Securing an M4-Type Long Gun with MagVault

Here comes another important tip from the Personal Defense Network. I'm out here at LMS Defense's Combat Development Center to take a look at GunVault's newest product, the MagVault. This is a device that allows you to secure your firearm but still have very quick access to it when you need it. Now, by secure your firearm, I don't mean make sure that someone can't pick it up physically and take it. But I mean, if they can't use it to actually discharge a round.

The MagVault works to actually block the ability to chamber around in any AR-15, M4 type firearm, and allows you to know that no one can use it to hurt you or your family inside of your own home or wherever else you may keep that actual firearm. Now, if you have a firearm in that condition you can access it to use it for home protection in the worst case scenario. Let's take a look at how it works. As you can see, the MagVault is shaped very much like an AR-15 magazine. It's gonna slide into the actual magazine well, with a twist to the key it secures itself and gets jammed in, so that even if there was a round that was chambered, there's no way that the bolt face can actually make contact with the back of the round so that it can be discharged.

It's going to be very hard to get this out of a gun. Now, of course, if the gun itself isn't actually inside of your home, inside of a lock trunk secured in some kind of a clamp, maybe inside of a safe, it can still be taken away from you but it can't be used against you. It can't be used negligently. It can't be fired accidentally inside of the home by somebody who isn't certified to use it, qualified to use it, or authorized to use it by you. If I did need access to firearm I could simply find my key, get to the firearm itself insert the key into the MagVault and twist.

At this point, readying the firearm becomes exactly the same as a reload. I'm going to depress my magazine release, insert the magazine, make sure it's seated, run up to the pull handle and actually get back into a condition where I can shoot. Now I say, get back into a condition when I shoot, because for me, as soon as I depress that magazine release the idea is, I'm in the middle of a reload. This is one of the things I really like about the MagVault. I don't have to learn a whole new set of skills, after I insert the key and twist, it becomes a reload.

The consistency of skillsets means that I'm going to be able to learn to use this device very efficiently. If I've trained with my AR, my M4 type firearm to be able to do a quick reload, I'm going to be able to get my firearm ready, even though just a few seconds ago it was completely secure and couldn't have been used for an accident or to do harm to someone that I actually didn't want to be in front of this firearm when it went off. What I'm going to do is bring in a couple of instructors from LMS Defense. Cameron, Jeff, if you guys will get close, what we're actually going to do is we're going to compare the time it takes to ready the firearm just like it is right now. Unsecured, completely ready to be fired.

Of course it could be used by a bad guy, it could be used by a good guy, or with some tinkering could actually be used accidentally or negligently by somebody really didn't know how to use the firearm. We probably wouldn't want to leave a firearm open with a loaded magazine in this condition. Then we're going to compare the time it takes without the MagVault in to the time it takes with the MagVault in. And we're going to see that a very secure firearm that can't be used against us can still be accessed very quickly and easily if you understand the steps for reloading any type of M4. So we'll compare those times.

The way it's going to work, we're going to stand by at the ready. On the up command, we will immediately access the firearm, get it ready, fire three rounds into this target which is about a room length away, and then we'll stop the clock on the third shot. We'll all go through that drill. Then we'll put the MagVault in place and we'll see how long it takes. When we compare the times, I'll think you'll see that the security offered by the MagVault doesn't come at a very high price in terms of readiness time.

Up. Okay. About a standard performance. We've got the firearm clear, back on safe, and let's bring Jeff up. Jeff, you can take a run through it.

Standby. Up. Okay, go ahead and clear the firearm. Now, remember the reason that we're bringing different people through this is so that you can see different skill levels and different timings. Now, of course, it's true that all three of us probably have extensive training with the M4 or with the AR-15 type firearm.

We may have a little bit more or even a little bit less than you do at home. What's important to look at is the relative time between my time without the MagVault and with the MagVault, same thing for Jeff, and same thing for Cameron, which we're about to see now. Standby. All right, excellent. Now that we've got those three times in mind, again right around that five or six second mark, what we're going to do is take a look at how long it takes us to actually remove the MagVault product from the M4 and then complete our reload.

And remember, that's the trick here, is that once we turn the key, all we're doing is completing a standard reload. So we think about a proper reload. We're simply going to keep our hand on the controls of the firearm. Use our trigger finger to depress the magazine release, magazine will come out. In this case, the MagVault will come out.

I'm going to get my other magazine, insert it, run that charging handle and three rounds in the target. We'll be able to compare times here in a minute. We're going to take a look at it. Now in order to get the MagVault actually inserted into the firearm I'm going to pull back on the charging handle, reach up and under, secure that bolt catch, push that forward. You can see that leaves that open.

I can check to make sure that the firearm isn't chambered. I can then go ahead and insert, twist the key. And, of course, I'm going to take the key out. Now for this test, all we're really comparing is the time from already having our key. Now, if you keep your key in the bottom of a change drawer covered up with a bunch of things, of course, that's going to add a lot of time to your response.

You're going to need to make sure that your key is kept someplace where you can access it quickly and easily, and I'll share a little tip with you about the MagVault. What you need to remember is the direction that the teeth of the key need to be placed when you insert it into the actual lock. That way you don't waste precious seconds trying to get that key into the lock. Even in the dark, I can feel the ridges of the key, know exactly what direction they're in, and without having to turn around and actually look, what I'm going to know is that those teeth need to be pointed out towards my strong hand. As I reach up and under, and I insert and twist, that's gonna allow me to get my hand right back on the control, hit that mag release, get the MagVault out.

I'm going to retrieve that, set it up again. And once again, our time will start from exactly when we get that up command. At that point, I'll retrieve the key. I'll make sure the teeth are oriented in the right direction, and I'll go through reading the firearm and put three shots in the target. Ready?

Ready. Up. I'll ready the MagVault, put it back into place, and we'll let Jeff come up and go through his run. Ready? Up.

Ready? Okay. Clear? You're on safe? You place it down on the table.

Perfect. So what you saw there was that our times before the MagVault just simply reading a firearm that could have been used by anyone that had access to it, were just under five seconds to just over six seconds. Once we put the MagVault in our times went from being just over six seconds to just over 10 seconds. Now, in some that's almost double but we need to remember, that's still about 10 seconds. And literally that was the first time that Jeff or Cameron had ever used this device.

No practice, no warmup. They heard me talk about it on video, they watched me do it once or twice. and then they came through. Now, I was involved with some of the testing of this product in the prototype level. So I've actually had some practice which explains the faster time and less deviation between my time without the MagVault and with the MagVault.

The fact is, if you own this device you're probably going to practice with it too. If you have an M4 or an AR-15 that you're thinking about having at the ready for home defense, you don't want to have to think about going through a typical trigger lock, or going through a long complex sequence of getting into a safe, if you can have a firearm that is accessible but you still want to make sure it can't be used by an unauthorized person, the MagVault is probably a great way for you to make sure that you can get that firearm ready when you might need it. Be sure to check out the Personal Defense Network for more important tips, just like that one.