I realize that the reloading forum is perhaps not the best place to list this question, but I figured most guys who are serious enough to reload are serious enough to want a safe.

I am thinking of buying a safe. Today, a guy asked me if I'd ever seen firearms that were in a safe during a fire. I said, "No, I haven't."

He explained that he had and they were always burned up. I really do not know. Does anyone have experience that may shed light on the question: How effective are safes in the event of a fire?

Well, there are "safes" and then there are "SAFES!!!".

What is the primary function you desire from a safe? If it is security in the home so that the kids and their friends can't access the firearms without adult supervision, almost anything will do as long as you secure the keys. If you're thinking theft prevention, then you need something that you can bolt to the wall/floor and that won't be easily picked. If you want fire security, then you have the pay the BIG bucks and get a safe that is rated for that. I have no idea how effective these are, btw.

You must realize that the firearms that are in no safe at all will burn just as thoroughly as those that ARE in a sub-standard safe and without any security benefits besides.

Exactly!

With the cost of modern gun cabinets made from decent wood, you can buy a cheap safe that is at least safer for the kids and harder for the theives to carry off.

My basic fire safe ($700, Winchester logo, from Sam's club, 18 gun) is guaranteed that the interior will not exceed (IIRC, the numbers might be off a tiny bit) 350 degrees when the exterior is kept at 1100 degrees for 30 minutes. 1100 degrees is almost triple the char point of paper, btw. If you are in an urban area with a decent fire department, you will not have near that much heat for nearly that long. I would certainly expect all metal parts of any gun to be completely undamaged by that heat. Wood stocks might get some warpage from rapid drying...??? Photos and such can be damaged. Make no mistake, your wife will find something that 'requires' the security of 'your' safe, so get one twice the size you need.

Keep all ammo out of it and it should protect quite nicely. They won't stop a determined burgalar for long, but a casual smash and grab type will never get in!

Get some friends to help you install it!

I would buy one with a 90-minute fireproofing, like the one I have... It guarantees the inside temps will not get over 300, even if subjected to fire for 90 minutes.

Stocks can be replaced if they get too dry, but metal should be okay at 300, I would think. If I am gullible, please let me know!

Hey BTH, Do what you want about the Fire "Resistant" Safe, but put a Rider on your Home Owners Policy to cover the "Replacement Cost" whether it is due to Fire, Thieft, whatever. The Rider is not expensive.

But the best tip I can give you about a Safe is to sit down with the BOSS and give serious thought to how large you want it to start with. Let's say you have 6-10 rifles/shotguns now and can see where you might end up with 20 at some point in the future.

OK, so let's say 20 is the MAX it will EVER BE!

Now, buy a Safe that has twice that amount of room. You and your wife will find there are a good many "other things" that need to be in it besides firearms.

Most safes currently being sold offer some degree of fire protection. This is achieved by lining the interior of the safe with gypsum (wallboard), which releases trapped water as vapor at 212 F, thus tending to cool the interior of the enclosure through evaporation. The door of a fire-resistant safe will also have a heat-expandable seal which assists in maintaining an acceptable interior temperature. The typical level of fire rating is 1200 degrees F for 30 minutes; higher ratings are available. In some safes, this is the manufacturer's "rating", while others claim to have been tested and rated by an independent laboratory. Whatever, any "fire-resistant" safe will offer more protection from heat damage than an unlined safe (or a plain old closet); and no safe can gaurantee no damage in a very hot fire of long duration.

Fully insuring your guns against all hazards requires them to be scheduled on your policy and an extra premium on most policies. Most of us do not wish to provide a third party with a complete list of our guns and serial numbers; and besides, if you trade guns as often as some do, it would be impractical and you would constantly have guns listed which you no longer have and have guns not listed which you do. As a result, you REALLY need a quality safe, both to provide some degree of protection against acts of god, and to keep your guns out of unintended hands.

Some countries (Britain) require guns to be kept in a theft-resistant approved enclosure. It is likely that some states may soon adopt similar laws (I think CA has adopted a standard for firearms safes). Many states already have laws criminalizing negligence in securing firearms (which is simply a criminal code codification of a long-established common law theory). So, treat yourself and your guns properly by buying and installing a quality safe wherever you store your guns.

Most safes offering fire protection are as stated, lined w/ on layer of gyp brd. I doubt your guns will survive even a 30min fire regardless of what the manuf. says. Your best bet is get a good standard safe. Put that into a closet space w/ a door. Line the closet w/ an extra layer of 5/8"gyp. including floor & ceiling. Put the same (2) layers on the inside of the door. You now have a 2hr rated enclosure for much less than most "fire" rated safes. Buy the biggest safe you can afford/fit into your space. They tend to fill up fast.

From all I've read, there are a wide variety of choices for INTERIOR fire protection, but many offer a fair amount of protection that depends a lot on your choice of EXTERIOR location. They also are pretty universal in their suggestions that you consider what you store in your safe (ammo, powder, perfumes and other flammables may torch the insides on their own).

There are many suggestions that placing a safe in the areas that would be the coolest in a fire (cellar, garage floor, corner of a house) would greatly increase the chances of survival.

...and while I've never seen guns that were in a safe during a fire, I've seen guns stored in a safe without thinking about humidity - safes are certainly not safe from rust.

BTH, I have a friend that runs a construction restoration services company. He does fire and flood repair construction work etc. I've seen a few (3) safes that were involved in house fires. Two of these houses were rebuilt, but the floor the safe sat on was a total loss, the third house was atotal loss, Chris just gave them a quote on rebuilding some of it. All three of these safes had guns in them, and they were all completely fine.

I don't really know what this means, other than a big metal safe, which these were, (all of them happened to be browning safes by the way) will provide decent protection from a fire.

I'd probably spend some time on the safe manufacturers web sites.

Good Luck--Don

It's funny, when I bought my safe (Cannon) 25 years ago, the seller told me to put it in the basement. I asked why, he said "if there is a fire, that's where it's going to end up". I've move this safe twice since I bought it, and both times I swore that I'd never move it again.

Some 20 years ago I purchased a wonderful Austro-Hungarian Banksafe, made by a Firm named Ignaz Langhammer in Vienna in the early 1880s. A wonderful piece which I had rebuilt as a gun safe by a safe specialist . It is absolutely fireproof and weighs 1 metric ton. After a couple of international moves I am tired to move it around any further. If somebody is interested, it's up for sale.

quote:

I've move this safe twice since I bought it, and both times I swore that I'd never move it again

They sure are heavy. It'd take some big fellas and a good HD dolly to get mine out of the house.

I also have one of the cheapy thin walled safes that came from Academy I believe. It is bolted to the wall through the inside of the safe. I can imagine it would be quite difficult to remove. I only place my less expensive shotguns etc. in the thin wall safe to prevent theft and child tampering.

My biggest gripe w/ Fire safes is the ridiculous claims they make as to how many the darn thing will hold. I have a 24 gun fire safe and My hats off to any man that could posibly fit 24 long guns in it, well you might could fit that many single shot shotguns in it but, your not going to get very many scoped bolts in it for sure. And another thing that just gripes me is that when I decide I want to shoot one that's proped up in the back of the safe, I have to remove all of the guns in front of it just to get it out.

Good Luck

Reloader