Gun safe?

Good morning guys,

Looking for our first gun safe. Aside from capacity, what qualities should I be looking for? This would be mostly for rifles.

TIA,

FDR

We are looking too, so I’ll be following along. The local Eden Prairie Scheels has a pretty good selection, so that’s where I’ve been looking.

Taller the better, fire rating is over rated IMO. No matter what smoke and/or water will get in and it will be a loss.

Just went through this. there are a lot of variables to consider. What are you putting in, how much, how valuable are the contents, is the purpose to protect valuables or keep curious fingers out, where will the safe be located, what is your access situation, what is your budget, do you want a mechanical or electronic lock, how heavy are the safes you’re looking at? just a few of the types of questions you’ll have to answer.

I ended up getting a 19 cu ft. Big Horn safe from Costco for $590 with tax delivered to its final resting place. I am 100% pleased with my purchase and would do it again without thinking. My main purposes were to keep curious fingers out and protect valuable documents. A similar safe purchased from Scheels, Cabelas, Fleet farm would have ended up costing over $900 with delivery.

I just went through the process as well only with a Sam’s club model at $500 for a ’30’ gun safe which actually holds around 10 long guns with scopes. You can pretty much take the number of guns they say fit in there and cut it in half unless you just loaded shelves with pistols or you only owned single shot shotguns. I opted for 2 safes under #500 instead of one monster sized one that I would have to pay someone to move. They don’t have squat in stock so you’d probably have to order online to get one ($100 delivery) but that’s just to the house, not to a specific location FYI.

Luttes- did you pay costco the delivery fee or a service? Thanks

Alagnak Pete wrote:

I just went through the process as well only with a Sam’s club model at $500 for a ’30’ gun safe which actually holds around 10 long guns with scopes. You can pretty much take the number of guns they say fit in there and cut it in half unless you just loaded shelves with pistols or you only owned single shot shotguns. I opted for 2 safes under #500 instead of one monster sized one that I would have to pay someone to move. They don’t have squat in stock so you’d probably have to order online to get one ($100 delivery) but that’s just to the house, not to a specific location FYI.

Luttes- did you pay costco the delivery fee or a service? Thanks

Delivery was included. $550 base price and $40 tax. I have a walkout basement on a corner lot and they dropped the safe right where i wanted it.

Costco uses a third party delivery service called Innovel (not sure if that is location dependant). I have nothing but positive things to say about their service.

I bought 2 safes from Tractor Supply on Black Friday deals in the past. Good deals but you to haul yourself.

Following. I am in the market for one as well.

I just got a Liberty from Tractor Supply. Everything went well. The delivery team had it in place within 30 min. My two cents would be buy as big as you have room for and can afford.

Buy one big and heavy enough to make it almost impossible to steal.
I have a 3 foot wide Liberty and nobody is walking off with it.

1st off all safes can be defeated and the only question is how long will it take.most safes can be accessed in under 15 minutes by anyone with a cutoff wheel so they are more of an illusion and to keep honest people out.i would suggest getting the biggest and more importantly the heaviest you can afford. The heavier it is for its size the thicker the steel and hopefully better quality steel. I have a 27 gun liberty but for a couple hundred more i could have had the fatboy but wouldn’t fit in my apartment at the time. The best i have been able to find is a brown safe. And if i get another one it will be a brown!

catnip wrote:

1st off all safes can be defeated and the only question is how long will it take.most safes can be accessed in under 15 minutes by anyone with a cutoff wheel so they are more of an illusion and to keep honest people out.

This. Period. And like stated above, fire ratings are pretty much overrated as well. If your house goes up in flames, I would bet the farm almost no safe will keep the contents in good shape.

I sold liberties for years and they’re very good safes, even the lower end models made overseas. The tractor supply Winchester’s are also very good safes for the money, you can get the 26 gun for under $500 usually.

Do a search on YouTube and you will find out how quick somebody can get into a cheap safe.

Cheaper safes are great to keep kids out and quick smash and grab robberies but if somebody spent a little bit of time they could get into one easily

Check Zanotti Armor. Made is Waterloo Iowa. The larger safes can be taken apart and moved by 2 guys. They pin together inside.

Liberty Fatboy – ~ $2100 delivered. Glad I spent a few more $$ and bought the bigger model.

I read the comment about the safety of access to cheap safes. I can tell you I have 4 safes, couple smaller ones for easier access and travel, and to big ones for home storage. 2 are biometric, one has electric keypad and the other is an older mechanical combination. Well, my sons buddy went to school to be a locksmith. He was at our house one night, having drinks around our firepit, and he bet me he could get into all of them within 10 minutes. Biometrics, he was into them in under 10 seconds. Electronic keypad, he was into in less than 30 seconds. And the old mechanical combination, took him longer, but he was in it in less than 5 minutes.

So if you are buying to keep safe from the crooks, depending on the crook, it may be irrelevant. Its a keep the honest, honest, in my eyes now.

HOLY HANNA!
I just watched a few videos on safe cracking. It sure doesn’t give me the warm fuzzy feeling about safes being secure.

So in todays world, with all the technology and engineering a safe is good for about 2 minutes of security.
Hell, I’m better filling mason jars and burying them in the backyard.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

HOLY HANNA!
I just watched a few videos on safe cracking. It sure doesn’t give me the warm fuzzy feeling about safes being secure.

So in todays world, with all the technology and engineering a safe is good for about 2 minutes of security.
Hell, I’m better filling mason jars and burying them in the backyard.

Fortunately unless you have a business or are very, very successful most home safes are for guns, records and maybe some jewelry. Thats why weight is important. Make sure they can’t pick the thing up and walk away with it. I would guess the average safe owner doesn’t have over $2,000 cash in the safe.
My safe in the garage is 1350 pounds. It’s not going anywhere but it’s also empty.

Dutchboy wrote:

Make sure they can’t pick the thing up and walk away with it

Some safes have built in bolt holes in the back so you can attach them to the wall. My handgun safe isn’t very heavy (because of its size) and it has 2 of them in the back so I have it bolted to the wall. If they picked the lock, had a screwdriver, and the time to loosen the bolts they could.

When we designed our house I integrated a spot for guns. I’ve had about a dozen people try to find it and only one has.
I keep important documents like our will and various items in a safety deposit box at the bank & our kids have access to it.

Just some info. Menards has a small gun safe on their Black Friday sale ad.

We are going to Tractor Supply to pick one up this weekend, after doing a fair amount of due diligence they seem to be the best in price and service. Fleet Farm was like pulling teeth to buy one, and then I’d need to pick up in Brooklyn Park, not the one in Carver down the road from me, and deliver to it’s final resting place.

Check out this company out of Waterloo, IA. http://www.zanottiarmor.com There safes are top notch. Be sure to compare prices, you will be suprised. These safes come shipped to you in pieces that you assemble. Do not think they can be disassembled from the outside, they are Good, secure safes. A Buddy has 4 or 5 of them, big ones, and I have always been impressed. Can also hang handguns from the door to secure them also without taking away room for long guns. Good luck.

FYI I ended up buying a Sports Afield brand 30 gun from Menards for $400 out the door. The Liberty’s were around $800-1000 and heavier to where I’d need help or pay the extra $150-200 delivery. Since I’m mainly concerned with keeping kids out, the Menards special made sense for us. Your mileage may vary, but it seems solid.

Good quality fire safes have a temperature sensitive seal on the door the swells up to make the safe air tight. Nearly all the damage to contents of a safe during a fire are from the smoke and steam from suppression efforts. The heat is asecondary issue that typically only comes into play when the house is a total loss. Again, the better the safe the better the safe will be against the temperature. The best place to put the safe is the basement or lowest level of a house because the heat will be least there in a fire. I have seen guns that went through a fire that destroyed a house in a GOOD safe that had essentially no damage.

The door on better safes will open a full 180 degrees and will give much better access to the contents. Cheaper safes will open only 90 degrees. The wider opening will make it much easier to get guns in and out easily and organize them. This means much less chance of dinging up your guns when you are moving them.

The better safes that have a door that opens fully will also mean the door can be taken off by lifting it off the hinge when open. This makes moving the safe much simpler because the door weighs about 1/3 of the total weight.

Safes are actually very easy to move if you have a decent dolly and understand physics. I have delivered dozens of them and could move 40 gun fire safes by myself. Rent a good dolly and life will be much easier. If you are going up or down stairs, rent a dolly that walks down steps on it’s own. It doesn’t cost that much and works very well.

As mentioned above, better safes have holes in the floor to anchor them. Using them makes your belongings much more secure.

Using a grinder/cut off wheel to open a high quality safe is much more difficult than the cheap ones. It can be done but it’s going to take a long time and make a lot of noise. Same with “cracking” the safe. The better the safe the more someone will have to know to get in and the longer it will take.

The best thing to do to keep it secure is put it somewhere that isn’t visible and don’t tell anyone where it is. Only family members should know.

A good safe is by far the best investment you can make. The inexpensive ones are only going to slow down a thief for a few minutes, if at all. A $2k safe will secure tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars against almost any loss.

By far the best option is to build a vault when you build your house. A vault door costs about the same as a safe but is generally more secure. Adding the walls when you pour the basement will add very little cost. Many basements have a bump out for the front porch that are a perfect opportunity to make a vault that is up to 6 or 8′ square. Large enough to keep everything valuable you own.