Does anyone have any recommendations for a safe to secure 1 handgun, mainly from children, and is quick and easy to open?

Cigar box with a big red X on it.

I use a Gunvault - actually the larger variety of this single gun version. So far it has been great:

GunVault Standard MiniVault Personal Electronic Safe 8" x 5" x 12" Black - MidwayUSA

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Lou

I have GunVault standard MiniVault mounted in a closet, but for bedside I use the GunVault MicroVault. It is about the same width and depth but only 2 inches tall. This way I can mount it in a nightstand drawer. During the day when kids are around a firearm is in the drawer and in the vault locked away, but easy to get to. During the night, on top of the nightstand.

The Micro is made the same as the Mini with the 4 key touchpad to open.

I have a police officer friend that put a exterior doorknob with lock on his closet door and keeps the key on his car-key ring. The guns, duty weapon and all, stay locked up in the bedroom and the keys stay with him. His 6 & 11 year old kids know better but the kids friends may not.
He can't afford a safe so a door lock beats nothing.

GF

We use this bedside in the home and in the RV:
Multi-Gun Saves From GunVault

It easily holds a full size handgun, extra mag and flashlight plus some. If I were to purchase one of these again it would be the mini as we don’t use the extra room of the larger multi model.

We have owned this thing for what seems like forever, maybe 10 years or more? It has worked great. What I like about it:

- I can open it while lying in bed
- The door springs open and down with authority
- The battery life has been excellent
- You are not forced to use an overly long or complex code.
- You can run it on a 110v wallwart

- Lighted interior is handy for putting things in the safe (retrieving a pistol from the safe is done by feel for the most part)

- It has a key over-ride, but we have never had to use it.

I don’t particularly find the finger buttons that easy to use, but much of that is because the safe is on the floor and when reaching down it doesn’t provide the best hand angle. It works best when you can put your whole hand right down flush on the key pad.

There have apparently been some problems with these kinds of safes if I recall correctly, though given these have been sold for a number of years I don’t know how ‘frequent’ the problems were, a google search will probably turn them up.

Given my druthers I would prefer a manual simplex lock to the electronic lock, but it would need to be something with large buttons so that they would be easy to find and identify by feel such as the buttons on the gunvault.

I have one of those cheap Winchester Wal-Mart pistol strong boxes lagged up to the bottom of the box springs under the bed on my side. I keep two pistols ammo and extra loaded mags in it. At night at the very least I unlock it with the supplied key. At times I may pull one of the pistols and place it on the night stand. During the day it is locked up with only one pistol out and under my control.

I do have grandchildren. From toddlers up to teen. This has worked well for me and the family.

I picked up a $50-60 dollar one from Sportsman's Guide some years ago. It's been fine, but since we're empty nesters now, I just keep the 12ga coach gun next to the bed. I figure it's much better suited to a last ditch, bedroom defense than even the laser-sighted S&W.

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Rick, W0FG
CTR2 68-72