by raimundo » 9 Jan 2012 9:48
Why do people even buy pickguns, you can do the same thing with a properly bent and shaped bicycle spoke, which weighs a lot less and takes up much less space, and is possibly the easiest "pick" to make. You just wind a once around coil near the middle but not exactly in the middle, from one of the ends, the shorter one, you leave straight,
and the longer end is shaped into a rectangle that will box the straight end, then you thin and sand the part that protrude from the rectangle that traps it, this rectangle is just over an inch in length, maybe an inch and a quarter, and the stroke of the snap is only an inch, the lower straight part of the snapper should be cased in a plastic pen barrel on the part that has the probe/stylus or whatever it is.
The snapper has been around a long time, deniro used one in midnight run about a generation ago,
you will see many ridiculous snappers on you tube that are huge and made of coat hanger, the one deniro used was like that but in a movie they need to make it big enough for the camera to see it.
these little ones made of stainless bicycle spoke, that you can get free from the waste bin at a bicycle shop work very well if you know the technique
to use one you need to look into the keyway, note where the bottom of the pins is, use top tension if possible, and put the probe in under the bottom of the pins, hold it so its straight under those pins and angle it about 30 degrees if the shape of the keyway is such that you will get a longer strike in that direction, angle right / left\ or straight I to fit the shape of the space.
do not over insert, or more likely overinsert and the drag it back until you hear the last pin drop, then reinsert just one pin length and flip it with your thumb, while trying to pulse the tension at just the right moment.
then go ahead and flip it two more times before reseting the probe if it hasn't opened yet.
spool pins can be snapped but they are more difficult
Using one of these is a skill, and you need to know what locks it can be expected to work in, no disc tumbler lock can be snapped, there are no top pins in them. any kind of high security lock is unlikely to open with this technique, if you intend to depend on such a thing, you need to know which locks it opens.
This technique is very popular with people who are not interested in learning the skill of lockpicking but as I have learned by teaching it to some people at a hackerspace I once joined, using it is a skill that is learned, and some of these people who were using them got very good at it, though they probably don't know about how to differenciate the locks that it works on from the ones where is is not possible.
Wake up and smell the Kafka!!!
