electric pick vs. pick gun

[LeBoWsKi916]

im looking into buying either a pick gun or an electric pick. what do u think is better and what are good brands for each of them. thanks much.

[jason]

I've had the Majestic manual pick gun and it worked fine in the class room but never on site in the cold and wet, and it's was a bit of a bugger with euro profile locks (the door handles get in the way).

I've got the HPC electro pick (it's just that it's easier to get hold of in the UK as opposed to the Southord one), it's a worthwhile piece of kit but it's not cheap. The majority of other locksmiths that I know also use the HPC pick.

If you are hobby picking rather than for a source of income you should work out if it's worth paying good money for something that takes the fun out of picking.

The choice is yours

[Dark Angel]

Just a quick post to say that i also own a ez pick gun and a southord electric pick.
I stopped using my pick gun ages ago once i got my new electric pick.
Yesterday i tried to open a union padlock,i tried to manualy pick the lock for about twenty minutes and had no luck opening it,i then tried my electric pick and still had no luck,after several more attempts trying both manaul picking and the electric pick i was about to give up.
I then dug out my old ez pickgun and thought i would give it a try.
Within 30 seconds of using the gun i had the lock open,so it just shows that it is always a good idea to keep your options open when picking a lock,and sometimes the older cheaper type tools can out perform the latest electric picks.

[Quin]

I've been playing about with an electric pic this morning and for me it was much easier opening locks than with the snap gun.

So far it has opened 2 locks that the snap gun wouldn't but I also agree that there will probably be times where one may work where the other fails.

Locks seem to have a way of letting you know who they think is boss from time to time

So far though I'm very impressed with its performance.

[TJ]

Hi i'm new in the lock picking game and i was wondering if anyone knew which is a better investment for the money a lock aid pick gun or an electric gun. any advise would be appreciated. And if either of them worked on car ignitions?

[Chucklz]

Neither of those tools are a particularly good investment for a beginning hobbiest.


You will find that we will not give out much useful information on automotive locks, for obvious reasons.

[Luke]

I like my Brochage pickgun, i use it when im lazy, like a smith i know.

[CitySpider]

Chuck can erase this if he thinks that it's too much information, but I think it's fine to tell you that if you try to use either of those on a car ignition, not only will it not work, it'll also probably destroy the ignition.

Left by Pheniox
If anyone is that stupid to try to use a pickgun on their car, they deserive it. That also being said, don't try it on your parents car

[sidpick]

Got my first electric pick gun today and been playing with it for a while..
not too impressed so far. Much more success from manual or snap gun picking. Also the needles are thick and very careful keyway placement is needed. Very light tension with either a feather touch tool (if you can keep it from popping out when the tool vibrates the lock to pieces)
or a normal tension tool. Find if it binds on a mushroom pin to pop in a diamond pick, find the trouble pin, loose the tension slightly and pop it open, its worked on all the cylinders I've got less a corbin euro cylinder as the keyway is too tight. If I had got one to play with before I would not have bothered, and the screw which holds the picking needle threaded almost immediately. Looks neat and professional, but think its going to be a dead weight in my tool kit!

[toomush2drink]

Which gun did you get sidpick ? i have used the southord but found the hpc much easier to use. The hpc is the same as the majestic i think and based on a black and decker screwdriver.
You can thin the blades down with a dremmel to get better results and also "pulsing" the on/off button produces good results.

[skold]

i used the hpc pick gun for the first tine last week, it makes picking easier.
i happened to be using the pulsing method - the other method didn't like me