Manufacturing a gun lock that is both very safe around those who shouldn’t be around your firearm, but yet have the ability to be instantly unlocked in times when you actually need your firearm during a self-defense situation is a very tricky design tightrope to cross. Zore, an Israeli based but producing in California company, thinks it has the answer. Essentially the product idea is to have a bullet-shaped chamber insert that expands when attempting to rack the slide to the rear (the extractor catches on to the chamber insert as it would with a live or dummy round), thus locking it into the chamber even further. This insert is attached to a block on the outside of a handgun, that has a rotating RAPIDial. Twisting this RAPIDial is very akin to twisting a Master Lock from the High School days of old, turn to a number one way, then back to the second number, then for a third time, in the opposite direction. However, this is only a 3 digit combination of 9 numbers a slot. Zore can be programmed with 20 different digits of 9 available numbers apiece (although this would be a poor decision to have all 20 in a self-defense situation).

Locking and unlocking is done by entering in the correct rotations, which are felt by bumps within the drum. A yellow button must be pressed in, then a green light comes on signifying it being locked. There aren’t any audible clicks resonating from the drum due to the nature of the device trying to be inaudible during a self-defense situation where sound could give ones position away. Of course, racking the slide back on a loaded magazine makes a noise, but the next noise after that will presumably be the handgun being fired.

The device is powered by a CR2 3.0V removable battery that supports up to 3,500 locking and unlocking iterations or 2-3 years of standard use. When the battery gets low, the locking indicators start turning up yellow. When the power gets extremely low, it doesn’t allow you to even lock the device until the battery has been changed. It is available in 9x19mm, .40 S&W, with .45 ACP pending and possibly a 5.56x45mm version if sales go well.

There is one very important point that must be cleared up about the Zore-X. The first one is that the company will not be releasing a mobile phone app that allows the device to pair with a mobile phone. There was so much backlash about a digital safety device that could be potentially hacked that Zore decided on releasing a non-mobile phone compatible version first, and might make another line that is mobile phone compatible.

The device comes with an end cap that allows removal of the battery with the tip and also protects the chamber insert when not in use.

Of all the products I saw at SHOT 2018, this is one I really want to get my hands on to do a test for TFB.