Hornady Night Guard Review (2026): What Fits and What the Manual Says

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The Hornady RAPiD Safe Night Guard is a pistol safe built to look like a bedside alarm clock. It has a red clock display, two USB charging ports on the back, and a spring-assist drawer that slides out of the front when you hold an RFID tag to the glass. It takes one full-size handgun, runs on wall power with four AAA batteries as backup, and lists at $365.99 on Hornady’s store.

I’ve lived with one on my nightstand, and for this review I also read Hornady’s owner’s manual cover to cover, checked twelve handguns against its interior using the measurements from our own reviews, and compared it with the newer VEXIS Night Guard, which uses the same drawer but opens with a palm-vein scan. Several things in the manual matter more than anything on the box.

Last updated October 24, 2026

Table of Contents

Review: Hornady RAPiD Safe Night Guard, the Clock That Hides a Pistol

Our Rating: 7.5/10

Hornady Night Guard Specs at a Glance

Model	RAPiD Safe Night Guard, item 98215
Price	$365.99 on Hornady’s store; from $285.99 at Palmetto State Armory (October 2026)
Capacity	1 full-size handgun, laid flat, up to 9.2 in long
Outside	12 in wide x 10.5 in deep x 3 in tall
Inside	9.2 in wide x 6.9 in deep x 2.2 in tall
Weight	18 lb
Ways in	RFID tag (up to 5), one 4 to 6 digit code, two barrel keys
Power	12V wall supply, or four AAA batteries (about 12 months)
Extras	Clock display, two USB-A charging ports (5V 2.0A total)
Security	1,500 lb rated security cable, pre-drilled mounting holes, hardened locking lugs
Steel	Gauge not published by Hornady
California	98215 on the California DOJ roster of certified safety devices
Warranty	1 year, original owner, registration required

Quick Take

The Night Guard is the bedside safe for people who don’t want a gun safe on the nightstand. Plugged in, it opens from a tag in about a second with nothing to remember, aim or press, and anyone who walks past sees a clock that charges a phone. It fits every pistol from a Hellcat Pro to a Glock 34, with room left for a spare magazine.

Three things to plan around. The backup key goes in a lock on the back panel, so leave room behind it. On battery power you press a key to wake the reader before the tag works. And the warranty is one year, the same short term as Hornady’s AR Gunlocker, and only if you register it.

Best For: One handgun on top of a nightstand, plugged in, for someone who’ll wear a tag or stick one on a phone. Not for a 4-inch revolver, two full-size pistols, or anyone who wants a fingerprint reader.

The Night Guard, Measured

Hornady’s owner’s manual gives the outside as 12 inches wide, 10.5 inches deep and 3 inches tall, and the inside of the drawer as 9.2 by 6.9 by 2.2 inches. I drew both to scale from above and from the front.

The inside is 139.66 cubic inches of a 378 cubic inch box, or 36.9% of it. The rest is the glass front panel with the reader and keypad, the drawer mechanism, and the back panel that carries the power jack, the USB ports and the key lock. That’s the price of the disguise: a clock-sized box that holds one pistol.

At 2.2 inches tall inside, no handgun stands up, so the pistol lies flat with its length across the 9.2-inch width and its height running front to back in the 6.9-inch depth. That makes length the measurement to check, not height.

What Fits: 11 of 12 Handguns

I checked twelve handguns against the inside, using the dimensions in our own reviews. Eleven fit on all three measurements. The one that doesn’t is a revolver.

Every semi-auto fits. The longest, a Glock 34 Gen 5 MOS at 8.82 inches, leaves 0.38 inch against the 9.2-inch limit, and a Girsan MC1911 at 8.74 inches leaves 0.46. A Glock 17 Gen 6 leaves 1.25 inches. Height is never close: the tallest here, the Girsan at 5.73 inches, still has 1.17 inches to spare front to back, which is room for a slide-mounted red dot. My Glock 45 Gen 5 with a Holosun SCS goes in with plenty of room around it. Width isn’t a problem either: the thickest, a Beretta 92FS at 1.5 inches, clears the 2.2-inch drawer height.

The Ruger GP100 with a 4.2-inch barrel is 9.5 inches long, which is 0.3 inch too long. If you keep a 4-inch revolver by the bed, Hornady’s larger RAPiD Safe 2700KP is listed for 1911 pistols and 4-inch revolvers. And the drawer takes one full-size pistol, not two. One owner fits a pair of small pocket guns, a Ruger LCP and LCR, in their holsters with magazines, but two Glocks won’t go side by side. Our best pistol safes ranking has bigger options.

Opening It: RFID Tag, Code and Key

RFID is the reason to buy this safe. Hold a tag within an inch of the center of the clock display and the drawer springs open. Plugged in, it takes about a second from the tag touching the glass to the drawer moving, and it opened every time I presented the tag in the right spot. There’s nothing to remember and no finger to place, which is exactly what you want when you’ve just woken up.

The keypad is the backup. It stores one code of 4 to 6 digits, and the safe ships with a default code, so change it before the pistol goes in. Programming a new code overwrites the old one. The keypad sits flat on the glass, and in the dark it’s hard to find as fast as I’d like, so treat it as the fallback rather than the way in.

The two circular barrel keys fit a lock on the back panel, not the front. If the safe sits against a wall or under a shelf, you’ll be reaching behind it to use them. Leave a hand’s width of space, and keep the keys somewhere you can find in the dark, outside the safe.

Battery Mode: The Extra Press

Hornady sells the Night Guard on touch-free entry, and on wall power that’s true. Unplug it and the safe runs on four AAA batteries in battery-saving mode, where the reader is asleep. The manual’s instruction is to press any button on the keypad first to bring it to ready, then present the tag. The clock display also turns off after about 10 seconds.

So keep it plugged in. The batteries are there for a power cut, and Hornady says a set of quality batteries should last about 12 months, depending on use. A red battery symbol near the clock lights when they’re weak, and the manual says to replace all four at once. If you lose power often, practice the press-then-tag sequence so it doesn’t surprise you at night.

The Tags: Watchband, Fob and Phone Decal

Four tags come in the box: one watchband tag, one key fob and two adhesive decals. The safe stores up to five, and Hornady says one tag can be set up to open this safe and any other RAPiD Safe you own, so a single fob can open the Night Guard by the bed and an AR Gunlocker in the closet.

Each tag has a catch the manual spells out. The watchband tag should be worn on the outside or bottom of the wrist, because the reader will likely not read through your wrist. A decal stuck to a phone can lose read distance to the phone’s metal housing and its Bluetooth or NFC signals, so Hornady says to try several spots on the back of the phone, face the decal outward, and test it with your apps on before you rely on it.

The biggest catch: you can’t delete one tag. Holding the program button for five seconds erases every tag at once, and then you program the ones you still have again. If a tag goes missing, do that the same day, and keep the spare decal somewhere you won’t lose it.

Living With It: Clock, Drawer and Charging

Setup took me under 10 minutes: program a tag, change the code, set the clock. The clock brightness steps up and down with the arrow buttons and turns off completely at the bottom of the range. Even dimmed, some owners find it too bright beside the bed and turn the safe to face away. Brownells’ summary of its owner reviews says about 40% raised the clock, mostly for running slow, so check it against your phone for the first week.

The drawer needs to be pushed in at the right spot until the latch clicks. A light in the keypad shows green when the latch has fully closed and blinks red when it hasn’t, so look for green every time you shut it. To silence the keypad tones, open the drawer and hold the H button for five seconds.

The two USB-A ports on the back share 5 volts at 2.0 amps between them, and they only work when the safe is plugged into the wall. That’s fine for a phone overnight. There’s no app and no record of who opened it.

Steel, Cable and Bolting It Down

Hornady describes a heavy-duty exterior housing and hardened interior locking lugs, but doesn’t publish a steel gauge for this model. It does list 14-gauge steel for the VEXIS Night Guard, which shares the same interior. I’d treat the RFID model’s gauge as unknown rather than guess.

At 18 pounds, anyone can carry the safe out of the house, so secure it. The included security cable is rated to 1,500 pounds: loop it around a bed frame or a nightstand leg, push the ferrule into the back of the safe with the drawer open, and closing the drawer locks it in place. To bolt it down, slide the drawer out by pressing the plastic tabs on each side, mark and drill your holes using the pre-drilled mounting holes, and watch the small wire that runs from the back of the safe to the drawer when you put it back.

California buyers can use it: item 98215 is on the California DOJ roster of certified firearm safety devices, listed for handguns no bigger than 2.2 by 9.2 by 6.9 inches. The VEXIS model, 98235, wasn’t on the roster when I checked. And the CPSC recall database returns no recall for any Hornady safe, unlike several biometric brands we cover on our biometric gun safe reliability page.

Night Guard vs VEXIS Night Guard

Hornady now sells a second Night Guard. The VEXIS Night Guard, item 98235, keeps the same 9.2 by 6.9 by 2.2 inch drawer but replaces RFID with a palm-vein scanner, and lists at $415.99, $50 more than the RFID model.

The differences that matter at the bedside: the VEXIS reads your palm from 4 to 6 inches away, so there’s no tag to wear or lose. It stores up to 10 users and can delete one on its own. Its code is 6 to 8 digits, and five wrong codes lock the keypad for five minutes. It runs on two 9V batteries rather than four AAA, has one USB-C port instead of two USB-A, and is slightly bigger outside at 12.1 by 11.6 by 3.8 inches.

Buy the RFID model if you already own RAPiD Safes and want one tag for all of them, or if it’s cheaper where you shop. Buy the VEXIS if you’d never remember to wear a tag. On our retailer feed, Brownells had the VEXIS at $299.99 on October 24, 2026, the same as its price for the RFID version, so check both before you buy. For fingerprint safes in the same role, see our Vaultek Barikade Series 2 review and the Vaultek vs Hornady comparison.

The Warranty and the Key Policy

The Night Guard’s limited warranty covers defects in workmanship or materials for one year from the date of purchase. It’s not transferable, it’s enforceable by the original owner only, and you must register the safe at hornady.com/warranties to get warranty service. Claims start with a call to Hornady at 800-338-3220 for a return authorization number. Wear and tear, misuse and improper installation aren’t covered.

The manual is also blunt about keys: for your security, it says, Hornady will not send replacement keys. The FAQ at the back says to call the tech line if you lose them, so it’s worth a call, but don’t count on a new set. Write down the key number from the face of the lock and the serial number from the back before you mount the safe. Our gun safe warranty comparison shows how one year compares with other brands.

Who Should NOT Buy the Night Guard

• Owners of a 4-inch revolver. A 9.5-inch GP100 doesn’t fit the 9.2-inch drawer.
• Anyone storing two full-size pistols. It holds one. Look at the 2700KP or a larger safe.
• Anyone who won’t keep it plugged in. On batteries you lose the touch-free opening.
• Anyone who loses things. One lost tag means erasing and reprogramming every tag.
• Anyone who wants app alerts or a long warranty. There’s no app, and the warranty is one year.

Price and Where to Buy

Hornady lists the RFID Night Guard at $365.99 on its own store. On our retailer feed on October 24, 2026, Palmetto State Armory had it at $285.99, $80 less, with Brownells and Sportsman’s Guide at $299.99 and Guns.com at $319.99.

Watch for retailer listings with the wrong specs. One lists it as running on four AA batteries; Hornady’s manual says AAA. Hornady’s own store labels the 12 by 10.5 by 3 inch box as 12 inches tall, which it isn’t. Go by the manual. The card below tracks the RFID model live.

If you’d rather open it with your palm, the VEXIS Night Guard:

Final Verdict

The Hornady RAPiD Safe Night Guard is the best disguised bedside safe I know, and on wall power it’s as fast as a pistol safe gets. It fits every semi-auto I checked, it looks like a clock, and the RFID tag means nothing to remember at 3 AM. Our best nightstand gun safe ranking has it at number one for that reason.

Keep it plugged in, leave room behind it for the key, cable it to the bed frame, register it the week you buy it, and erase all the tags the day one goes missing. Then buy it from a retailer rather than at Hornady’s $365.99 list price, and you have the bedside safe I’d hand to anyone who owns one handgun.

FAQ: Hornady RAPiD Safe Night Guard