Kwikset Smart Key Lock Opening
My neighbor locked herself out, she had a kwikset smart key knob & I see now that I should have simply used my kwikset knob cylinder puller, but instead I tried cutting a kwikset blank to all #3 depths and then cut the head of the key off plus about 1/16th on an inch. I pushed my key blade into the cylinder, put a large bladed screwdriver up against it in the keyway and gave it a couple raps with my hammer. The lock opened with the help of my crescent wrench affixed to the screwdriver shaft.
After pushing my key blade out using a small pin punch I tried the original key & It Worked! I was soo excited for ten minutes until the neighbor reported the key would no longer enter the keyway. After giving it a bash, i pushed the key in & unfortunately it no longer does work. I will try my reset cradle on the lock cylinder when I get time, to see if it can be made to work again, or not.
Still it wasn't a bad way to gain entry, not too messy.
BTW The second time I opened this lock, I used the same key blade and gave it another couple hits with the screwdriver/hammer and it opened right up again. Still didn't work with the original key tho
Also I had a late night call the other day, my client had a smart key deadbolt lock that their original key had worked on a week prior. I managed to pick open a profile lock that had a key inserted from the inside- to open and after reseting their faulty smart key deadbolt I set it to the original key again. It worked fine, but I did notice the original key was not cut correctly to the kwikset code. It was about .015 too low. Two days later and I had to go back out, as the lock refused to stay keyed to their off-code key. Today I replaced it with a used Titan 6 pin deadbolt & simply swapped their scalp cover to keep the color looking nice. Funny cause the two other smart key locks in the garage still work fine with their off-code key, so why not the front door?