Gun Safes vs Room Locks

[INMY01TA]

All mine stay in my safe. I'm the only one who knows the combo and it isn't written down anywhere in the house. With all the wifes friends and theor kids coming over (not to mention my own) I feel much more at ease knowing no no will be able to get in there, period, while I'm gone.

 

[jmiller320]

My father tied to lock up his tool room when we were little. I was small enough to crawl over the wall between the floor joist and unlock the door. Later we discovered a wire coat hanger. Do yourself a favor and invest in a safe.

 

[new_shooter]

As a mechanically curious kid, I'd figured out how to defeat all the door locks in my childhood home by the time I was 10. Sometimes it was the lock itself, sometimes it involved the frame around the door, sometimes it was just observing that while the door was locked, a window wasn't.

No one knew this until I was considerably older.

Your kids are likely more resourceful than you imagine. Do what you think will get the job done, then add at least one more layer of security. Any added effort or expense is cheap, compared with the cost of tragically finding out you didn't go quite far enough.

 

[JoeRinMD]

As a mechanically curious kid, I'd figured out how to defeat all the door locks in my childhood home by the time I was 10. Sometimes it was the lock itself, sometimes it involved the frame around the door, sometimes it was just observing that while the door was locked, a window wasn't.

Back in the dark ages when I was a kid, I loved to play with tools. Most times, they didn't make it back into their appropriate drawer of my fathers tool bench. Getting tired of finding tools scattered about the workshop and house, pop tried to keep me from getting into his tools by adding a hinged vertical wood rail which prevented the drawers from sliding open. He put a nice big lock on it. It didn't take me long to figure out that I could get a screwdriver in behind the rail and unscrew the hinges. Voila, the rail stayed neatly locked to the drawer with the hasp, but I had access to all the tools!

In the end his trick worked, since I was now more aware of the tools being out of the workbench and would put them away after I finished. Fathers are smart like that sometimes!!

JoeR

 

[trickg]

Maybe this thread is a good thread for the OP.

http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=156665

My safe is a Heritage safe from the Tradition series. LOVE it - it was worth every penny paid IMO.

 

[awptickes]

I had to open one after my uncle lent me a gun, but forgot it was locked. The "key" was three states away. I will not post on the internet how it is done, but let's just say that it was absurdly easy to open with my keychain swiss army knife and a common item picked up off the ground in the woods.

Like most other gun and trigger locks, they are far better than nothing, but not by much if your kid is anything like I was growing up.

I had to show the guys at free-state how to do this one. I bought a 22lr "pistol" with a 10" barrel. No omega lock worked with that.


OP:
The in-wall ones work great for keeping something in the bedroom, but let's face it. You need a safe for the rest of your toys.

Get the biggest safe you can afford. I bought a 20-gun safe two years ago, and now it's so full I have to stack things in muzzle down to get all of them to fit. I've even relegated several of the less-valuable rifles to wall-hangers. So, yeah. Don't buy a bunch of small cheap safes, buy a good safe, and be done with it.

 

[traveller]

A room that needs to be accessed for other purposes is not really a line of defense.

I used to own a home with a dedicated gun-room. When I toured the house the room was only accessible with the owner present. He had a reloading bench and a number of security cabinets. The door was a commercial steel door with abloy deadbolts and a separate keypad on the home alarm. Not quite a vault but pretty well thoughtbthrough considering the overall security situation in the town.

 

[A1Uni]

A locked and secured door in a residence just screams "open me!" to thieves, so if you have one, it better be built correctly.

The problem with "safe rooms" is that they have to be built correctly. It is not just a matter of installing a vault door. I have personally seen a 3K vault door installed into a block surround with common sheet-rock for the main walls. You could gain entry with a steak knife.

Even brick or cinder block walls can be easily broken open with a sledge hammer. Safe rooms have to be purpose built from the ground up and are very expensive.

We offer vault doors, but I'll be honest, I have never sold one; on the other hand, safes move quite well in the retail market.

 

[Scottysan]

I can recommend Sturdy Gun Safe. I have a friend locally who has one, and got to visit the factory in Fresno, CA a couple years ago. They have a great operation, and produce a really solid product. Customer service is top notch.
http://www.sturdysafe.com/

 

[traveller]

Even brick or cinder block walls can be easily broken open with a sledge hammer. Safe rooms have to be purpose built from the ground up and are very expensive.

We offer vault doors, but I'll be honest, I have never sold one; on the other hand, safes move quite well in the retail market.

A burglar equipped with enough time and tools to make his way through a cinderblock wall will have no problem opening a retail quality gun safe in the same amount of time.

 

[A1Uni]

A burglar equipped with enough time and tools to make his way through a cinderblock wall will have no problem opening a retail quality gun safe in the same amount of time.

If by retail quality you mean the Walmart and Bass Pro type safes, agreed.

The higher quality safes, still sold at retail, take quite a bit longer to peel open though.

 

[traveller]

If by retail quality you mean the Walmart and Bass Pro type safes, agreed.

The higher quality safes, still sold at retail, take quite a bit longer to peel open though.

Few of them have the anti-intrusion features you would find in a commercial safe. The walmart quality pretty much needs a set of tin-snips and a crow-bar, the higher quality ones are still no match for someone equipped with an angle grinder and a little bit of time.

They are all just delay tactics.

 

[BanjoPicker]

You are usually always best to use a locking safe of some sort as the others just keep (some) honest people away. Not only do safes keep your firearms secure, but they keep them out of sight from visitors who may be encouraged to return while you are away if they see something they like. What type of safe you want is your personal preference. I prefer a stand alone safe bolted to the floor. That way I can upgrade to a larger size, or change locations easily down the road.

 

[Turbohugh]

Do you have drywall?

http://www.amazon.com/Homak-In-Wall-Gun-Safe/dp/B0017KL254

I have one similar in a closet. Behind layers of coats, some of which must be removed from the closet to gain access to the cabinet.


The cabinet/'safe' locks
The closet door locks
When I'm not in the house the room the closet is in also is locked [double locks]
Additional security =
==Dog
==Alarm with camera and motion detector [one camera in the room hidden and directed at the door to the room]
==non-disclosure . NO one knows about this cabinet.

Personal firearm [handgun] is in a hideaway unless its on my person.
Those slim cabinets are cool for 4-5 long guns , ammo, a few hand guns, etc.

But tbh its a moot point if someone [thief] who doesn't care about leaving a trail of destruction, and with proper tools and time, nothing will stop them [thats what the alarm, dog and camera to the cloud is for].

For my family who live in my home its more of a deterrent.