Rytan minis

[stick]

I've looked around but haven't found any pictures of what I'm looking for. I've been planning on buying a set of Rytan minis for a while, but wanted to know how much smaller they were. If anyone could post a picture of a Rytan mini pick compared to any other brand of pick, that'd be great.

Also, mini blue or red? Mini blue have the curved handle, while mini red have the standard straight handle. Might even end up buying both mini red and blue, just because it's nice to have back-ups, and they're so darn cheap.

Also, about ordering from rytan.com... It says their lock picks must be purchased from a distributor. Does that mean I can't order them directly from rytan.com with the order form provided on the main site? And how far will they go to make sure I'm a lock smith (or not...)? It seems as if I may be forced to order from a site like lockandsupply.com, but the prices listed on rytan.com are just so loooow...

[D_Shane]

You can order anything from Rytan directly as long as they are not lockpicks. Key machines, spinners, whetever. Picks must be ordered through a distributor. Hawleylock, Southern Lock, Zipf, locksco, They're a few that carry them. The mini's are reported about 20% smaller than the standard. I have the mini's but not the standard so I can't compare the size.
They're not bad, comparable to Petersons. Good feedback, nice feel.

[Varjeal]

If you plan on buying the mini's you had better insure you have a light touch. These picks do NOT take heavy handedness. I have both, but use the mini's on smaller padlocks and particular wafer locks where the wafers are very close together. Any of the Rytans are worth the money.

[NDE Manipulation]

I have some HPC Mini-Picks, I really like the feel of them. By "Mini," I mean they are cut down with a textured, rubber or rubber-like grip.

HPC in this Series of picks as well as the 2000 Series really missed the ball when they copied the DeForest pick from Rytan. It's not as good as the Rytan, the half-diamond is oriented back towards the user a bit instead of being oriented up. Very strange.

Anyway, I bent mine the other day and I'm not heavy handed at all, it was quite a disappointment because they charge top dollar for their stainless steel picks (of all kinds). I was quite shocked and glad it was on the pick they screwed up the design on anyway.

Varjeal is right, you can bend Rytans quite easily, they are not for the gorilla-handed among us, but, just as a side note, if you think they are easy to bend...

LABs, even though they are excellent designs, I would say they are two or three times as easy to bend as a Rytan. That's pretty bad.

[CaptHook]

Here ya go.
Chuck

[stick]

Wow, just what I was looking for, thanks. , those Rytan minis are small. Must... get... a set... Probably going to order from hawleylock, once this year's catalog is up. Anyone order from them before? No mention of them on the site before.