Have done an exhaustive amount of due diligence about the 2nd safe I need to buy and have come up with Sturdy Safe. My rationale is as follows---only care about maximum protection, fire resistance, maintainability and reliability. Looked at all of the big and small names in the industry Graffunder, Liberty, Fort Knox etc. and with the ability to build a safe layered with 7 gauge and 10 gauge SS for cutting torch protection along with the fact that many of their customers are DOJ, and LEO Agencies is a plus. The pretty paint and interior are not what I need also the weight of this safe at about 1600lbs for the one I will be building is best kept in the garage bolted to the concrete.

Like the Fort Knox for sure but the complexity of the locking mechanisms concerns me over time as well as the price but I wanted to post this here because most of the folks who frequent this forum are likely to have a "very robust" enclosure for securing their firearms.

Am open to any and all comments.

Relying on SS is fine as far as it goes, but new technology can cut SS. Also a Porta-Band will get a burglar into any conventional gun safe made unless it's case-hardened and AAFAIK none of them are. Bolt it to the floor in a niche or corner where the burglar can't get a Porta-Band to fit. Fake security camera with wire leading through the wall into a firm attachment to a hidden anchor. Big sign telling the perp his pic has just been transmitted to the PoPo. There are fifty ways...
Regards, Joe

I can highly recommend Sturdy Safe.

They are a great company to do business with.

Their fireproofing is very good.

I do not know of a better safe for the money.

Go yo youtube and do a search on sturdy safe, they have several videos about there safes there.

Look for a used jewelers safe. They are expensive if purchased new but about the same as a "gun" safe if you can find one used.

http://www.ismsafes.com/

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
Relying on SS is fine as far as it goes, but new technology can cut SS. Also a Porta-Band will get a burglar into any conventional gun safe made unless it's case-hardened and AAFAIK none of them are. Bolt it to the floor in a niche or corner where the burglar can't get a Porta-Band to fit. Fake security camera with wire leading through the wall into a firm attachment to a hidden anchor. Big sign telling the perp his pic has just been transmitted to the PoPo. There are fifty ways...
Regards, Joe

Somebody here has a clue! I'm impressed. I'd go with a smoked bubble shield over the fake camera

I have real cameras outside, and a sturdy safe. they are here in my town so it works out great. I picked mine up at their location.

Now I need a bigger safe. I'm debating whehter getting their largest size, and keeping my existing one, or getting rid of it is the best route. existing has no fire protection as when I got it I lived in a mobile home and figured it would fall through the burning floor before the fire protection would matter.

only half, maybe 1/3, of the guns in my safe are mine, I have family's guns in there as I'm only one with a safe. but I took the max rack out and put in an easy out setup so I can get all of them in and out fairly easy without banging one another.

I'm looking at close to 5k I think though once it was fire lined. I'm trynig to dream up an interior for it that would maximize the rifles in there while letting me get them out easy. I"m thinking something on rails that could be slid out maybe.

I'm thinking their HAS to be a way to use that massive safe to store the guns horizontally. I just haven't figured it out yet.

Red
PS
Terry, the owner I think, at Sturdy is a great guy to work with.

I think I figured it out!!!!!

Imagine a large file cabinet. truck vault does something similar for rifles, except theirs of course are going along the long axis of the truck. I'm thinking in the Sturdy Safe 60" monster, let's see if I can get the picture in your heads:

you open the door, and their are a series of drawers, height let's say a max of a rifle that is overscoped with a 50mm objective (since it'd be custom it could work out however probably). You slide each drawer out individually, they have rows of compartments for your rifles to set in. with some foam blocks you can use to get them to lay the way you want.

I think this would maximize what you could fit in the safe without the annoying problem of dinging them trying to manuever them out (even with as open an interior as I have I have to be vigilant to keep them from banging together. I have the 32x24x60 by the way.

what do you guys think, am I crazy or have I got a good idea?

Red

There is no safe made by anyone anywhere that a thief with a portable plasma cutter, grinder and 20 minutes can't get into. If they are determined, you are screwed. Spend the 1500-2000.00 for a decent safe that will protect you from 99% of the thieves and an hour of fire and you will be ok....no need to spend mega bucks on a super safe. Mine is in the garage and bolted to the floor, weighs 1500lbs empty, has 90 minutes of fire protection and is quite large. Spent 2 grand. Most homes are burnt to the ground in less than an hour.

dago, nice idea, however your safe will have to be very deep ie. as close to deep as a conventional safe is high, excluding the two or so extra shelves that they put in.
Peter

Another idea that long ago occurred to my somewhat-violent mind was to provide complete but unsuspected access for a pair of trusted guards. In my previous house I had a fenced yard and kept bulldogs there; their doghouse was positioned on the back porch, backed up against the outside wall of my den, with a (hidden) dog door connecting the hole in the back wall of the doghouse to the den in the home's interior.

It was fun to imagine the scene that might have occurred, but nothing ever happened in the 10 years I lived there.
Regards, Joe

English bulldogs?

I don't think it has to bethat deep. I do needmax storagefor the space. max storage with EASY withdrawel of a single firearm without moving others. if it's 27 deep say, and you need maybe three per rifle, less than 1/4" per wall/barrier if metal drawers. that's what, 8 per drawer? I can't see how I couldn't fit more than 40

but it's mental masturbation without the money

Red

At least as important as the nature of your safe is its location.

When my friend built his house, he had a room constructed beneath his screened in porch, withpoured concrete walls, floor and ceiling, and a Mosler vault door, concealed from the rest of the basement by a large cabinet. It was proof against fire and burglars....but not flood.

When the river which forms the boundary of his back yard got out of its banks, higher than in the last 100 years, there was nothing to protect his 300+ guns from the contaminated waters, which filled his basement up to the floor joists of the first floor.

His other friends and I spent hundreds of man hours helping him to clean up the mess, but some of his treasures, chiefly Lyman and Unertl target scopes, were hopelessly lost. The rifles, pistols and shotguns survived for the most part, but in many cases with sadly depreciated values.

Xausa, it is always something that has amazed me that often there are basements in places that have floodplains. Here where I live there are very few houses with basements, and most were built pre-1940. Yet we are in an area that has little chance of earthquake damage and other than along rivers there is no flood zone.

I've seen the converted closets before, but my issue is that if you don't somehow put at least a cage inside, but can't figure how I'd weld up something in an already built closet.

Red

I just recently went through the process of buying a new gun safe. I'm pretty darn impressed with the Sturdy Safes for their price. I like that they have a simple locking mechanism and you can customize them to your needs (i.e. adding fire protection, adding more layers of steel, key lock for the S&G dial, etc.) I also like their interior layout design and ability to request it be spaced for scopes. Seems like it is more efficient than the traditional interior layout of a gun safe.

One of the constant things I kept hearing during my research, and as JD already mentioned, is no safe will keep a thief out forever. A safe with thick steel, bolted to concrete, placed in a corner (but not against an easily accessible outside wall) where a crowbar can't get any leverage on the door, etc. is going to be a much more formidable opponent to a thief than a gun locker you didn't bolt down. The idea is to make it too time consuming and loud to get into. If a safe is light and not bolted down, the thief is likely to just put it on a dolly, wheel it out, and break into someplace more discrete. If you bolt the safe down, he has to break into it there (unless you put it by an outside wall, in which case he could punch two holes in the wall, place a chain around the safe, and use his truck to pull it out - actually happened to someone). If the steel is thin (like 12 gauge steel for example) a hammer and an ax will be able to pound their way through the side of the safe like opening a can. Another thing to mention, if the safe is going into the garage (or anywhere) and you have power tools, make sure you secure your tools. I read a couple of stories about a thief using the guys own tools laying out to cut into the safe right next the tools.

Let's say though you get a nice heavy safe with thick steel on and lots of locking points. You carefully placed the safe in a nook and bolted it down. You setup a fake camera watching at and you put all your tools away in a locked tool case. If a thief breaks in and locates your safe, you've forced him to break into it in your garage since it's bolted down. Unless he's one of the guys from the Italian Job, his method of breaking into the safe will probably involve hammering, drilling and prying. That takes a lot of time and a lot of noise. A crook does not want to spend a hour breaking into your safe when he knows you could be home any minute, your neighbors are wondering what's making that noise in the garage, and there is easier loot to get inside the house. If you also have a home alarm, he's even less likely to want to spend his time on the safe since the police will be on their way shortly.

The real function of the safe is to detour a thief. Most types of thieves are "smash and grab" types and spend something like 2 minutes in the house. If you've got a good quality safe, you should be fine. Make it as difficult as possible to get into the safe and, in the event it fails, make sure your home owners policy will cover all of your guns.

The top of the line Liberty is tough to beat.

Mine is in my shop, but frankly, I have more money in tools and machines than in guns, I also have a dog. I think dogs are the single bet protection money can buy. The noise they make usually does a great job keeping people away. I can just imagine if my wife gets an english mastiff, a horse size dog with a studded collar will scare people off.

safes are like locks on doors, they keep honest people honest, and hopefully provide just enough deterrent to the casual thieves. Real pros don't get stopped.

I was looking at some of the safe kits for inside closets, looks like if the panels are made right you can bolt them together from the inside. to get to the guns they'd have to rip out a wall, then cut in or cut around bolts. I also though that if you put the fireproofing material outside of the steel panels you could safely weld from inside.

again, just going through the brain exercises right now.

Red

cinderblock construction room, 14x21 with poured concrete floor, and 4" thick roof poured over rebar frame. We built the room, then blocked around it with a little rebar down the block holes. Nine grand to do eleven years ago.

Rich

quote:

I can just imagine if my wife gets an english mastiff, a horse size dog with a studded collar will scare people off.

Dago, quite literally horse sized!

My friend Clarence the Collector had one when he lived in Elgin, IL.

He said the dog was wonderful, but the dog doo-doo disposal problem was a REAL challenge!

He tells a hilarious story about his various disposal attempts & experiments that began with burials of several more & more elaborate sorts and finally culminated in the City of Elgin's storm-drain crew dicovering just exactly WHY their large drain was no longer draining!(VBG)(on second thought,double VBG!)
Regards, Joe

I use a Liberty safe and a heavy, welded steel box which contains my few less costly guns. I have these in my basement and we had a few B&Es. then I had the chainlink fence with two locked gates installed. They had scratched my Liberty safe a little, trying to get into it and now the scumbags never seem to come into my yard or old, "soft" house.

"Axel the Assassin",-120 lbs., "Woden the Warrior"-160 lbs, "Cisco the Cuddler"-120lbs and "Champion Quean Lily Lovelyface"-85 lbs.....all purebred Rottweilers, seem to keep the place secure.

Mighty Woden, the largest show quality Rottweiler, I have ever seen, caught one due in our yard, as the gate was unlocked....the guy was standing rigid, petrified and helpless, when a word from me made mighty Woden release and the guy crept to the gate and he vamoosed!

"Axel the Assassin", best dog I have ever owned or seen in action, would walk up to a person inside our enclosure and sit at my right hand and stare at them and emit one low and fearsome growl, NOBODY ever tried to contradict him.....this works for me.

Next house, when we move back to rural BC, I am going to build a concrete block enclosure, full of rebar and put my safes inside and have a dog enclosure surrounding it.....Rottweilers inside and fed not too often!

Obviously, I do not know the laws of every state or of every province. But I am aware that some states, including the one that I reside in, have strict liability laws when it comes to dogs. Basically, what that means is that if a person is injured by a dog, that person does not have to prove either intent or negligence. All one has to prove is that they were attacked and injured by the dog (so long as they themself did not provoke the dog).

The reason I say this is that I could envision a case where a person came onto someone's property for a legitimate reason and was attacked before it could be ascertained that the person was there for a legitimate reason. There could be a host of unwelcome circumstances, including, as mentioned, strict liability damages, as well as a court order to have the dog destroyed!!

So, know the laws of your state or province with regard to dogs, either on your property, or off your property.

quote:

The reason I say this is that I could envision a case where a person came onto someone's property for a legitimate reason and was attacked before it could be ascertained that the person was there for a legitimate reason. There could be a host of unwelcome circumstances, including, as mentioned, strict liability damages, as well as a court order to have the dog destroyed!!

So, know the laws of your state or province with regard to dogs, either on your property, or off your property.

With that in mind, a sign reading "Beware of Guard Dog" might be worth putting out.

That is the reason for locked gates and the postal delivery, meter reader and other such people all know me and the dogs. These are the finest quality, purebred Rottweilers one can buy, my lttle girl's G-father was the world champion a few years ago. I have had and trained purebred, large breed, working and hunting dogs for well over 50 years and I know just what I am doing.

There may be some risk, but, after multiple breakins in less than two years living here, a "home invasion" which I repelled with a GP-100 and the years of trained, security experience in confrontations I have, I am not going to risk my wife's life because of worry about potential legal issues.

Some, of her colleagues and best friends of members of "The BC Bar" and I have checked the legalities of this with them and with V.P.D. members. That said, I will never place the safety of my wife and home in jeopardy due to some law or other, as a man's first duty is to protect his family and his honour.

My dogs, mostly Pits, are always behind 6-ft wooden fences with locked gates. There is no, repeat no, legitimate reason for anyone other than firefighters or policemen in hot pursuit to EVER come into my home or back yard without my knowledge.

If anyone else does, and they are damaged or killed, then guess what? They were engaged in a crime and were caught by my guards!

If they don't like it then they can sue me; they'll need lotsa luck in my state. My brother(painfully honest, but then again he doesn't actually practice) and business partner (as crooked as the usual expectation) are both attorneys and My Bride works for another one(only moderately honest).
Regards, Joe

I will be keeping Sturdy Safes in mind when I get one. It looks as though they really test their products.

About the sliding drawer safe, if you made it 60" wide say 24-30" deep and 50-60" tall you could fit a stack of custom pull out drawers in it in the horizontal position (left to right when facing the safe front). Most long guns are no longer than 53" so as long as you had a door wide enough for your longest gun (or longest gun you may ever own)to pass through in the horizontal position the idea will work plus the drawers could also be locked to provide additional security.

I agree with most that say making your guns too much of a hassle for a thief to even attempt to steal is the main function of a safe unless you get one for the fire protection.
I would probably be good with about 10 minutes of fire protection, I figure my house will be ashes by then.

quote:

Woodrow S: There is no safe made by anyone anywhere that a thief with a portable plasma cutter, grinder and 20 minutes can't get into.

Wrong. TRTL30 & TRTL60-rated jewelers safes were designed with those tools in mind: http://www.ismsafes.com/

Luckily for us here in Idaho, they operate on the castle doctrine. On the property, get injured,etc; justify being there.

Rich

In my most recent house. I built a 10 X 10 room on a slab with cinder block walls. The blocks were staggered and I had multiple #5 Rebars channelled down through the holes in the blocks and then poured a fine slurring of small aggregate and concrete in the holes. It has a vault door and then my safes are inside it. The wall construction is disguised. The ceiling is reinforced but not to the degree the walls are. It makes for a fine "safe room" in the event of a tornado as well. Then there is the security service that is cell phone based with a battery backup.
If someone wants in bad enough they will get in. Just call your insurance company. You can only do so much!

EZ

A lady i used to work with had a safe full of guns stolen form her house. It was a large (30+ gun) heavy safe (Liberty or similar), bolted to her basement floor with some serious bolts. They worried about getting in the safe after it was off site. Don't remember the details, as it was in the period I moved away from MN ('02-'06) and my best friend (who still worked with the victom) told me about it in a phone call.

But this was an anomaly and does not cause me to lose sleep. Most crooks would not be prepared for such an endevor, and if they they have cased the plce and come up with a way to screw you, then you are screwed. Just making the point that you can only do so much, short of building the rooms mentioned in this thread.

I agree, I someone wants something bad enough they will figure out how to get it.

One thing about those ISM safes, if a crook does decide to move one he or they better have some strong backs before grabbing hold on one of those monsters. Did you all check out some of the weights listed for them..."HEAVY". I would have as much in the floor reinforcing as I would in the safe!

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Luckily for us here in Idaho, they operate on the castle doctrine. On the property, get injured,etc; justify being there.

Rich

Yep sheriff once told my mother,"if you shoot-em in you house you're fine, if you shoot-em outside you house... drag them back in it."

quote:

Luckily for us here in Idaho, they operate on the castle doctrine

Idaho is also a great place to be a landlord if you choose; just ask the punk I sued after kicking him outta my house when he was a mere 8 days late on his rent (with no intent to pay). Cost me only time, but it cost him 4500 (for a little damage) plus costs for him being an ass. God bless the great state of Idaho.

quote:

Originally posted by bmazingo:

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Luckily for us here in Idaho, they operate on the castle doctrine. On the property, get injured,etc; justify being there.

Rich

Yep sheriff once told my mother,"if you shoot-em in you house you're fine, if you shoot-em outside you house... drag them back in it."

VERY BAD ADVICE----You will go to jail for that....

Well, you'd be kinda stupid not to clean up the blood trail first and then put a knife in his hand....

It all depends upon the local law enforcement. If they wanta protect the citizens then you're golden but if they wanta protect the perps or get some publicity to run for higher office then you'll be screwed no matter what.
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by J.D.Steele:
Well, you'd be kinda stupid not to clean up the blood trail first and then put a knife in his hand....

It all depends upon the local law enforcement. If they wanta protect the citizens then you're golden but if they wanta protect the perps or get some publicity to run for higher office then you'll be screwed no matter what.
Regards, Joe

No it does not---altering a crime scene esp. when someone dies will have dire consequences and you are a complete DOLT, IDIOT or whatever adjective you choose to use. Not to mention the civil liability. Sorry but many times internet forums are filled with people who cannot find their ass with both hands.

quote:

Originally posted by Boss Hoss:

quote:

Originally posted by bmazingo:

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
Luckily for us here in Idaho, they operate on the castle doctrine. On the property, get injured,etc; justify being there.

Rich

Yep sheriff once told my mother,"if you shoot-em in you house you're fine, if you shoot-em outside you house... drag them back in it."

VERY BAD ADVICE----You will go to jail for that....

Your shiitin' me/us Boss?

Your post above this is kinda funny, I'm not too sure about most others that are reading this thread, but I dont think the fact about "dragging them inside" would be taken serious by most.
Then you take Joe's post in context, followed by your post about people being dolts that couldnt find their ass with both hands?....weird

His posts are characteristically arrogant and pompous, but, he is correct in respect of altering a shooting scene. I would NEVER even so much as burp loudly after such a mishap occured at my home and would call 911 immediately and then, would STFU and wait until I spoke with a barrister.

I would not shoot a human except in direct defence of my life or my wife and I have "been there" with a home invasion here in Vancouver, BC and also have been deliberately shot at by as lunatic.

Strict observance of the law and total truthfulness is the best course of action, IMHO.

quote:

Originally posted by bmazingo:

"if you shoot-em in you house you're fine, if you shoot-em outside you house... drag them back in it."

I was told the same thing by my local chief of police...but that was in '72. I would not follow his advice nowadays.

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
His posts are characteristically arrogant and pompous, but, he is correct in respect of altering a shooting scene. I would NEVER even so much as burp loudly after such a mishap occured at my home and would call 911 immediately and then, would STFU and wait until I spoke with a barrister.

I would not shoot a human except in direct defence of my life or my wife and I have "been there" with a home invasion here in Vancouver, BC and also have been deliberately shot at by as lunatic.

Strict observance of the law and total truthfulness is the best course of action, IMHO.

Sorry if the truth hurts---don't like to mince words and if you take that as "arrogant and pompous" then seek counseling LOL.. au revoir..