What is the Best Safe Lock for Me?

I get asked ‘what the best safe lock is’ ALL THE TIME. The more significant question is ‘What is the best safe lock for me?’ We have to evaluate a couple of things to make that determination.

As a master safe technician with more than 17 years of experience, I have seen the pitfalls of using the wrong lock. I have also learned that several factors determine the best lock for you.  

To help you evaluate those factors, this post will cover:

• Physical or Mental Limitations to Operating a Safe Lock

• Access Requirements for Your Safe Lock

• Who Will Be Accessing Your Safe

• What to Consider When Thinking About Commercial Safe Locks

Physical or Mental Limitations to Operating a Safe Lock

Can You See?

Yes, with your eyes. Even with glasses, many people may still have poor eyesight. We can make a mechanical lock dial easier to see by adding visibility upgrades (like white numbers on a black background). However, electronic lock keypads are typically the easiest to operate when one cannot see well.

Sometimes, customers have even wanted to switch to a biometric lock that reads their fingerprint. This biometric reader is located on top of the keypad. The biometric lock we use is called the Securam Scanlogic. It is equipped with both a keypad and a biometric fingerprint reader. We can even configure this lock to require both, the combination and the fingerprint scan to be opened.

Can you keep a steady hand?

This is the struggle as we go through life, get older, accrue injuries, and work for a living. The mechanical dial process typically gives you about a 1.25-number wide range on which to stop the dial pointer.

That means you can hit your number on either edge of the dial ring pointer and still get the safe lock to open. So, you do somewhat have to stop in a precise location. If you struggle with steady hands, this is where the keypad electronic and biometric locks come in handy. You just punch in a 6-digit code or hold your finger on the biometric scanner to open the lock.

Can you remember lengthy processes and numbers?

The most common dialing sequence for mechanical dial combination locks in the industry is:

• 4 turns left to your first number

• 3 turns right to your second number

• 2 turns left to your last number

• Then turn right, and the dial should stop the first time it sees the 84-96 number range

If this process is difficult, a better alternative is an electronic lock with a 6-digit code or a biometric scanner.

Access Requirements for Your Safe Lock

How fast do you need in the safe?

Whether you're accessing the safe all day in a business setting or retrieving your favorite home defense tool at night, sometimes the speed of entry makes a big difference. It is possible to practice with a dial lock and become proficient in regularly opening it in under seven seconds.

I was timed opening the mechanical dial lock on my personal safe in 4.85 seconds. (Muscle memory is the name of the game.) Now, could I do that with someone kicking my door in while under duress or if a coyote was wreaking havoc in the chicken coop? I don’t think I could.

When I started working on safes, I was terrible at dialing mechanical locks. It took me about 6 months of working dial locks almost every day to get the opening procedure down to under 10 seconds. If you practice opening your lock and are going to open it often, you should be able to get proficient at opening a dial quickly. You just need to make the call on, whether or not you could do it with an adrenaline dump shocking your system into hyperdrive. 

QUICK NOTE: We know that quickly accessing your personal defense weapon is a priority for many customers, just like it is for us. A popular solution is a quick-access bedside gun safe that holds 1-2 handguns.

Will you need to get into the safe in the dark or dim light situations?

An electronic lock or a biometric fingerprint scanner will be the clear winner here. While there are keypad locks with lights and backlit numbers, the only one I feel comfortable recommending because of its longevity and reliability is a Sargent & Greenleaf Titan Pivot Bolt or Titan D-Drive with a one-battery or low-profile keypad.

For instance, if you were looking for the Black Platinum Finish, the one-battery model would be a 6120-240. Mechanical dial lights are available, and they tend to work best with black dials that have white-painted numbers and tick marks (hash marks). However, I have found that the white numbers and tick marks under the red dial light look psychedelic when rotating the dial semi-quickly in the dark to gain access to your safe.

Who Will Be Accessing Your Safe

What are the answers to all these questions for your spouse?

You read that correctly! If your significant other gets into the safe, they could have entirely different needs than you do. In my house, the safe that I use regularly is outfitted with a Sargent & Greenleaf 6730 mechanical dial lock. My wife hates my dial lock.

Our solution is that she has her own office/business safe outfitted with a Sargent & Greenleaf Titan Pivot Bolt. We are going to change the lock on her safe soon to a Securam Prologic L02 or a Securam Scanlogic Biometric.

All 3 of these electronic locks are very reliable solutions. The Securam product operates with an actual digital communication system instead of analog. These two models are quickly becoming my favorite locks. If you are a one safe household, there's a difficult decision to be made here. I do think it's very important to keep documents, jewelry, cash, hard-to-replace items, and guns locked up both for fire protection and theft protection. Typically, both (or several) household members will want/need access to the safe.

How many users will be using the safe, and does each need their own combination?

If you share a code, a dial lock will work fine for one combination. However, if you need to give out codes and restrict access or want to use a code that no one else using the safe should know, an electronic lock is a better idea.

Multiple-user electronic locks can have their codes disabled, enabled, deleted, or even allow certain hierarchical access levels. Thus, a business' general employees (or even grown children in a household) could potentially need to be restricted to their own code on a safe’s electronic lock.

When folks have access to a master code, they can change the lock’s code, make codes in the lock nobody else will know about, wipe out programming features, etc. Also, if you terminate an employee, you can just delete that one person’s code and nobody else’s code will change. It really gives you a lot of options for risk management of the safe.

If you have a dial lock, are you only using the day key lock feature instead of entering the combination?

We get a lot of folks who find the mechanical dialing process rather cumbersome. They resort to going from the dial’s unlocked position at 84-96 range to the number Zero, and ‘lock’ the safe down with a manufacturer-supplied dial lock day use key.

This key only locks the safe’s dial. It does not lock the safe’s dial combination. This dial key cylinder used in the day is very simple to bypass. The lock cylinders are easily picked with something as simple as a paperclip. They can easily be drilled out. And, the keys are not unique to each safe.

You read that correctly, a lot of safes use the same exact key, and there are millions of those keys in existence.

Simply Put: The day lock feature is not secure, and we would never recommend it to lock your safe. If you are in this situation, it would be very beneficial and much more convenient to install an electronic lock.

Are you worried about an outside influence interrupting the use of your electronic lock?

Ahhhh, yes, the EMP question. Also, " What do I do if we get to the point where I can’t get 9-volt batteries for one of these electronic locks?”

The best option if these are your concerns, would be my mechanical dial lock picks, including:

• Sargent & Greenleaf 6741 Group 2 UL Listed

• Sargent & Greenleaf 6730 Group 2 UL Listed

• Sargent & Greenleaf 6630 Group 2M UL Listed

If you need a High Security Dial lock option, you have the less popular Group 1 and Group 1R-rated Sargent & Greenleaf 8550 and 8560. (The 8560 is the x-ray-resistant model). That said, I have had some folks request dial lock installs, at the fault of not being able to open them once installed. They made a point of how am I going to get to my stuff if the electronic lock failed, but they could not get their stuff because they were not able to operate/open the dial lock.

I have installed dial locks on safes before and had the customer call me before getting out of their driveway to return and reinstall an electronic lock on the safe. This may be another scenario where two safes come into play, one utilizing the electronic lock and one utilizing the dial lock.

The other options are the UL-listed key locks like the Lagard 2270 or the Sargent & Greenleaf “FAS” 6870 key locks. I am not a fan of having a 5-inch to 9-inch long key you must keep track of and hide to open your safe. Having a safe technician open these locks if you lose the key can also be a pricey and time-killing affair.

What to Consider When Thinking About Commercial Safe Locks

Do you ever need to limit access to the safe for others?

We covered this a little above. There are electronic locks that offer one-time-use codes, disabling codes for folks who go on vacation, etc. Before instant money transfer services like Venmo and PayPal, we saw this function utilized uniquely. The parents would go on vacation and put money in the safe for the kids, in case the kids blew through the cash they had to buy groceries, go out, etc.

The parents could give the kids a one-time-use code or a code they could change when they get home to withdraw cash from the safe. This password control also comes in handy for businesses when someone goes on vacation. Some locks (like the Securam Prologic L01 and its variants) allow you to disable users while they are gone and then enable them again when they return.

Do you need to be able to alert the authorities if someone is forcing you to open your safe?

This is a real thing. There are models like the Securam Prologic L22 and its higher variants (the L62, L66, L66 plus, etc…), that will alert the police of an armed robbery if a certain code is entered into the keypad. It does oftentimes require an additional module, and some low-voltage wiring to be run over to a monitored alarm panel.

Do you need a time delay to limit how fast someone can open the safe?

Limiting how fast someone can open a safe can be another safety precaution, say, in the event of an armed robbery. Sometimes the time delay feature is confused with a time lock function. The time delay makes the user wait a certain predetermined time to gain access in the event of an armed robbery. 

This would make the would-be thieves uncomfortable waiting around for access to the safe. A time lock makes the safe lock inaccessible during non-functioning business days like holidays or weekends. It can even make it inaccessible at night when the business is closed. There are management override codes that would get around these features as well. However, you would typically give these codes to owners or upper-end management who aren't always in the store during high-risk times when armed robberies usually happen.

Need a Lock Swap

I have performed thousands of lock swaps in my more than 17 years as a lock technician. If your current lock doesn’t meet your needs, we can install a safe lock that does. The easiest way to schedule an appointment is to fill out the service and repair form on our website and request a lock swap. I’m here to help.