Quality picks on a budget?

[Jburgett2nd]

$4.99 on clearance? Too bad You can't buy HPC or Rytan or anything made for the locksmith industry I see those for $.99 each on sale

Where at?

Most of my distributors are running a sale from time to time. You would need to be a locksmith with an ad in the phone book and you need to have
a resale license and a business license to prove You are supposed to have the tools they sell.

Yeah that makes sense my naive optimism took hold and thought it was through a website. I have seen HPC picks for sale but only in kits.

[smokingman]

For beginners , it does not make a lot of sense to get high dollar tools
since most folks are heavier handed than they realise.(like pretty much all of us)
I got a set of these just to use as templates for making my own tools
and for the price they were much better than expected.
You could trash these pretty painlessly and get the high dollar tools when you have a little more restraint .
And the case is nice.
Just under 10 dollars.
http://www.wildbillwholesale.com/yc119.html

[nickmannnxx]

That's pretty cheap. Looks like they are out of stock though.

[classicdeluxe]

I just bought the Klom KL-318 set. They are made of stainless steel and have a lot of good hook varieties. They are strong enough for my needs. The handles are very comfortable in my hands. They bend a little after a lot of use, but so do the high end Peterson picks. They have some unique flat hook-like picks that seem to be nice for working with deep setting pins. For 10-15 dollars, you can't really go wrong. You may want to order some additional tension wrenches to accompany it though.

Here it is on Banggood:
http://www.banggood.com/KLOM-KL318-18-i ... 29030.html

[billdeserthills]

I bought the Klom 32 piece pick set, and the Klom door slices. I haven't used the picks yet, but the door slicer already opened a door with a Weiser handleset and a broken actuator. It easily pushed the latch back and made me $85 in about a minute. Lots of my distributors sell these exact same tools for over twice this price, but Not to me, not any more they won't!

[deolslyfox]

Almost everyone bends or breaks a pick from time to time. It will happen more often if you move into the Euro locks with tight keyways that call for lighter (.015") picks.

If you find a couple of favorites, buy a spare.

Use the lightest tension that you can and the heaviest pick. Don't be too aggressive. If you do this most any quality pick such as Peterson, Southord or Sparrows will serve you well.

You might consider getting some .025 and .015 feeler gauge stock in stainless steel and making some picks. If you break a stainless pick you are definitely using too much force.

Hope this is helpful.