Home Safe Recommendations

[Paul Ryan]

I own a liberty 25 gun safe, that is half full of guns and half full of things of importance to us. I did not purchase it to keep a burgler out. "If there is a will there is a way." If the brugler knows you have a safe they will bring tools to crack it. If they don't know you have one they wont worry about the safe. I bought the safe not to keeps the thieves out, but to keep my young children out, and to protect our valuables in case of a fire. If you have lots of documents, pictures, and other valuables a gun safe is a good deal. They have lots of room, decent fire rating, and are a good price. If you are trying to keep thieves away, safety deposit boxes are much more economical and offer much more protection.

[Matt Ellis]

www.sturdysafe.com

It's what I have and it's probably the best you'll do you security and fire protection until you get into the really serious safes that are way more than you want to spend. Don't let the simple paint jobs and no frills fool you. This is a VERY serious safe considering it's a "consumer" safe, not a rated safe for insurance purposes. It's significantly better than most of the other gun safes out there, IMHO.

i was going to post a link to them. their document safe within the main safe is a very nice touch. i agree that they're about as good as you can get until you step up to a commercial safe. most home safes are actually classified as "residential security containers."

one other reason to bolt down...a loose safe can easily be overturned by putting a prybar between the safe and the wall near the top. the bottoms are usually 12 gauge, which can be cut open with an axe without too much difficulty.

oh, and i hate thieves. the treatment of thieves is one thing out middle eastern neighbors get right.

[Mike Wilkins]

Just leave a half empty box of .45 caliber pistol rounds in plain site of your valuables, and any potential crooks should get a clear message.

[Joe Chritz]

Just leave a half empty box of .45 caliber pistol rounds in plain site of your valuables, and any potential crooks should get a clear message.

A clear message to come back during the day and take the ammo and the gun and sell it to some crack head for $100.

Joe

[Dan Mages]

I suggest you call local locksmiths about used safes. I looked into it once for my house in IL. The prices were very reasonable, typically at 40% of new safes.

A friend in Indiana took a different approach. He built a room in his basement with rebar reinforced, concrete filled cinderblocks. It looks like a simple closet at first glance. He claims it will withstand a tornado and will make most burglars think twice.

Dan

[Larry Browning]

Wow! If I lived in a area that required this much security I'd move. Plus, I don't own anything worth the effort you guys are willing go to to protect it. The way I see it, if I have something somebody wants that bad, they can have it. No matter what I do to protect my stuff, if somebody wants it bad enough, they are going to get. Life is too short to worry about such stuff.
Protecting important papers and valuables from fire and flood is one thing, but theft is another thing all together.
Just my opinion.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Not necessarily correct in this area. . . They are carrying plasma cutters to steal catalytic converters. . . . cut door locks out of metal buildings, etc . . .

Pheh When I'm out earning my $150-Thousand a year stealing cats off trucks and vans, I just use a little battery powered rotary cutter.
Doesn't make the light show that attracts all the unwanted police attention. I wrap the pipe with a wet rag and it's quiet as you please. I can be in one parking lot loading my van with hot Cats while the guy in the other lot with the plasma cutter is hauled away by the constabulary.


Yes, you can make that much money very easy.
I'm shocked the whole cat recycling industry is not regulated.

Door locks? Hammer~!! A 20 ounce hammer and a fat little hand held punch. one whack. No need to imitate Sugar in No Country carrying around that bottle of gas.

All kidding aside:
Where do they plug the plasma cutters in? Plasma cutters need more than a couple batteries. 220 I believe is the smallest I've seen

[Scott Verson]

1- what do you want this safe to do? Make it hard to steal, make it hard to burn or both?

2- how many guns to EVENTUALLY plan to have? A safe is a big investment. Make it once.

3- where do you plan to PUT this safe? If you EVER plan to move it, such as if you're in a first home, an interim home or there's a POSSIBILITY that you'd be moving, don't make it unreasonable (such as putting it in an open space and building around it) to get out.

4- whatever your answer to 2 was, DOUBLE IT. then add some.

5- the heavier the safe, the better. Remember that no safe will stop 100% of all burglars. I make a decent living breaking into safes.

Last, and in my professional opinion, the most important: Buy local. If you buy a safe from Costco or Canadian Tire, and something goes wrong, what are you going to do? I would hope that your local locksmith/safe tech can service it for you, but you never know. If you buy it from the same guy that would service it, he will know how to service it. If not, you're kind of hit or miss if it needs to be serviced: hopefully, but probably not as fast as you'd like

Depends on the level of security you are looking for, a simple safe from canadian tire https://secretstorages.com/best-wall-safes/ made by stack on is really all you need (their "safes" not the "cabinet") they're not rated for a fire or anything and they're just shy of 200 pounds but with 3 bolts and interior door hinges will keep your average robber out and you need not worry about anything else.

as for fire rated safes, well depending on the size and what not they're generally more expensive as compared to the one noted above. and really the extreme heat from a fire is going to warp your guns anyways and you should have house insurance in the first place so from a personal stand point I think a stack on is more than sufficient for a persons needs and definitely wait for them to go on sale, when canadian tire starts the sale they usually start from the lowest size safe and cycle up to the larger ones week by week.

[Paul F Franklin]

One thing I didn't see mentioned so far is that humidity inside many consumer fire rated safes climbs very high, due to the materials they use to achieve the fire rating. Desiccant cans (big ones) help, but anything that can grow mold or mildew (papers, passport, etc) should be inside a true vapor tight envelope or box. (zip lock bags don't work for this, DAMHIKT) And you have to remember to recharge the desiccant cans frequently. There are active dehumidifiers for use inside safes as well that are probably more effective.

I only keep papers and data backups in the safe when they need to be accessed frequently; everything else goes in a safe deposit box.

[John M Wilson]

Attention! Eight-year old thread. Hope the OP has taken care of his safe needs by now.

[Patrick Irish]

I'd never buy new especially from a big box store. Look on Craigslist and keep in mind hauling a safe is heavy and usually $300+. That's info sellers don't know and you can usually knock off the cost to haul it.

Heavy the better so it can't be moved. My dad and I like old Mosler safes. Both have 3,000lb double door safes that are 4 hour fire rated. They probably aren't hard to crack into being that are 40+ years old BUT that means some burglar would need know I have it which many don't AND be willing and have the tools to get into it. All unlikely.

Amsec makes good safes too.

[Carlos Alvarez]

There's another option for important documents. We scanned and shredded everything. Digital is forever, paper is fragile. Most things are going that way anyway, and keeping paper is going to be obsolete very soon. Irreplaceable photos should be scanned NOW. My mom waited too long and so many of them ended up in terrible shape. There's some fixup you can do when you scan them, but not perfect.

We also have a monitored alarm system and cameras that notify us on motion.

[Matt Meiser]

Digital is forever, paper is fragile.

That's the funniest thing I've read all day. Tell that to my mom's thesis circa 1985.

[Carlos Alvarez]

That's the funniest thing I've read all day. Tell that to my mom's thesis circa 1985.

Hi, Mom's thesis. If you were important, there would be copies of you in many places. But you're not important, apparently.

Also, 1985 tech vs. today...LOL!

[Matt Meiser]

Also, 1985 tech vs. today...LOL!

Thanks for proving my point.