round vs diamond

[bumpin88]

I am sure this has been asked somewhere, just not too sure. What does diamonds picks offer that round picks don't? Basically how are round picks better than diamonds?, if they are, or how are diamonds better the round picks?
Is this just a matter of preference? Personally,well i am kinda new at picking, but I rather use half round picks over diamonds. but I can use diamonds for any app. I can use round picks.
round picks just feel better to me in a lock . Any else feel this way? Critics of the view are also wecome.

[Moosekace]

Its a lot easier to target a single pin with a diamond as opposed to a round tip. Because of the size of a round tip it can be pretty easy to overlift the pins next to the one your trying to manipulate. I rarely use the round ended ones just as a matter of personal preference. I've heard they are most often used with wafer locks. And if you're having trouble maneuvering the diamond pick around you might have too much tension on the lock and the tip is getting caught on the stuck pins.

[phippoD]

I find that the round picks slide better through the lock better where some times the dimond can catch on the pins but i use both it really just depends on what you like and sometimes what your picking.

[raimundo]

round picks are not better than halfdiamond, they fill the keyway with pickhead that gets in the way more often than not. A half diamond pick will raise the pin just as high, and not impinge by raising adjacent pins if the picker knows what hes about. Good half diamond picks are not those barely and eggtooth picks that southord and others put on thier thick shafts. a good half diamond is steep on the front, undercut if necessary and steep on the backslope,
This type of half diamond is 'skeletonized' meaning all the sharp edges are rounded and the fat is removed in favor of greater mobility in the keyway.
You can put such a picktip under a bottom pin in a core you hold in your hand and see how it sets the pin whether it sets it with the upslope on the front of the pick or the height of the picktip, or on the backslope. And people who say that doing this will impinge on the next pin havent done this experiment enought to realize how small their objection is in the real world.
It is true that the ball picks will impinge on adjacent pins, but this can also be successful, because once again, if you put the pick in a core full of bottom pins and observe how it interacts, there is often a point along a slope that will set two pins at the same time. This can happen easily with a ball tip pick, it also happens with the half diamond when you chose to use it on two pins at once. But the objection to the balls is that they fill so much of the keyway, they cannot deal with deep cuts, and long pins, as they are prone to overlifting them.

[straightpick]

Ball picks work well on certain wafer locks, and double bitted locks that use "pattern cut keys" like Chicago. Not good for pin tumblers.

[TheSkyer]

A really flat diamond slides in and out a lock just as well as a ball, the plus side is that I personally have more success setting pins with a diamond than a ball. So diamond for me

[bumpin88]

Thanks for sharing guys. That is some very useful info.

[racerboy59]

For me I find that on really small keyways, and where the tension wrench needs to be mounted at the bottom, half diamond is much easier to slide into, whereas the round pick will get stuck at the entrance. On the set i've got anyway, the half diamond is about 2/3rd the size of a round. But I still find that using a diamond pick is more precise and I have better control of the pins.

[vmikulich]

It was my understanding that a half diamond pick was designed to be a rake or pick for a pin tumbler lock. I thought a diamond pick that was shallow was used for raking locks with key pins of similar length while a steep one was used to accommodate locks with greater differences in pin height. Due to the pointy shape of the diamond it can be used to pick individual pins.

I thought the half ball pick was designed to be a rake for disc tumblers as the ball can roll from wafer to wafer easily but did not work well as a pick for a tumbler lock as it would push more than one pin at a time. I guess a ball could be a rake for a pin tumbler lock but I bet it doesn't strike the pins with as much a jolt as does a diamond pick.

If I've got it wrong please let me know.