Pickgun Protection - Does it work?

[digital_blue]

In your example, I think the weight of the pool cue does not matter because it is guided and not moving freely. You could just as well use a chop stick to tap a pool ball, it will move, even though the weight of the chop stick is less then the pool ball.

We need a Doctor of Physics on here.

No no, I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying the *weight* of the pool cue has anything to do with it. I'm saying that the force with which it strikes has something to do with it.

I'm no Physics major, so I could be way off here, but it stands to reason that Newton's Cradle works as it does because *all things are equal*. If Newton's Cradle had a row of balls each weighing 30 grams, and one ball on then end that weighed a couple tons, you'd have a tough time getting that big ball on the end to move.

So, if all things are not equal, I would think that they will not behave as though they were. I suppose (and this is only an assumption) that if the force exerted by the pick gun was enough to overcome the force of the spring AND the combined weight of the driver pin AND this little wafer of sorts, that both these components would hop above the shear line.

Again.. not a physics major.

db

[Octillion]

See my original post. The little wafer won't do anything noticeable. But I believe having a very heavy pin on top of the driver would make it significantly more difficult to open.

BTW, I begin grad school for my physics PhD in August.

[LockNewbie21]

Looks like the snap tang took some viagra.. nice



Andy

[p1ckf1sh]

No no, I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying the *weight* of the pool cue has anything to do with it. I'm saying that the force with which it strikes has something to do with it.

I don't think that is true. From my pool sessions I have the feeling that in a clean, head-on, non-spinning strike all the energy gets transferred, if it is PURELY kinetic energy (which is the solely the energy contained in the moving object itself). In your post you referred to an example if using just two balls that are touching and hitting one. You said that both balls will move, and you are correct in a way. Because it is probably impossible to strike one ball (and therefore "load" it with kinetic energy) without pushing it a bit after the initial strike. The stroke you and I can do is in this context followed through, that means on initial strike the energy gets into ball 1 and is transferred to ball 2 which is touching it immediately (because they are toching). But ball one is still in contact with the cue, you cannot pull back or strike with such a precision in timing to prevent this. Therefore, in your example not only kinetic energy is affecting the outcome. I think if I understand the third newtonian axiom correctly, this even dictates that the first ball has to remain stationary, because actio = reactio, forces always always appear in equal pairs. That would mean (to me at least) any force that accelerates a stationary pool ball generates a force of equal strength in the opposite direction. With the two balls having the same mass that means any force, no matter how high or low, should generate the conterforce to stop the hitting ball.

I'm no Physics major, so I could be way off here, but it stands to reason that Newton's Cradle works as it does because *all things are equal*. If Newton's Cradle had a row of balls each weighing 30 grams, and one ball on then end that weighed a couple tons, you'd have a tough time getting that big ball on the end to move.

You are right there I think. But, to nitpick, the cradle works the way it does because of it's design and the law of conservation of momentum and energy. So you could have a really big ball (not a couple tons, OK, but...) hanging there, you could still get it to move. It just required higher levels of energy, such as a rifle bullet or something.

And if you had a 3ball cradle with two light balls in 1 and 2 and one of double proportion in the end, I firmly believe that upon releasing the first ball into the two others, the middle one would remain stationary and the rear one would move at half the velocity and to half the distance of the first one. That is the basic scenario we were starting with, bottom pin, top pin, counterweight. Tap bottom pin, top pin remains, counterweight takes energy. I cannot explain it but I have this weird sensation in the gut that this would be the outcome.

So, if all things are not equal, I would think that they will not behave as though they were. I suppose (and this is only an assumption) that if the force exerted by the pick gun was enough to overcome the force of the spring AND the combined weight of the driver pin AND this little wafer of sorts, that both these components would hop above the shear line.

And here out opinions differ again. As I said above, I think that two or more separate objects that are touching act as one when it comes to the transfer of kinetic energy. See Newton's cradle: lift and release one ball, on the other end only one ball moves. Lift and release two, on the other end two balls move. In Newton's cradle it must work out like this because other outcomes would screw up the math of energy/momentum conservation. So I believe that the pinning scenario I have described would behave roughly the way I anticipate.

Excuse the longwinded posting. I am done with my intellectual masturbation. But here in Germany the entire society, entertainment and information industry (aka TV and papers) are infested with a virus reducing human beings to insane waterbags whose only concern is to communicate about 22 bipedal lifeforms all running after one spherical, black and white object on a large grass patch, while surrounded by tens of thousands even more insane waterbags screaming on top of their lungs. Rolling this problem around in my head was a nice distraction. God I hate soccer.

postscriptum: Let me make one thing absolutely clear, please... I am not Dr. Allknow, and I am not about to troll or start flame wars. But I am very stubborn in voicing my opinions and beliefs until proven wrong by means I can completely comprehend. I never was a great student, but I have learned how to learn - read, analyze, combine, etc. I have been told that occasionally I come over as being arrogant or unconvincible, but that ain't true. Prove me wrong, and I will happily agree with you. I just wanted to get this off once and for all, I like the crowd around here and I don't want to get misunderstandings get in the way...all progress stems from dispute, but all the fun is in harmony. Don't want to tip the balance of these two.

[Shrub]

Lets not forget the springs in this.

Theres a very easy way to solve the issue, a lock easy to open with a gun gets discs put in the pin stack and we see how easy to pick it is then.

[Octillion]

No no, I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying the *weight* of the pool cue has anything to do with it. I'm saying that the force with which it strikes has something to do with it.

I don't think that is true. From my pool sessions I have the feeling that in a clean, head-on, non-spinning strike all the energy gets transferred, if it is PURELY kinetic energy (which is the solely the energy contained in the moving object itself). In your post you referred to an example if using just two balls that are touching and hitting one. You said that both balls will move, and you are correct in a way. Because it is probably impossible to strike one ball (and therefore "load" it with kinetic energy) without pushing it a bit after the initial strike. The stroke you and I can do is in this context followed through, that means on initial strike the energy gets into ball 1 and is transferred to ball 2 which is touching it immediately (because they are toching). But ball one is still in contact with the cue, you cannot pull back or strike with such a precision in timing to prevent this.

Not quite. The mass of the cue is greater than a single ball, so both balls will move, not because it is “impossible to strike one b all without pushing it a bit”, but because conservation of momentum dictates that both balls will gain some momentum.

[Therefore, in your example not only kinetic energy is affecting the outcome. I think if I understand the third newtonian axiom correctly, this even dictates that the first ball has to remain stationary, because actio = reactio, forces always always appear in equal pairs. That would mean (to me at least) any force that accelerates a stationary pool ball generates a force of equal strength in the opposite direction. With the two balls having the same mass that means any force, no matter how high or low, should generate the conterforce to stop the hitting ball.

I think you are on the right track. The velocity of the incoming cue is not going to affect which balls move in the outcome, just their final velocities.

I'm no Physics major, so I could be way off here, but it stands to reason that Newton's Cradle works as it does because *all things are equal*. If Newton's Cradle had a row of balls each weighing 30 grams, and one ball on then end that weighed a couple tons, you'd have a tough time getting that big ball on the end to move.

You are right there I think. But, to nitpick, the cradle works the way it does because of it's design and the law of conservation of momentum and energy. So you could have a really big ball (not a couple tons, OK, but...) hanging there, you could still get it to move. It just required higher levels of energy, such as a rifle bullet or something.

And if you had a 3ball cradle with two light balls in 1 and 2 and one of double proportion in the end, I firmly believe that upon releasing the first ball into the two others, the middle one would remain stationary and the rear one would move at half the velocity and to half the distance of the first one.

Nope, totally wrong here. You can even see this demonstrated in Newton’s cradle by simply lifting two balls instead of one, and dropping them. Two balls on the opposite end will then pop up. That’s momentum conservation right there. One ball with twice the mass will act just like the two balls.

That is the basic scenario we were starting with, bottom pin, top pin, counterweight. Tap bottom pin, top pin remains, counterweight takes energy. I cannot explain it but I have this weird sensation in the gut that this would be the outcome.

So, if all things are not equal, I would think that they will not behave as though they were. I suppose (and this is only an assumption) that if the force exerted by the pick gun was enough to overcome the force of the spring AND the combined weight of the driver pin AND this little wafer of sorts, that both these components would hop above the shear line.

And here out opinions differ again. As I said above, I think that two or more separate objects that are touching act as one when it comes to the transfer of kinetic energy. See Newton's cradle: lift and release one ball, on the other end only one ball moves. Lift and release two, on the other end two balls move. In Newton's cradle it must work out like this because other outcomes would screw up the math of energy/momentum conservation. So I believe that the pinning scenario I have described would behave roughly the way I anticipate.

Excuse the longwinded posting. I am done with my intellectual masturbation. But here in Germany the entire society, entertainment and information industry (aka TV and papers) are infested with a virus reducing human beings to insane waterbags whose only concern is to communicate about 22 bipedal lifeforms all running after one spherical, black and white object on a large grass patch, while surrounded by tens of thousands even more insane waterbags screaming on top of their lungs. Rolling this problem around in my head was a nice distraction. God I hate soccer.

postscriptum: Let me make one thing absolutely clear, please... I am not Dr. Allknow, and I am not about to troll or start flame wars. But I am very stubborn in voicing my opinions and beliefs until proven wrong by means I can completely comprehend. I never was a great student, but I have learned how to learn - read, analyze, combine, etc. I have been told that occasionally I come over as being arrogant or unconvincible, but that ain't true. Prove me wrong, and I will happily agree with you. I just wanted to get this off once and for all, I like the crowd around here and I don't want to get misunderstandings get in the way...all progress stems from dispute, but all the fun is in harmony. Don't want to tip the balance of these two.

[p1ckf1sh]

Not quite. The mass of the cue is greater than a single ball, so both balls will move, not because it is “impossible to strike one b all without pushing it a bit”, but because conservation of momentum dictates that both balls will gain some momentum.

The transfer of energy in the cradle is impulsed, so for thought experiments it does not make any difference if they are actually touching or have a gap of a mm or two between them. The principle is the same. So if I have two balls with a gap of 3 mm between them, if I tap ball 1 with the cue stick and manage to have the cue stick off the tapped ball BEFORE it hits the second ball, what will happen? Ball 1 will stop and ball 2 will move. That would be the same when the two balls are touching, although you can never make such a clean and minimalistic movement cue tap. That is the way I understood db's thought experiment. If that's wrong, we basically have to include the cue into the equation as a third object, and when we do so we are not actually talking about kinetic energy energy as such any more, because the cue is not moving freely but guided.

Maybe I am getting something wrong here, or misunderstanding it or something.

And if you had a 3ball cradle with two light balls in 1 and 2 and one of double proportion in the end, I firmly believe that upon releasing the first ball into the two others, the middle one would remain stationary and the rear one would move at half the velocity and to half the distance of the first one.

Nope, totally wrong here. You can even see this demonstrated in Newton’s cradle by simply lifting two balls instead of one, and dropping them. Two balls on the opposite end will then pop up. That’s momentum conservation right there. One ball with twice the mass will act just like the two balls.

... huh? I am referring to just one ball being released into the other two. You say one big ball will act like two small, that's my guess as well, because the big one will only go half the distance at half the velocity.
ooO small small big
123
Release ball 1 into 2 and 3, that is what I was referring to. Not release two balls into the big one. You can even see what I am referring to demonstrated here:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/collide.AVI
Ball 1 released into 2 and 3, 2 remains stationary, 3 moves out, 1 even rebounds because of the smaller mass. That is the initial reaction, and that is all that I am referring to and am interested in in relation to the lock relation, because after this initial thing the spring force would screw anything newtonish up anyways. So in out lock scenario, the top pin will stay where it is, the counterweight will pop away against the spring force, and the bottom pin will rebound back against the snap tang.

Thank you for going through my longwinded posting and actually replying...

[p1ckf1sh]

Nope, totally wrong here. You can even see this demonstrated in Newton’s cradle by simply lifting two balls instead of one, and dropping them. Two balls on the opposite end will then pop up. That’s momentum conservation right there. One ball with twice the mass will act just like the two balls.

One more thing, there are many ways the energy could be conserved in your scenario. One ball on the end could take all the energy and move at double velocity and distance, or 3 balls could move and share up the energy. One could prolly work this out mathematically, but the point is that the transfer of energy is impulsed. Although we do perceive the two released balls hitting at the same time and the balls on the other end leaving at the same time, they don't. Synchronicity. I think it can be envisioned like this:
ooooooo
1234567
Your cradle.
oo ooooo
Two balls lifted and released. The 2 ball is first to hit the stack. transfers energy to 3 and stops. 3 transfers to 4, etc. etc. until the number 7 ball takes off. The impulse wave moves through the ball lineup. But after the impulse wave triggered by the number 2 ball is sent underway, ball 1 hits the now resting number 2 ball (in real life this is probably just milli or even microseconds apart). 1 stops, 2 takes the energy, passes it on to 3 etc. In other words the second wave is following the first one closely. When the second wave reaches ball 5, ball 7 is already "out of line" because it took the energy of the first wave and is swinging away, therefore 6 is the last in line. When it takes the energy from 5 it swings out, very closely following behind the 7 ball.

This all happens so fast that we perceive it as causal, but I think this is the valid explanation for the cradle "number counting" behaviour - that exactly 3 balls leave when 3 are released. You can satisfy the energy conservation by many other outcomes, but those are never observed (release 2, 3 leave or sth. else).

Oh well, I will now stop boring you. I am gettint obsessive about this.

[raimundo]

I made a snapper out of wiper stiffener, and it works well on master locks an schlage, then I made another snapper out of wiper stiffener, and before I set the spring on the catch, (left it open) I put it on the stove, heated spring coil until at least some of the metal was cherry read, ( easy to do with this type of stainless) and quenched it. this snapper has a lot of power, but it doesn't seem to work as well, My thought is that it hits too hard, and either the whole stack is going up together, or the top is going up fast and rebounding fast. So it seems that the lighter punch snapper works better. does anyone know more about this?

[Shrub]

Ray, yes it sounds like your new snapper hits too hard, every action has an equal opposite reaction so if you are hitting the pins harder they will bounce higher so i guess you are no putting the bottom pins above shear.

As we know commercial guns have tensioners to counter act this to compensate for stiffer springs or heavier pins,

Pin length makes no differance except a longer pin will be heavier than a short pin, a longest pin and a shortest pin in the same lock in any combination will cause problems with pick guns more so with the higher the quality of the lock, the way around this is to set most of the pins then go in and finish off picking with a hand tool.

[Octillion]

Not quite. The mass of the cue is greater than a single ball, so both balls will move, not because it is “impossible to strike one b all without pushing it a bit”, but because conservation of momentum dictates that both balls will gain some momentum.

The transfer of energy in the cradle is impulsed, so for thought experiments it does not make any difference if they are actually touching or have a gap of a mm or two between them. The principle is the same. So if I have two balls with a gap of 3 mm between them, if I tap ball 1 with the cue stick and manage to have the cue stick off the tapped ball BEFORE it hits the second ball, what will happen? Ball 1 will stop and ball 2 will move. That would be the same when the two balls are touching, although you can never make such a clean and minimalistic movement cue tap. That is the way I understood db's thought experiment. If that's wrong, we basically have to include the cue into the equation as a third object, and when we do so we are not actually talking about kinetic energy energy as such any more, because the cue is not moving freely but guided.

Maybe I am getting something wrong here, or misunderstanding it or something.

Ok, I’m not sure that that would be possible. In the discussion above I thought we were assuming all the balls touch initially, so throwing the cue at them is inevitably going to have to move both. And it is the kinetic energy from the cue that is moving the balls, regardless of when or how it hit’s them. If you want to go to deeper levels, and over complicate the situation, you can talk about the elastic deformation of the materials as they hit, or how the electromagnetic force is what holds the material structure together, or whatever you want. But the energy of the moving balls comes from the kinetic energy of the initially moving cue, there is nothing else going on here.

And if you had a 3ball cradle with two light balls in 1 and 2 and one of double proportion in the end, I firmly believe that upon releasing the first ball into the two others, the middle one would remain stationary and the rear one would move at half the velocity and to half the distance of the first one.

Nope, totally wrong here. You can even see this demonstrated in Newton’s cradle by simply lifting two balls instead of one, and dropping them. Two balls on the opposite end will then pop up. That’s momentum conservation right there. One ball with twice the mass will act just like the two balls.

... huh? I am referring to just one ball being released into the other two. You say one big ball will act like two small, that's my guess as well, because the big one will only go half the distance at half the velocity.
ooO small small big
123
Release ball 1 into 2 and 3, that is what I was referring to. Not release two balls into the big one. You can even see what I am referring to demonstrated here:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/collide.AVI
Ball 1 released into 2 and 3, 2 remains stationary, 3 moves out, 1 even rebounds because of the smaller mass. That is the initial reaction, and that is all that I am referring to and am interested in in relation to the lock relation, because after this initial thing the spring force would screw anything newtonish up anyways. So in out lock scenario, the top pin will stay where it is, the counterweight will pop away against the spring force, and the bottom pin will rebound back against the snap tang.

Thank you for going through my longwinded posting and actually replying...

Ok, I did misread your previous post, I was thinking that you were lifting the heavier ball and dropping it into the smaller ones.

I did the math for this case. Say the initial velocity of the first ball is v just before it impacts. The velocity of the large ball just as it flies up is (2/3) * v, and the rebound velocity of the first ball is (-1/3) * v. Thought you might enjoy some numbers.

[darrel.h]

As mentioned, a heavier pin on top of the driver would take most of the force and bounce instead on the driver but if the pickgun or snapgun was on a high setting, it wouldn't make a diffrence.

[Octillion]

As mentioned, a heavier pin on top of the driver would take most of the force and bounce instead on the driver but if the pickgun or snapgun was on a high setting, it wouldn't make a diffrence.

It's not the same... The pins have different masses, the bottom pins have nowhere to rebound, so they will push back up, etc etc. The pins are going to fly apart, regardless of what you want to shove on top, that is the important thing. But if you could vary the pin stacks, such that they fly apart at different rates, that would narrow the window for the picker to catch them at the sheer line.

[raimundo]

I suppose depleted uranium pins would just oxidize to often? eh but the tungsten ones would be great drill breakers. why are the pin collums all in line, if the line was off set, staggered, not so much as to require pins with corners like a DOM IX but just a bit, it might make snapping more difficult I think, of course someone has to make one to test the theory, it would also be a matter of the keyway warding and thickness of the key, but really, the line of pin drillings dosent' have to be perfectly straight. there is some tolerance for angling it, and this may help defeat snappers if not bumpers