Barska Tall Biometric Rifle Safe - 9.33 cu ft Interior, AX11780

Almost everything a house holds is made to lie flat or sit on a shelf. The few things that are not — the long, the upright, the awkwardly tall — end up leaning in the corner of a closet, because nothing was built for them. This cabinet is very nearly five feet of clear vertical interior on a footprint no wider than a filing cabinet, and it opens to a fingerprint rather than a code.

That height is most often asked to hold long guns, and there is a sixteen-position rack inside for exactly that. It takes other upright things just as willingly — a tripod, a rolled survey, a pair of rods — and the three shelves lift out entirely when you want the full run, then go back in when you do not.

Room for long guns and a tripod standing upright, a shelf of camera bodies and shoeboxes where the barrels end, and the passport that spends its life migrating between drawers.

Specifications

Interior

56.5"H × 19.3"W × 14.88"D

Interior volume: 9.33 cu ft

Three removable shelves

Adjustable rifle rack, sixteen positions

Inner locking box: none

Interior finish: fully carpeted

Door organizer: none

Exterior & siting

57"H × 19.6"W × 16"D

139 lbs

Anchoring: rear panel pre-drilled; mounting hardware included. No floor-anchoring provision.

Clearance: front-opening door, full swing required

Wheels or castors: none fitted

Security

Optical biometric fingerprint scanner

Up to 120 registered fingerprints

Override: two backup keys, plus an external battery pack (AF12654) to power the lock from outside

Five-point steel deadbolt locking system

Bolt diameter: Not stated by the manufacturer.

Wall thickness: 2mm steel

Door assembly thickness: Not stated by the manufacturer.

Alarms: low-battery warning; door-opening alert

Programmable silent access mode

Listed on the California DOJ roster of certified firearm safety devices, device type "safe"

Fire, water & media

Fire rating: None claimed.

Media / data rating: None claimed.

Water rating: None claimed.

The rest

Power: four AA batteries (not included)

Warranty: One-year limited, from Barska

Manufacturer part number: AX11780

Finish: gloss black

In the carton: two backup keys, mounting hardware, external battery pack

What 2mm of steel is for

The body is 2mm steel throughout — a shade under a tenth of an inch, in the range the trade calls 14 gauge. That is cabinet steel rather than vault steel, and the distinction is better had before you buy than after.

Against the opportunist it is entirely sufficient, and the opportunist is very nearly every real case: the curious houseguest, the tradesman’s apprentice, the child who has worked out where things are kept, the burglar working to a clock who would rather take the television than spend ten minutes on a locked steel box. A closed, locked, anchored cabinet takes the contents out of the category of things that can be picked up on the way past.

Against tools and unhurried time it will not hold, and nothing at this wall thickness will. A pry bar worked into a door gap by someone with the afternoon free is a different order of attack, and the safes built to resist it carry a burglary rating from an independent testing house and weigh several times what this one does.

Which makes the question that matters not how thick the steel is, but whether the cabinet is fixed to the building. An unbolted box can be carried out whole and opened somewhere quieter. The mounting hardware is in the carton.

Five feet of steel, and where it goes

At 57 inches it stands taller than a chest of drawers and narrower than a wardrobe, which is what lets it live where a conventional safe cannot — a closet, the end of a hallway, the side wall of a garage. At 19.6 inches across it passes through a standard interior door without argument.

Empty, it weighs 139 lbs. Two people and a hand truck will manage it; one person and a flight of stairs will not. The floor is not a consideration at this weight, spread over this footprint. Tipping is. Tall, narrow and comparatively light is the profile of an object that goes over when a loaded door swings wide, and it is at its most top-heavy with the rack full and the shelves empty.

So fix it. The rear panel is pre-drilled and the bolts are supplied; they want studs, not drywall anchors alone. Allow the door its full swing before you settle on a corner — the hinge side is not stated, so measure at the wall rather than from the specification.

What this is not

It is not fire-rated.

Barska build fire-rated models; this is not one of them, and no rating is claimed for it. In a house fire, the papers inside are in the same position as the papers outside. If what you are protecting is a will, a deed or a photograph, this cabinet answers theft and not heat — which is half the problem, and worth knowing which half.

It carries no media or water rating either.

For the same reason. No claim is made for either, so we make none. Drives, film and anything magnetic need an interior held below 125°F in a fire, and that is a different class of product built to a stricter promise.

It is not sixteen scoped rifles.

Barska are explicit that the figure is for guns stored with no scopes or accessories, and the arithmetic bears them out: sixteen positions across 19.3 inches of interior width is about an inch and a quarter per gun, which works only with bare barrels alternating butt-up and butt-down. Add optics, slings and thicker stocks and the working number comes down, often by something near half. Buy it for the height and the footprint, and read the rack as generous rather than literal.

It is not floor-anchored.

The pre-drilled holes are in the back panel, for a wall. Bolting a safe down into a slab or a subfloor is a different job with different consequences, and it belongs to a fitter working under their own licence and their own insurance.

On the maker

Barska is an optics house first — riflescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes — and has built biometric security cabinets alongside them for a long time, selling through sporting goods and outdoor retail rather than through the safe trade. That channel shapes the catalogue. The questions Barska’s buyers ask are about capacity, about access, and about whether the thing is on the California roster; on those the specification is complete and checkable. We confirmed the AX11780’s listing with the California Department of Justice directly, rather than taking it from a reseller’s page.

The questions a safe specialist would ask — bolt diameter, door assembly thickness, hinge construction — belong to a different conversation and are not published here. If one of them would decide your purchase, write to us and we will ask them for you.

Questions

Does it need power to open?

It runs on four AA batteries, which are not in the box. A low-battery warning sounds well before it matters, and if the set dies anyway, the external battery pack supplied with it powers the lock from outside while you open the door. Two override keys come with it as well. Keep them somewhere other than the safe.

How many fingers can it learn?

Up to 120 prints. Register each finger two or three times at slightly different angles rather than once — on any optical scanner, that is the cheapest thing you can do for day-to-day reliability.

Can the beeping be turned off?

Yes. There is a programmable silent access mode. The door-opening alert and the low-battery warning are separate functions.

Will it take scoped rifles?

Yes, and fewer of them — see "What this is not" above. The rack is adjustable, so the practical answer depends on your optics rather than on a number we could print.

Can I bolt it down?

To a wall, yes: the rear panel is pre-drilled and the hardware is supplied. Into studs, not drywall anchors alone. There is no provision for floor anchoring on this model.

How does it arrive?

By freight, on a pallet, to the curb. The carrier contacts you to arrange a window, lowers the pallet to the street, and the last fifty feet are yours — inside delivery, unpacking and packaging removal are not part of a freight delivery. At 139 lbs, two people and a stair-climbing hand truck will do it comfortably. If you would rather it were carried in and placed, a local safe mover will do that for a flat fee; tell us your city and we will help you find one.

What happens if it arrives damaged?

Inspect the pallet before you sign for it, and note anything you find on the delivery receipt before the driver leaves — a signed clean receipt is hard to argue with afterwards. Photograph it, and write to us the same day. We will take it from there.

Please read our return policy