But you'll be picking locks,you'll be bypassing padlocks,
you'll be picking and bypassingdoors, We'll be decoding a
(52:28):
couple locks.
If we have time, we'll breakinto a vehicle or two and again
you'll just it's a lot of.
It is a foundational skill.
Everyone's going to pick a lock, Everyone's going to decode a
lock, Everyone's going to slip alatch.
But behind that, so much of myclass is fluid, meaning I have
(52:49):
to watch two things at the sametime.
I have to watch individuals andsay, does he get this?
Okay, let me help him, or Ihave to go.
Is the class bored and like, asa whole, did they dominate this
and they're ready for the nextthing?
Or are they all like, oh hey,how about this lock, how about
this lock?
And they're like they'replaying?
Then I have to let that be.
(53:10):
So that's also.
That's the experience that webring to our top tier clients,
is it's not?
We don't go down a checklist.
So if I'm reading the class andsome classes spend a lot of
time in one area and a littletime here and other classes flip
it, but really that's the value.
So as long as I can get them tounderstand the concept of how
to fold this into operations,and as long as I can give them
to understand the concept of howto fold this into operations,
and as long as I can give them apretty good foundation of
(53:31):
different tools, differenttechniques, then we just we play
for two days, three days.
Most of my military andgovernment clients, we do a
five-day course, but it's a weekof just as in-depth as we could
possibly be and it's fun too.
It is not.
I don't do any yelling atpeople.
I don't set my students up forfailure.
There's no pushups.
One of my least favoriteinstructor traits is going to a
(53:53):
class for topic A and theinstructor turns it into a
martial arts class and goes here, grab my arm.
I get that in some places.
There's a time and place forthat.
I don't like that.
I don't do that.
So there will be no secretkarate moves.
I won't be chopping anything.
It'll be all professional, Justthe same way.
We've talked here is exactlywhat you get to classroom.
(54:14):
Nice it is.
Hey, try this.
Oh, it didn't work, oh, cool.
Well, let me go to thewhiteboard and draw you a
picture.
Oh, okay, Do you get it Likethis, is it?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
So on your podcast.
If somebody wants to go lookthat up, where can they find it?
Speaker 1 (54:26):
You could still find some traces of it out there.
I pulled it from production.
Oh, okay, not a bad thing.
We just we took a huge shiftover the last two years, so we
will be coming back with a freshnew podcast, but we're going to
tighten up the focus of it andkeep it strictly the craft of
(54:47):
entry.
We did a lot of kind of one-offepisodes about different things
that didn't really relate tothe craft.
If they wanted to find it, theycan just search on Google and
there will be some other typesof production, kind of third
parties that have traces of itout there Gotcha but it's
probably not on Apple or Spotifyor anything.
Okay, but we'll be back.
Nice, we've had 250-ishepisodes.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Yeah, that's a lot of episodes, man.
We'll be back Nice.
We've had 250-ish episodes.
Yeah, that's a lot of episodes,man, Just curious what period
of time did it?
Speaker 1 (55:15):
how long did it take you to amass 250?
I aimed for God when I firststarted.
I wanted to do five a week.
That quickly didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Wow, I turned that into one a week.
Still, that's a very aggressiveschedule.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
Yeah, well, when I was on a deployment I had that
time, yeah.
And then post-deployment, I hadthat time and then when life
caught up, I didn't have that.
Yeah.
Now that I'm much moreexperienced and now that my
schedule is different, my livingsituation is different I can
definitely do a podcast a week,especially audio, because that's
just cut paste.
There's almost for me, for whatI want to achieve.
(55:50):
There's almost no editing.
I don't cut out the ands andahs, the intro, outro, I just
talk and I hit publish.
So that's pretty quick.
I will be back with more onthis craft.
Yeah, to answer your question,it took me maybe three or four
years to hit 250.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Still, that's pretty pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
I think I don't remember if we had a quarter
million downloads or a half amillion downloads, but we were,
I think, successful by mostmeasures.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
I would definitely say so.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
We got a lot of very positive feedback, but again we
went so off topic for so manyepisodes that, as a business, I
think we're we'll be much betterin the future, just refocusing,
because we could cover a lot.
Yeah, I don't know how longwe've been here, but I could go
for it.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
We're almost at an hour here and like I feel like
we just got started.
Yeah, I could.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
I could talk on this stuff.
Yeah, it seems like you got alot more in you but that's also
a signal that there is a lot ofdepth to this.
It is not just take this pickand this thing and make it open
Like there's so much to it.
What's your website?
So I just started a new one.
(57:02):
I have the old one, which isUTACio.
You can type the whole thing.
That's a shortcut.
You can type the whole thing inuncensoredtacticalcom.
It's where my gear store usedto be.
I used to host my podcastepisodes on their own page there
.
That's mostly been gutted witha recent move across the country
and with the restructuring ofthe business.
It's really just a placeholderright now and I started a new
(57:27):
website which is just tacticallockpickingio, and that's going
to be our forum.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
And the purpose of that one is for the people that
are doing this in a professionalcapacity to make real entry
into real operational structures.
That's going to be a placewhere we can share information
and access in real time.
It's a private, closed offforum that we're mostly going to
offer to the alumni of ourcourses and it's not exclusively
(57:54):
, but mostly, going to begovernment operators of some
capacity, because it's a very,very niche field that you can't
just take our course and flyback to wherever state you came
from and go hey, who here wantsto also share their other top
tier secrets about covert entry.
You walk into a bar and you saythat you'll get zero response.
You could say, hey, who in thearea wants to shoot?
(58:16):
And you can find a lot ofshooters.
But this stuff is so unique thatthis will be the only place
that anywhere on the planet, youcan have access to other people
that do this same teeny, tinyniche thing as you.
So we just started that lastweek.
Oh, just popped up Nice.
So it's brand new, it's ugly.
We have a lot of work to dobehind the scenes with the
(58:38):
details and design, but it's up.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
That's the first first half of the battle.
Well, thanks for coming on andchatting with us for a little
bit and giving us a livein-person demonstration of
raking, and I guess what was theother thing.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
So that's a comb tool , a comb Like you comb your hair
.
It's also known as anoverlifting attack, but that's
only specific to a very few makeand models.
The first technique you learnraking opens up thousands of
different makes and models oflocks.
So again, that's the game ofwhat are my resources, what are
my options, how do I stack thesethings?
Speaker 2 (59:14):
and again, that's the skill set gotcha well, cool, uh
, yeah, thanks again for comingon.
This was fun.
Appreciate you.
Yeah, appreciate it.
I think that should about do it.
Uh, y'all like comment,subscribe all that good stuff,
tell your mom, tell friends andwe'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.