Lost Sentry Safe Key? What to Do and What It Costs

Your Sentry safe is shut, the key is gone, and the passports, the title to the car and whatever cash you keep at home are on the other side of a door you cannot open. A lost safe key is worse than a lost house key, because there is no back window to try.

The questions are always the same three. Can I get another key made for this thing? How long is that going to take? And am I going to end up letting somebody drill a hole in my safe?

I am Eli Itzhaki, and opening safes is part of what I do at Keyzoo. Some of what follows comes straight off SentrySafe's own pages, including a detail about where they print your serial number that turns a simple key order into a safe lockout.

By the end you will know which key your safe takes, where to find the numbers SentrySafe asks for, what SentrySafe charges for replacement keys and how long they take, and how to open a safe without a key when waiting is not an option.

The short answer

There are two ways back into a Sentry safe: order replacement keys from SentrySafe, or have a locksmith open it and cut you a working key in the same visit.

• SentrySafe sells replacement keys, and the wait is real. Their key and combination replacement page says a request can take up to 7 to 10 business days to process before the keys are even sent out.

• There is a faster lane that runs through the phone instead of the website, and it costs $44.95 for a set of two keys.

• Both routes start with your model and serial number, and SentrySafe prints that label in a different place on every kind of safe. On several of them that label is inside the safe.

• If your safe has a keypad and the batteries have died, the override key is the only way in, and the batteries live on the inside of the door.

Where that comes from: SentrySafe's own key and combination replacement page, and the security safe owner's manual Master Lock publishes for these safes.

Key takeaways

• A key-lock Sentry safe ships with two keys, so check the bag the manual came in before you spend anything.

• The expedited order has an 11am Central cutoff, Monday through Friday, and missing it costs you another day.

• Every replacement request carries a charge that SentrySafe does not refund, so the wrong model number costs you money as well as time.

• A locksmith is the faster route when you need the safe open the same day.

Which key did you actually lose?

Sentry builds two kinds of safe, and the way back into each one is different, so start here.

If your safe opens with a key and nothing else, the manual is blunt about what came in the box: your product is equipped with a high security key lock, and two keys are provided. People lose one and forget the second one arrived in a small plastic bag attached to the manual.

If your safe has a keypad, there is a second lock on the front of it. Take off the small cover between the knob and the keypad and you will see a keyhole. That is the override key. You put the key in and turn it counterclockwise, then turn the knob clockwise, and the door opens.

Here is the part that trips people up. The batteries for that keypad sit in a compartment on the inside of the door, and the manual's own troubleshooting page says an unresponsive keypad means the battery power is low.

So once the batteries die, the override key is the only thing left that will move the bolts, and the four AA batteries that would fix it are locked in with everything else.

Which is why the manual says it in capital letters: do not store your override key inside the safe.

Find your model and serial number before you do anything else

SentrySafe will not send you a key without your model and serial number, so that label is the first thing to go looking for.

SentrySafe prints that label in a different place on each type of safe, and they publish the list of every location.

On a pistol or drawer safe the label is on the back, where you can read it with the door shut. On the fire safes that most people keep documents and deeds in, SentrySafe lists it inside the safe, on the back of the door.

That is the quiet problem with a lost key on a fire safe. The number SentrySafe needs is printed on the other side of the door you are trying to open. So on those models the order form is the second step, not the first.

If you can still read your label today, photograph it with your phone and text the picture to yourself. That is the one thing I wish more people did before a key ever went missing.

What SentrySafe charges for a replacement key, and how long it takes

Once you have those numbers, ordering from SentrySafe is the cheap route and the slow one.

Two things about it surprise people. The wait SentrySafe quotes is processing time, which starts when your request comes in and ends when the keys go out the door, so shipping time is on top of that. And the charge is not refundable, so an order placed against the wrong model number is money you do not get back.

The faster lane does not run through the website at all. You call SentrySafe customer service on 1-800-828-1438, Monday through Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm Central time.

When a lost Sentry safe key needs a locksmith, not the mail

There are three situations where opening a Sentry safe without a key beats waiting on the mail, and I say so on the phone.

The first one is simple. You need what is in the safe today, because your flight is this week and the passports are in there, or the closing is booked and the deed is in there. A locksmith opens the safe and cuts you a working key in one visit.

The second is the label problem from the last section, and it only runs in one order. Somebody opens the safe first, and the key order happens after that.

The third is the one where your Sentry safe won't open at all: the keypad has gone quiet and the override key is already missing. That one is a lockout rather than a key order, and it takes somebody standing at the safe with tools.

Non-destructive methods come first every time, and drilling is a last resort. I wrote out the whole process in how we open a locked safe. If your safe is a Cannon with a keypad rather than a Sentry, start with the Cannon safe lockout checklist instead.

4 things to do before you call anyone

1. Photograph the lock and the front of the safe. Whoever you call is going to ask what kind of lock is on it, and a photo answers that faster than any description. Send it with your first message and you will get a real answer instead of a range.

2. Get the price before anybody touches the safe. Ask for the total, including the trip out to you, and ask whether cutting a new key is included or billed separately. Somebody who will not give you a number after seeing your photo is somebody to skip, and the rest of the warning signs are in how to spot a fake locksmith.

3. Ask how they plan to open it, and what happens if they have to drill. A real answer names the non-destructive method first and treats drilling as the fallback. Ask who repairs the lock afterward and what that part costs, because that conversation is much worse after the fact.

4. Have your proof of ownership ready. We verify identity before opening any safe, and the question always comes at the worst moment, which is once somebody is already standing in your hallway. Getting it together while you wait saves everybody a second trip.