Safes (portable, quick access): what best fits my needs?

Status
Not open for further replies.

jad0110

Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
Messages
4,050
Location
Somewhere between the Eastern Block states and Flo
I currently own a full-sized gun safe. At night, I remove my primary and backup home defense handguns and simply lay them on the floor beside my bed for quick access. When I get up in the morning, they go straight back in the safe.

However, my son is getting older and it is only a matter of time before he’ll be walking, and just a little longer before he can reach door knobs (that’s a few months away), but I’d like to find a solution in the next few weeks. I could just leave everything in the big safe, but it is in our closet, and I may not have time for that (God forbid).

Here are my requirements for a bedside mini handgun safe:

- MUST be fast and simple to operate under stress. I would much prefer something without batteries, but I am flexible there.

- Must be portable – protection against fire and theft are the job of my big monster safe – the mini-safe I have in mind is only intended to keep my kid out as I sleep. I’ll just put it on top of my big safe, out of sight in my closet when not in use. NOTE: an under-bed mount is not possible, as the rails of our bed frame sit VERY close to the floor (like 3 or 4”) - not condusive to quick access under stress.

- The ability to hold a second handgun (a 5” 1911), in addition to my 4” S&W 686 would be a nice bonus.

- Must be affordable – I don’t like to set artificial price ceilings, but the more affordable, the better, as long as it meets the above criterion. Think one-hundred dollar range or lower.

I would greatly appreciate your suggestions, with links, if you can provide them. I would especially like to hear from those of you with very young kids and what you do.
 
I have a manual (simplex) pushbutton one (handgunsafe.com, which no longer sells them) for the same purpose. I do like the idea of not having to worry about batteries, but the drawback is that it lacks a tamper-resistant feature. A simplex lock can be bypassed fairly quickly by trial-and-error given one has dedicated access to it.

The electronic locks I've seen have a short-term lockout for failed attempts, and it also lets you know when someone has been trying to get into it. The lockout makes it harder to do the trial-and-error attack by increasing the time dramatically. For the situation with children (not at 12 months, but down the road a bit), you might want to know that attempts were being made, so you can further educate, as needed.

My wife has an electronic one for her pistol eVault. It also works well, and the battery seems to be lasting a long time. It isn't as heavy duty as the other, but is more than enough to prevent our toddler from accessing it.


Other than having an electric lock, you might like this one. It seems to meet all the other criteria, and while 16ga isn't massive, it's better than most quick access handgun safes:
http://www.safeshowroom.com/eshop/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=SWPB1
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top