The Top Gun Safes

A burglar fears the thought of looking down the barrel of a gun as much as the next guy, so it's not surprising to know that they will tend to avoid targeting a home whose owner is suspected of owning a firearm. Finding the perfect hiding spot(s) for your firearm(s) will give you that essential peace of mind to maintain the habitability of your home for your loved ones. Keeping your gun in a safe and secure place is the only way to ensure that you're the sole person who has access to it, especially in a situation when a burglar is trying to get to it before you do.

While gun safes can have the form of combination locks protecting your gun and other valuables, we feel that biometric smart safes are far more convenient and provide the same level of security for your possessions.

Let's look at the cons and pros of combination safes and biometric safes, respectively, to see the disproportionate margin of difference in usability and convenience.

Biometric vs. Traditional Gun Safes

The Cons of Keypad, Combination, and Key Lock Gun Safes

- During a home invasion, you'll have very slow access to your guns. You may even fumble your keys or forget the combination when under nervous stress.

- Replacing the lock is expensive if you happen to lose the keys or combination to the lock.

- You're running the risk of your kids finding the keys to your key lock safe.

- Digital keypads are better than combinations and keylocks in emergencies, but they still have a delay of remembering the code and entering it.

- A combination mechanism requires a lot of space within the safe's walls and that makes it bulkier than necessary.

The Pros of Biometric Gun Safes

- Designs are built with an emphasis on user-centered convenience (i.e. depending on the model, the placement of a fingerprint can be read from any angle).

- Your fingerprint can't be reproduced.

- Access is made to be much faster (the safe opens within 1 - 2 seconds).

- No times is wasted on trying to remember a combination, and no mental concentration is required to access the box while you're under emergency stress.

- The fingerprint scanner can be programmed to grant access to more than one user. 

- Designs are usually sleeker, slimmer, and lighter than traditional gun safes, making them portable and a lot easier to carry.

- Children have no way of accessing the box without your supervision.

How to Assess the Specs of a Biometric Gun Safe

Before we get into some of the best biometric gun safes on the market, let us first outline the criteria that helped us arrive at our top picks.

1. A reliable fingerprint scanner: Many biometric safes sell themselves as being dependable when the truth of the matter is that they sometimes fail to take a scan. Every second is valuable in an emergency, which is why we thoroughly checked the reviews of each product to make sure that they feature a fully functional 99% successful scan-rate.

2. Strong safe walls: Since all biometric gun safes are constantly being improved, hefty models like the combination lock styles have still not been mass produced. Remember that these gun safes are made to be placed in tighter areas than hefty combination lock safes, and so you're expected to keep them in hard-to-see or easy-to-reach areas such as a nightstand, desk drawer, a bigger safe, and the like. The door to a biometric lock safe is hard to infiltrate but not impossible with certain mechanical hand tools, pressurizing devices, and abrasive cutting - and that is why we only included safes with walls made from particularly thick metals.

3. Door orientation: Depending on where the safe would be situated, the models feature one of either a top opening or side opening door. A top opening style safe, for example, makes more sense in a drawer than a side opening one. 

Our Top Picks

1. The Gunbox 2.0

When it was featured on Time Magazine, they called it "the best-looking, most high-tech gun safe you'll see," and that was no form of false advertising. The Gunbox's mouthful of features includes GPS tracking, an internal alarm system, USB ports, RFID chip compatibility, and a 360-degree biometric fingerprint scanner.

By far the most technologically advanced gun safe on our list, the Gunbox is a modern look at how safes of the future could most closely resemble. It's smart looking top is where you'll find the RFID and biometric scanners. The built-in GPS module allows you to access and control the safe using any web-enabled device with the Gunbox app; you can open it remotely, or track its location if it's lost or stolen. If you're looking to make use out of it being on your nightstand, two USB ports sit on the back of the box to charge your phone while you sleep. For emergency's sake, it would be rather time-consuming to have to turn the box before taking a scan. Luckily, the biometric scanner can read a thumbprint at any angle and opens accordingly. 

One thing to take note of the Gunbox is that it doesn't look like a gun safe, but rather like a generic laptop - undetectable.

Another quality that you'll come to like about the Gunbox is its fireproof aluminum shell that's smooth to the touch. The aluminum alloy is used in aircraft bodies because it's tough and light, and the Gunbox is no exception as weighs just over 4.5 lbs.

2. The BARSKA Biometric Safe

Programmable with up to thirty fingerprints, the Barska Biometric Safe is the pinnacle of space saving and protection. It can be placed inside a bigger safe, mounted securely on a desk or to a wall, keeping it hidden from plain sight, immovable and inaccessible to burglars. The floor is laced with a protective mat where your belongings can sit and can occupy a significant amount of handguns, electronics, gold and other valuable objects.

3. The HQ600 Large Biometric Keypad Safe

Like the previous model, the HQ600 has two solid steel locking bolts that hold the door in place, making it virtually impossible for unauthorized infiltration to take place. Two methods of access are integrated into this powerful safe: biometrics and the numerical keypad. What this does is allow access to users whose fingerprints are not registered into the system if the administrator or head of the household decides to share their access key for emergencies. With a spacious interior that's 15.75" long, 12.75" wide, and 17" high, you'll have more than enough room to store your firearms and other important items.

4. Sentry Safe's Biometric Quick Access Pistol Safe

With enough room for only one handgun, the quick access safe from Sentry Safe does an excellent job of living up to its name. With a choice of accessing its close-knit enclosure using the keypad or biometric scanner, this secure box won't leave you hanging in the middle of a break-in. This is an excellent choice if you need to get your gun silently since the door opens on a pair of gas compression struts.

As a last-minute resort, the relief of having a biometric gun safe can only be truly realized when it saves your life, and you can't put a price on that.