Safety, security, and liberty. Those three themes resonate strongly for almost everything we do that is firearm-related. While all three themes coexist, there seems to be a balance; the sum must be made from parts of all three, too much of any one part puts the others at risk.
Though you may not have thought about it like that before, it is certainly true when it comes to securing your firearms from unauthorized access. The better secured it is the harder it is to get to. The more readily available it is the less secure it is. When you come home for the day how do you secure your firearm?
The idea of a single, or double-handgun safe has always rattled around in my brain. What's kept me from getting one has been the accessibility of what's inside. For many years key safes looked like a lost key waiting to happen and electronic safes too slow. We recently had the chance to try out the PINEWORLD K5 Biometric safe. It offers biometric, keypad, keyed, and app access.
Like any safe the list of features all equate to compromises. No safe or lock is completely foolproof, it if were it wouldn't grant access! Here's a basic rundown of the pros and cons we've found with this specific safe, many of which are demonstrated in the video above.
Pros:
Heavy 10-Gauge steel enhances pry resistance
Fingerprint reader can store 50 fingerprints (use this to ensure multiple angles and fingers can access).
Multiple ways to access ensures both private and shared access.
Mounting holes and included cable to slow would-be thieves
Room for more than just one pistol
Secure enough against all but highly-trained thieves.
App offers notifications of safe use as well as remote unlocking
Fingerprint access is quick!
Cons:
Foreign manufacture and manual/marketing reduces confidence
Large size (13.4"x10."x3.6") limits where the safe can be placed
Keypad is slow and noisy
Vocal sound effects
Included instructions and app instructions conflict
Our Take: The PINEWORLD K5 will keep our daily carry guns secure while we're home (so long as we deholster the K100) without making access too time consuming. We likely won't use this safe for the bedside guns. I'd rather not make noise retrieving our defense options. We won't use the app partially due to the setup issues mentioned in the video, and partially because I'm simply not comfortable with the security risks of connecting home devices to the internet. There is the added benefit of an app notification if the safe is tampered with, but our home alarm system would have notified us of intruders first.
As with all safes, it's a matter of compromises. For the ground floor of our house it makes sense to have safe storage of EDC pistols when company or children are going to be present.
This isn't the only safe of its kind out there, but we thought the price was reasonable for the feature set. What do you use? Let us know in the comment section below.
For more information visit PINEWORLD's website here.