Sports Afield Instinct 18 Gun Safe Review

Based out of Tacoma, Washington, Sports Afield has been the fastest growing gun safe company over the last 7 years. They sell primarily through big box stores like Costco, Wal-Mart, Tractor Supply and Home Depot. While they don’t have a great reputation for quality and are considered low end in security, they do offer a full comprehensive lifetime warranty covering all components of the safe. So, if anything were to go wrong, you can rest assured you are covered. In this review, I’ll explain why the Sports Afield Instinct 18 Gun Safe only provides the illusion of security.

Lock – Sports Afield Instinct 18 Gun Safe

First and always most important for any gun safe is the lock used. The Sports Afield Instinct 18 gun safe features the standard Chinese Solenoid Lock with key override. This is not a particularly good lock with known issues and quite easy to break into.

Because it has the key override, it does not come with a hard plate or re-locker. I consider these essential features for a gun safe in addition to a UL Rated lock made by NL, SecuRam or S&G. These locks are unbranded, un-rated and prone to failure. In my experience, this lock will inevitably fail and you will end up using the key to get in. However, you can get replacement parts under their lifetime warranty. Unfortunately, they will not install these parts for you. This lock does retain the batteries on the inside so be sure to keep your keys handy when the batteries die.

Security – Sports Afield Instinct 18 Gun Safe

The Sports Afield Instinct 18 gun safe is CA DOJ approved as a firearm safety device which is not a difficult test to pass but does ensure it has the absolute most basic security features. Unfortunately, Sports Afield intentionally does not list the steel thickness but considering it weights only 170 lbs, we can safely assume this is 14 gauge at most and more likely 16 gauge steel construction. The door features five 1″ locking bolts with three active and two deadbolts on the hinge side. This little gun safe also comes with an audible alarm which helps alert you if your kids are tampering with the safe in another room.

Fire Rating

The Sports Afield Instinct 18 Gun Safe is fire rated for 30 minutes at 1400 degrees. This is 200 degrees hotter than the industry standard of 1200 degrees. Keep in mind, this is not independently verified by a testing agency like ETL or UL. This rating is only a factory test where we have to take their word for it. Also included is the essential Palusol Fire seal that expands to multiple times its size during a fire to keep smoke and heat from entering the safe.

Style and Function

This Sports Afield Instinct gun safe has a fully carpeted interior with both a gun rack and top shelf. It’s finished in a textured black paint job. Hardware includes a black drop down handle and black keypad. I’m not particularly enthralled with the styling. It’s a very basic, cheap as you can get, gun safe.

The Bottom Line

Would I buy the Sports Afield Instinct 18 gun safe to store my firearms or valuables? No, I would not. With the low quality Solenoid Electronic lock, no hard plate and no re-locker, I can not recommend this safe.

Some gun safes that are in the exact same price range and are significantly better include the Stealth EGS14 Gun Safe and Kodiak KB5520ECS Gun Safe. The reason I like these safes so much better is that it has a UL rated high security electronic lock, CA DOJ burglary rating, tested 30 minute fire rating and is sold by a reliable company with a lifetime warranty.

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