Schlage lock picking tools series#

Abus C83 old style vs new style pins.īesides the theoretical usability and security pins, what other flaws would make this tool suboptimal? The picking tip snags while moving from pin to pin. The old locks are shipped with mostly spool pins, and the new ones have serrated, spool, and T-pin key pins and the same for the drivers. I’m considering this 30% an upper bound, as Abus C83 and CISA aren’t shipped with standard pins. For this, we assume every lock has a uniform distribution of cuts, ignoring MACS. This is consistent with a statistics sanity check. This means the tool will only work on 30% of my Abus C83. 92 out of 283 of the measured keys have no cuts deeper than 5.5mm, the size of the tool.

While these are not CISA, they are close, and I happen to have a modest collection of these keys. Small sub section of factory cut Abus C83 keys, I’ve a modest collection of them.Īs I was curious about the 80% claim, I’ve spent an evening measuring my Abus C83 keys.

In short, a lock will not work with one or more cuts deeper than a 7 and therefore this pin will always be overset and this you can detect. I suspect so, but it will be far from easy. The biggest concern with a tool that works on a subsection of locks is if the user can detect the tool does not work, instead of user error or lack of skill. While this sounds like it’ll open 80% of locks, but it doesn’t seem to be the whole story, as we will find out. The seller is quite open about the tool’s limitations and wrote on the lever “80% coverage. I was curious enough to fork over €50, and bought one for CISA as it’s very close if not identical to the Abus C83, the lock we use for impressioning championships. The consensus under lockpickers is that this tool could not exist, because the keyway is too tight and has no straight access to the pins. In December, I was notified a seller on AliExpress sells 2-in-1 (not a Lishi!) for the paracentric Yale keyway. But the pick I’m about to show can be a game changer as it targets European locks I’m familiar with. I’ve played with a few of these tools, but didn’t find them too useful. Most of these locks have wide keyways, low tolerance, and very few security pins. 2015 was the year 2-in-1 picks became available for pin tumbler lock for the USA market.

Click on one, click on three… Open!įrom y2k these tools have been available for automotive locks as the combination of open keyways, many wafers, and typically low tolerances work very well for this tool. Then you set each binder and search for the next one, until all elements are set. And just as lockpicking, you go through the lock, pin by pin, and feel for the binders. You can feel if the element is binding or not. This in turn moves the lockpick, pushing down on the element in the lock. You move the pointer to the desired element, indicated by the vertical lines, and push down lightly on the pointer. This in itself would not be too useful, however, the body has a chart of where the lockpick is in the lock. So, what does a Lishi 2-in-1 lockpick do? The tool consists of two parts the body that is used as a turning tool and the thin feeler that’s used as a lockpick. The tool can also be used to decode the lock once the lock is open, and a key can be cut in the field with another of Li’s tools. Original Lishi sells a variety of tools, the one generally referred to as a Lishi is a 2-in-1 lockpick that both applies a turning force and a tool for picking individual elements. The Lishi company split up and Zhi Qin Li still sells his 2-in-1 under the brand Original Lishi, while another company sells them under the brand Genuine Lishi.

Schlage lock picking tools series#

Let’s start from the beginning, Lishi is the brand name of a series of lockpicking tools designed and made by Zhi Qin Li. In testing the tool, I’ve found various limitations that might impact the usefulness of this tool. As I was intrigued, I’ve bought an off brand 2-in1 for CISA.

Or so I thought, as of writing there are several 2-in-1 for sale for the paracentric Yale keyway. Furthermore, this type of tool can’t be made for some locks as the keyways are too tight. Sadly, these tools are quite costly as they are keyway specific. Lishi 2-in-1 have been around for a long time, both for automotive and more recently for pin tumbler locks.