First, minor comments: I mounted this safe on my closet floor which is laminate on top of a concrete slab. The bolts that came with the safe are too short to really clamp it down in my opinion - I doubt they would penetrate much below 1.5" into the concrete and the laminate+backing adds about 3/8" so I went to the hardware store and bought a 3.75" x 3/8" Red Head to really get a bite into the concrete. Also, sleeve anchors do not have the holding power of the 3/8" Trubolt which has nearly 1000 pounds of holding capability. In addition, I made a ply board backing for the safe and used two 1/4" machine screws on the two upper holes on the back of the safe. I could not use the bottom center because it would have had to go through the baseboard molding and I wanted a clean removal in the future should the next owner not want the safe. The back ply was fastened to a 2x4 stud behind the sheet rock with 3 long, robust deck screws. No one is carting this puppy away unless they come in with a massive crowbar or a Sawzall and the later would require a lot of work getting to the bottom, center Trubolt which is hidden inside the safe. The good. I have the safe mounted for about 5 days now. I "trained" it to recognize my forefinger and ditto with my wife. For fun I tried other fingers and as I hoped - they did not activate the lock. I have opened it more than a few dozen times so far. The safe seems well constructed and the pegs that lock the door slide in and out nicely on the 4 AA batteries that are supplied with the safe. I used the "silent" feature so that the alarm does not beep when I open the door. Be warned that you cannot leave the door open with the batteries in because after a time delay you will get beeps indicating the door is not locked. Arguably this is good. Removing batteries is not a good idea, because I believe (not sure) that it resets the finger print recognition. If I am correct, then every battery change means a re-do of finger print "learning". I may be wrong about this, because there seems to be capacitors that maintain charge even when the batteries are out. I am guessing here, but I suspect that if you quickly remove the old batteries, one at a time and replace with a new battery - immediately - it is possible you can keep the old recognition data. It has almost unfailing worked on my finger print. When it doesn't, it is because I placed it too far up on the scanner and the instructions warn you not to do this so it's my fault, not the safe's problem. Once I move my finger down it always works. The bad: to save your sanity, do not try to follow the instructions on learning finger prints as they are bogus. Phone Barska and ask. The woman on the phone was obviously frustrated and I suspect that it was due to a lot of calls like mine. She confirmed that the written instructions and reality were in 2 different universes. I doubt 10,000 monkeys over a century would figure this out. That said, the real instructions are straight forward and easy to follow, it is just that you do not have them on the printed material that came with the safe. In addition, the instructions have you drill a 8/17" inch hole for the sleeve fastener. WTF? I suspect this is due to some Chinese employee at the manufacturing site converting a metric value to an English value, but I am not sure (it would be around 12mm). That was enough to make me buy an American fastener which comes with the drill hole specs rather than try to guess what 8/17" means. Would I recommend this safe? Yes, so far, in my limited experience. I suppose that if you are using it for defensive weapons, you will want to make sure the batteries are always up to charge so they can open the door. I did try the keys that came with the safe and they work flawlessly, but you can't use those when you need quick access, so make sure the batteries are good. It would have been great if the manufacturer added a small LED that glowed when the batteries are nearing end of life. I hid the keys in a place no one will find them and showed the spouse where they are located. It's possible I will never find them again. :-). Actually, I hung them on nail I put into a rafter in my attic in a place that is invisible to anyone who happens to enter the attic, e.g. repair people. I wonder if I can lube the action? I don't know, but I need to look at the instructions. Keeping things lubed and low friction has to help with battery life when using the safe a lot. With the caveat of the strange instructions, which the lady at Barska said they are re-writing, this product seems to work as advertised - thumbs up. I believe this woman told me that she is going to post the instructions on their web site. She kindly mailed me a draft of her updates - which worked fine - and prevented me from going insane. :-) 4 stars are based on the instructions and the fact I have not had the safe for very long. I suspect the safe, with proper instructions will be a 5 star. If I can remember I will comment in a few months.
