Watch as Youtuber Bosnianbill from Locklab talks about the (1899) Stealth ShadowVault w/S&G Electronic Lock. Spoiler...He approves of this product.
Stealth ShadowVault Bosnianbill: Video Summary
Well, today, we're going to take a look at this guy. This is the Stealth ShadowVault. I want to say brand new, but they've actually been teasing this since about last November. If you recall, I upgraded my gun vault with a Stealth Safe. I was impressed with the quality of it and the value. And so when I saw this was being advertised, I couldn't wait.
So what do you get?
- 22lbs. of steel, very, very heavy
- It comes with a handle which makes it portable
- Bolt it down to ensure security of your safe and the valuables inside
- Remember if you can carry it — a thief can too
- The lid of the safe which is the part that's most likely to be attacked is made from 3/16 inch steel
- The bottom of the box is made from a 10-gauge stee
- Stealth-like crinkle black finish
Why This Safe Is So Unique? The ShadowVault is unlike any other Pistol Safe on the market. It has 300% Thicker Steel on the Door & a Body with 233% Thicker Steel than the industry Average for all Handgun Safes. A High Security Electronic Lock mostly found on Stealth's toughest High End Gun Safes, is now on Stealth's Toughest Handgun Safe. ~ Stealth Safes
Lets go into the details
This safe features a Sargent & Greenleaf Spartan direct drive lock. Direct drive means when you turn this center part here, it will retract the bolt.
And you notice when I fold this up, the overlap is one and 1/4 inch all the way around, except on the back.
Obviously you can't have the overlap back here, because then obviously the hinge, you couldn't open the box. But they had to do something, and I thought this might be a point of weakness. I should have given Stealth a little more credit. They've got some hooks on the inside. So when the door is closed, the hooks hang under the overhang, and we'll take a close look, to prevent you from pulling this off with a prying action. So it's not really vulnerable to that. So we rotated it 90 degrees and obviously get it open.
Inside, we find, again probably the most important part — bolt it down! These come in the box ready to bolt down. So they definitely don't want you to have any excuse for not tying this down. In here we also have some instructions for our Spartan lock, we'll play with that a little bit later.
300% Thicker Steel Door than Industry Average 3/16" (7 Gauge) Solid Steel Wrap Around Door that overlaps the body by 1 ¼", providing maximum drill protection. ~ Stealth Safes
You notice when I lifted the lid up, it kind of opened itself up. And that is because, if I can tilt this just a little bit. Along the side here, I'm going to pull all this out and see what's hidden behind it. But there's a little shock absorber right here that eases it up. And more importantly, when my hand, let's say open the box and my hand is say down here, you really don't want that thing slamming down on your fingers. Very, very heavy steel door.
On the bottom, we have a layer of foam and this is what they call the pick and pluck. Most of you guys have heard of this; it's pre-cut. And all you do is you draw an outline of your valuable, your pistol or whatever, and you pluck out the part that you don't want.
So when this is in place, the pad that's on the top will compress it and keep things from moving around. I have played with a little bit, when you take the pick and pluck out, there's some egg carton stuff on the bottom, same type of foam. If you're using a handgun or anything thicker than about one inch, this is plenty, because that top will then compress it down. So even if you pick it up and carry it, it won't be rattling around. If there may be single stack magazines or something like that, they might slide around, but anything thicker than a half an inch is compressed by the existing foam.
When we take this guy out of here, they've got little plugs down here on the bottom, they act as feet. They're very easy to remove, leaving some 3/8 inch holes, four of them on the bottom of this, where you can bolt this thing down.
On the top, we got a bunch of foam here. So let me go off camera. I'm going to try not to destroy it, because I want to put it back. I don't want to tear anything up. Let me pull this back and let's see what they're hiding behind here.
All right, before we look at the inside, let's talk a little bit about this lock because they're kind of related. This outer lock part is actually only the key pad. There are two screws that hold this on there. And then neither of those two screw holes pass through this thick metal case. There's only one small hole that the wires from this key pad pass through to reach directly to the lock itself. This is nothing but a key pad. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, a lot of guys say, well, if I sheer that off, I'm in, and that would not be true, because then you still have to defeat the actual locking mechanism on the inside. The part that holds all of the codes is located inside of here. Knowing that though, Stealth says in their advertising, that there's an anti-drill plate, and also an anti-punch plate, to prevent you from drilling a hole, putting a screwdriver in, and then knocking the internal lock completely off. So we're going to check all of that out.
So I wanted you to know that before we took a look at this guy. That form did not want to come off voluntarily. I'm going to have to glue that back on there. Some kind of very strong adhesive held that on there. We have the locking mechanism here. I'll pull these screws out; we'll get to look at it.
But I really want to get you to see these heavy hooks right here. There's a lip in the front and there's an identical lip in the back. The hinge is actually screwed into it. I think it's five different screws. Even if you defeat those with a pry bar or cut out that hinge, it doesn't matter. It doesn't get you anything, because when the door is closed, and I'll do a camera on the inside, you can see that those hooks go directly underneath that lip. So even if you defeat that hinge, it really doesn't get you anything.
Now, admittedly, this is not Fort Knox. It's a 22lbs. steel box. It's well-designed, I'll grant you that, but it's not Fort Knox. So there's going to be those of you guys who say, well, with a die grinder and enough time, I can probably cut through that. And you'd be right. And that would be true for any kind of steel box, not just this one. This is just a delay mechanism. The longer we can delay a thief, the better off we're going to be.
All right. So, this would be the locking mechanism. You've got a protective cover on here. The reason I point that out is because on the bottom, there's a small cutout right here. You might want to know what that's for. Not to hold your finger like a guillotine. Instead, it's for the shock absorber. The shock absorber is mounted to the door, as you see right here. And when this closes, that fits into this groove. So even if you somehow manage to take a piece of wire and stick it through there, around that shock absorber, I don't know how you do it, but if you could, and reach the locking mechanism, there's nothing to access here. The locking bolt is not spring loaded.
This is a mechanical, direct drive lock. As you can see, it's not spring loaded, like some of the early prototypes. So you're not going to be bumping it open. And you're definitely not going to be fishing a piece of wire in there. Once it's locked, it's locked.
So let's pull this cover off and take a look at the lock itself and try to find out what kind of anti-drill and anti-punch plates Stealth's put in here.
Once we had the steel cover off, I can see a 1/4 inch steel plate behind the lock itself. As you can see, we've got the wires come up here. So the power, all the electronics, the e-prom, everything's inside of this. So it's well-protected, behind 3/16 of steel of the door. And then another 1/4 inch of hard plate steel welded here that the lock itself is mounted to.
So in terms of drilling a hole, you could do it, but you're definitely going to be there for a while. My other concern would, it might say Sargent & Greenleaf on the front, and this would be a knockoff, but I'm seeing this is a real Sargent & Greenleaf, got the logo, barcoding, everything on the side of it right here. So very cool.
The thing that's important though, this is a direct drive. So it's not spring loaded. Once it's locked, you can't compress this. So unlike the prototypes that had the spring loaded locks that you could bump open, this one, you can't do that. So this is another perfect example of why prototyping pays off, and another company paying attention to what their field testing is showing them and improving their product. They definitely did it here. This is a definite upgrade over that spring loaded locking pawl.
All right, let's take a look at the key pad, and I'll program it, and we'll show you how it works. All right, I saved the easy part for last. This is a very simple lock. There's not a lot of all that additional features, no Bluetooth to configure or wireless. You can't access it with your iPhone, you can't hook into WiFi to check it from Siberia, nothing like that. You've got to be standing in front of it to make it work. It only has one combination that's programmable by you; it's six digits.
During the hours of darkness, there's a little button here to push to get a light. And there's a little shield that would reflect the light downward. So you can see what you're doing there. It automatically shuts itself off after 15 or 20 seconds. So, that little LED doesn't drain your battery. The combination by default on this one is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, followed by the # sign. You hear a click and you can rotate it and you get it open. When you lock it back up, you hear a click and double beep, and it's locked. If you don't like the beeps, there are three possible settings. I have it set on the loud setting. There's a medium setting, and then there's a silent mode as well. So any of those three, take your choice.
Anyway guys, there you go. By the way, there's no key bypass, which is wonderful. It really would be a shame to put a tubular lock on this, that would really compromise the security offered by this Sargent & Greenleaf electronic lock. Source: Bosnianbill from Locklab
Where can you get a Stealth ShadowVault w/S&G Electronic Lock?
Features:
300% Thicker Steel Door than Industry Average
- 3/16" (7 Gauge) Solid Steel Wrap Around Door
- Door Overlaps Body by 1-1/4" Providing Maximum Drill Protection
- Industry Average for Handgun Safes is 1/16" Thick (16 Gauge)
- 233% Thicker Steel Body than Industry Average
- 9/64" (10 Gauge) Solid Steel Body
- Industry Average for Handgun Safes is 1/16" Thick (16 Gauge)
- Hardplate In-between the Lock and the Door
- Increases Drill Time by 200%
- Hardplate In-between the Body and Lock Latch
- Increases Drill Time by 200%
- Punch Resistant Steel Housing Encasing Lock on the Door Side
- Punch Resistant Steel Housing Encasing Lock Latch on the Body Side
- Stainless Steel Strike Plate
- Protects the Paint and Provides Smooth Closure
- Two 3/8" Steel Hooks Lock Under the Hinges
- Two Steel Deadbars Bolted Together Reinforcing Piano Hinge
- Welded Continuous Hinge
- Four Pre-Drilled Mounting Holes
- Concrete Bolt Anchors Included
Lock:
- S&G Spartan Direct-Drive Low Profile Deadbolt Lock with Black Platinum Finish.
- UL Listed Type 1, ECB-S R01, VdS Class 2, EN 1300 Class B
- 1,000 times More Possible Combinations than a Simplex Lock
- 6-Digit Programable Code - Nearly 1 Million Possible Combinations
- 15 Minute Lockout Mode After 4 Wrong Atempts
- Takes 27 years to Try All Possible Combinations (2 hours for Simplex)
- Bump/Bounce Proof
- EMP Rated
- Silent Mode Disables Beeping for Stealth Access
- Uses a 9 Volt Battery Replacement from the Keypad Outside the Safe
- Red LED Light button on the keypad.
Specifications:
- Outside Dimensions: 4.25" H x 12.56" W x 10.25" D
- Height including keypad: 5.75" Total Height
- Depth with Handle Extended: 11.50" Total Depth
- Inside Dimensions: 3.00" H 10.50" W x 9.00" D
- Interior Cubic Feet: 0.16
- Weight: 22 Pounds
