Perfect timing on gun safe buyers guide

[CopperHead]

I am planning to place an order for a gun safe in the next week or so and found your buyers guide to be very helpful. The timing couldn't have been better.

Thanks,

John

 

[Forum Boss]

I am planning to place an order for a gun safe in the next week or so and found your buyers guide to be very helpful. The timing couldn't have been better.

Thanks, John

John,

Thanks for the thumbs up.,And forgive the typos--still working on them. This turned out to be a huge piece of work--many full days including all the interview time). I did discover some neat stuff. I think Browning's door-mount rifle rack is cool, and I'm getting one of those rotary racks. I usually only shoot two or three rifles and I hated moving lots of stuff around just to access them. The Rotary gives you instant access and big scopes aren't a problem.

 

[dreever]

My only gripe with the vault manufactures is that for some reason they all think everyone wants a pretty piece of furniture which screams "I'm a gun vault!"
Most thieves are in a hurry, and might walk right past something that looks like a freezer in the garage, or a air conditioning compressor in the basement. Something that dosen't look like a gun vault with a "Danger High Voltage" sign on it gets passed right by.

Danny

 

[chino1969]

dreever,
You are right in your statement that most thieves don't want to linger. Ideally, a gun vault should be concealed and Hilti bolted to a concrete floor. Concealed hinges are a plus as well as multiple locking bars. What a vault accomplishes is to keep the junkies and amateurs away from the stuff inside. They don't want to get caught, so speed is of the essence. Nothing will keep a professional out but most of us don't have to worry about that. The other benefit of a vault is that all your firearms are in the same location. Before I bought a vault I had guns under the bed, in the closets, etc.
Regards,
Chino69

 

[Forum Boss]

As I noted at the very end of the article, in the little section about horizontal safes, I think this is a design idea that needs to be explored. If I was building a house, I can imagine having a horizontal steel chamber, with individual rifle slots, sort of like this,but twice as many slots and the slotss would be 55" long front to back):

Rifles would be placed in horizontally, as with a wine rack. Mount the thing on a slab of concrete in a loading room, and surround it with brick on the sides. Have a swinging horizontal vault-type door on one end that could be disguised with a false cabinet face. Some of the chambers could have individually locked inner doors, like this:

Then you could put wood on the top and use the whole thing as your loading bench.

It just seems to me that horizontal placement is inherently more stable than stacking guns vertically, and individual steel chambers are way more secure. Many popular gunsafes have Really thin steel on the top and sides. I mean 12 gauge is only .10" thick. You can cut that with a Dremel tool! Remove a 1'x1' square and you can reach in and pull guns out.

With my design you'd have to go through a foot of brick,or reinforced concrete), then you hit the steel. You'd have to make a very large hole in top or side just to get one gun. Even if you,somehow) removed the entire top of the safe, you'd only get one row of guns before you'd have to attack another level of steel. You could cover the end opposite the door with a tool-defeating armor plate.

The only real way for a crook to get in would be to drill the door and that's not going to work if it's made thick enough with armor around the lock box.

 

[M700]

I figure the $1000 I spent on my gunsafe a few years back is likely the most important $1000 I've spent on my firearms equipment.

In 12 years as a cop, I've yet to see a "real" gunsafe cracked. They are excellent protection against the casual burglar.

Regards, Guy

 

[Forum Boss]

Guy,

Can I quote you in the article?

"In 12 years as a cop, I've yet to see a "real" gunsafe cracked. They are excellent protection against the casual burglar."

It's easy to get get overwhelmed by all the technical stuff--wall thickness, # of relockers etc. Then one might might forget the bottom line--that basically any reputable safe is going to provide good protection against your run of the mill burglar.

And, over time, temp and humidity-regulated safe storage will probably keep your firearms in better shape.

 

[harvey13118]

I also just bought one, an 1100 pounder. It is awesome for coins also.

Point of post: I believe there is a large tax credit for gun safes under some kind of gun safety law, access and a bunch of other stuff.

I have a copy here but the "BOSS" is out of town this week and she files all the tax paperwork and I donot touch it.

 

[Forum Boss]

Even without the firearms storage tax credit, the purchase cost of a safe may be partly deductible if the safe is used to store tax records or maintain investment records. Check with your accountant.