If you are one of the millions of Americans that keep a loaded pistol or revolver in your home to protect your family then a pistol safe is something that you must have. The pistol safe can protect your guns from thieves and also from little children with fatal curiosity.

Some homeowners opt for safety devices like trigger locks and cable locks, but these have been found to be nearly useless because of the time it takes to remove them when you need the guns. To make matters worse trigger locks can be dangerous to use with a loaded handgun because the locking mechanism sometimes presses the trigger, causing the gun to fire unexpectedly.

As one would expect, there are a myriad of pistol safes that are available to consumers. Each pistol gun safe has different access times, features, and prices. If you are thinking about investing in a handgun safe in the near future then the following information will be very helpful.

Before we begin, it is important to clarify that there is no pistol safe in the word that is 100% theft-proof. With enough time and energy, a would-be thief will either be able to open the safe within your home or take it with him/her to open it at another location. The main goal of pistol safes is to slow the criminal down enough that breaking into the safe does not make temporal sense and they will then move on to other items in your home.

For this reason the construction of your pistol safe is of the upmost importance. A thin metal construction is useless because handheld tools can easily penetrate it. Safes that use 14 to 16 gauge steel should be sufficient.

Some pistol safes are equipped with recessed doors which make them resistant to prying. For safes that have exposed seams it is important that there is enough metal on the outside of the seamed walls so that they are not easy to break into with a screwdriver.

Hinges that are on the  inside of the safe are generally the best. If you do decide to get a safe with hinges that are exposed on the outside make sure that the pins are covered by metal so that the pins cannot be easily taken out.

There are several different types of locking devices that are available for pistol safes. The cheapest and simplest is the key lock. Its biggest disadvantages are that it takes longer to get your gun out and you can’t open the safe if you don’t have the key with you. However, if you keep the key with you on a chain around your neck then this type of safe can be very effective.

The most common way to lock a pistol safe is by using an electronic keypad lock. Some safes allow you to use multiple combinations so that friends and family members can have their own codes. The main disadvantage of a keypad lock is that with a simple technique (criminals often learn it in prison) a keypad lock can be disabled by using a 9-volt battery.

As prices continue to fall biometric pads have gained popularity. These pads require you to place your finger on a reader and once it verifies your identity the safe is unlocked instantly. Some models are able to recognize slight changes in your fingerprint do to calluses, cuts, and bruises. The major disadvantage to a biometric pad is that if your fingerprint is not readable by the safe for some reason then you are locked out with no way to open the safe.