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rm9792 wrote:Yep, that sounds like it.

solaritx wrote:Ok,
I have one of the "less expensive models" but am interested in getting something better (1000-3000 range)

What would you suggest? Ft Knox, Liberty, etc?

What is good/bad about your safes? What would you do differently now that you have a safe, etc.

Garry

HankB wrote:I am not in the "safe" business, but here's my layman's understanding of safes . . .

Category 1: Cheap safes from places like K-Mart. They'll keep out small children and inquisitive (but not malicious!) teens, but are not much more secure than a school locker.

You can get a good "cheap" safe in many locations. They serve their purpose in certian situations. Even a "cheap" safe can and most often does have a fire rating. Sentry, Brinks, and others in the same price range. Like any other safe, they can also come without a fire rating. Fire rates are classified by the UL. IE, 350 degress for 30 minutes, 1150 degrees for 30 minutes etc....

Cat. 2: Typical gun safe - S&G combination lock, 10 gage sides, door up to 1/4" thick. Will stop most casual attacks, including the majority of residential "smash and grab" burglaries. But if the bad guys come with a cutting torch, Sawzall, or are simply allowed to beat on it for a while with pick, sledge, or fire axe, they're likely to get in.

This is not correct. A gun safe can be unrated, B rate, TL (15 and 30) Rated, TRTL rated. The lock on the safe can be either a S&G, LaGard, mechanical or electronic. Most Gun safe manufactures offer this as an option. They can be fire rated and almost all of them offer this option also. You can find specific information on each rating on line, check out the UL.
An important part of the rating is the relocker system built into the safe as well as the relocker built into the lock on the safe. If you were to remove the back cover of your S&G lock, you will see a brass lever that pops up when the cover is removed. It is pressed back down when the cover is reinstalled. The relocker (lever) blocks the bolt in the lock during a spindle attack.
Ther is also a built in relocker that is spring activated in most decent gun safes. It is independent of the lock and held in place with a pin attached to the back cover.
These are found in all safes, not only gun safes.
Cat. 3: Cat 2 with some level of fire protection.

See UL ratings. Fire protection is an option in many safes. Not just fire safes.

Cat. 4: REAL safes, which will weigh something over a ton, maybe two, and have walls around 1" or more thick. Will resist all but a determined assault by a skilled & well-equipped bad guy. Not very common among your typical gun owner.

Weight is not a factor. And yes, I find them in homes as well as busineses. A "real" safe I believe you are refering to is a TL rated safe. Yes they are all heavy and require a larger investment, but they also offer the most protection. A TL rated safe can and often has a plate steel body that is 1/2' thick. The lock is protected by hard plate, relockers and sometimes glass plates.

I have been a Vault technician and Locksmith for 25 years. I now work on safe and vaults mostly.

I have one in category #2. It's in the back of a large walk-in closet - out of the view of casual visitors - with no exterior walls. And it's loaded with enough "stuff" to make it pretty heavy. I live in a "low crime" area and have a monitored alarm, so it provides a reasonable amount of security.

But I don't believe it's absolutely secure, so I still carry insurance.

The Annoyed Man wrote:I responded to that video thusly:

Well, I own a Liberty safe. Notice that the "thieves" tipped the safe over on its back, AND, notice that the safe is not bolted to the floor. MY safe is bolted to the floor, and backed up to a brick exterior wall. You would have to tear the wall off my house to get into this safe in 1:45 minutes. By then, my pit bull would have gotten to you, and I'd have shot you multiple times with my bedside guns. No, the Liberty safe is not perfect, but proper installation makes a lot of difference.

Here is what I find irresponsible about the video...

For most of us, a good safe is a big investment, just like the salesman in the video said. My Liberty safe cost me $1,150.00 (plus tax) delivered, installed, and bolted to the floor. For me to save twice that amount before buying a much more expensive safe of similar capacity would have probably discouraged me from buying one at all. I would have instead invested in a $200 gun locker from Academy and left it at that. People of good conscience buy the best that they can afford to buy. Trying to lay a guilt trip on them because they could not afford more is just cheesey, and I cannot respect the huckster who would do that. If you can afford a Ferrari, by all means buy one and enjoy it, but don't belittle people who can only afford a Yugo. We all do the best that we can do.

Plus, what I couldn't say on the youtube site because of the limited number of characters you can post, to tear out that exterior wall of my home, you would have to defeat a wrought iron gate to get to that part of my driveway, and you would be VERY visible to my neighbors the whole time you were attacking the wall. To pull the safe over from the inside, you would have to find a way to tear it off its bolts, which would necessarily tip it over onto the door. By that time, you'd be dead. Plus, this is not an empty safe. It has the added weight of a number of rifles and pistols, not to mention several hundred rounds of ammo in different calibers.

Is my choice of protection perfect? No, it isn't. But it is pretty darn good for a safe in the $1,000 price range. But even if all you could afford is that $200 gun locker, a little bit of thought about where you're going to place it and how you're going to secure it to the floor can go a long way to improving your security picture. I would encourage anybody to spend as much as they can on a safe, but don't feel bad because you can't spend like a millionaire.