Tool Showcase | Electric Pick Gun
Most of you have seen this scene in a movie or two, a dark and dimly lit door is approached by a masked figure who produces some archaic tool and within seconds of jiggling it against the door it pops open. Magic right? Most locksmiths will laugh at these attempts to showcase some super human skill of picking locks with usually the oddest tools in mere seconds.
While there are some incredibly great lock pickers out there in the world, there is no such thing as a magic key that opens everything. But there is a second best, the electric pick gun.
Most of us are familiar with lock picks which have been around for a very very long time however the first recognizable electric type pick gun was the Electric Buzzer Type Pick Gun from Patent No. 2,565,254 dated August 21, 1951. While probably being mostly experimental it was not until decades later that the modern style electric pick guns began making their way into locksmiths tool kits.
Don't be scared by the Youtube videos and news articles that portray these tools to be a one all be all key over any and all locks forever. Just like any tool it takes time and practice to master it usage. I personally own several different types of electric pick guns for several reasons. When a customer calls me they want into their home quickly and without damage. As much as we all want the brownie points for being able to hand pick everything with ease in front of our customers it is unreasonable to take longer routes when a trained locksmith with the right pick gun can open a customers home in seconds.
The electric pick gun operates by vibrating at different RPMS on a small motor that usually has a tip or needle that rests against the bottom of the pin stack
In the above illustration you will see the top pins in blue and the key pins in red. The method that the electric pick gun works off of is to vibrate quickly against the key pins while applying tension to use varying tolerances to "catch" the pins in the chamber until all 5 are above the sheer line and you are in.
If you think you are going to go to your nearest hardware store and pick one up sadly you wont. Most locksmith tool suppliers are only in the business of selling to licensed businesses or companies that should have such tools. While you may be reading this and thinking that no ones home is safe, unfortunately there are limitations to what these can do and handle.
Your average grade 2 or 3 residential and sometimes commercial locks can be picked and bypassed in a multitude of ways, the electric pick gun is just one of them. The vibration of the pin stack is not a unique or new idea and is just an evolution in what started from bump keys and moved to manual pick guns or snap guns. These types of attacks are commonly only used on what we consider to be poor quality or generic locks, if you have put money out for high security or unique and secure keyways then the methods discussed will not work.
And as always make sure to plug River City Locksmith into your phone for your emergency and service needs 24 hours a day! Thank you again for taking the time to read our blog and we look forward to adding more to it soon!
