Of the three, Which safe

My vote goes to the Franklin primarily due to it's size and that the hinges are internal.

internal hinges aren't really any better than external IF the door has bolts on all four sides like my National Security does

safe

Personally, I'm just gonna go with storage space... they all are so close to one another...

I'm going for what's behind door #1!!!

wall thickness and capacity!

For me, regardless of what I have, I always will want more room in it

B3

Since they are all pretty much 1/8 body thickness or if you will 11 gauge I would pick the one with the best locking mechanism,which might or might not be the Liberty due to their improvements of anti pry devices of the locking mechanism and the number of bolts they are shoving around the overall inner body of the safe.
I truely would feel much better with one of these safes if they had a reasonably solid 1/4 inch minimum plate steel door.
The Liberty is still made here in the USA while the other two are Chinese imports.
But the Liberty's door is a built up composite "refrigerator' type of door that I am none to wild about but at it's price point reasonably secure if bolted down in a strategic strong point that does not allow a prying attack.
In other words all three would be O.K. at their price points as long as a fair attack against them was not sent forth and you are using the gun safe for firearms collection not exceeding three times the value of the safe.
In other words not meant for the crown jewels of the family.
I am sure some will disagree with this and others not so much.

I pretty much agree with heeler.

I'm in agreement with heeler as well. The liberty has more locking bolts. Besides that it's personal preference.

Talist,another safe to look at that at least has a solid plate steel door is Amsec's SF series.
These are also Chinese imports but look pretty well made,are in the same price range,and better yet have exterior hinges.

I too am in the market for a gun safe/RSC. I have read just about everything on the web. One thing I am firm about, I will not purchase anything that is made in China or Mexico. If I am going to spend a significant amout, at least it is in my opinion I will purchase something made in the USA. I have yet to make up my mind, so many things to consider and so many choices. Considering the Sturdy, AMSEC BF, Champion Triumph, looking for the most for my money, and I have not ruled out the Liberty Lincoln. It may come down to where I get the best deal.

Opsman,I can tell you I did a lot of research on gun safes for nearly two full years before I laid down my hard earned money.
I learned quite a bit from this website thru safe professionals such as a1abdj and others.
I did not always agree with everything I read but I did take note and finally decided on an Amsec BF.
I had the money for this safe and for my needs I thought it offered me the biggest bang for the buck for a USA produced product at a time(2009) when I am sure it kept someone in our country in a job for purchasing an American built product.
But,as the original poster is saying he is trying to stay in what appears to be a maximum price range of around $1500.00.
And it's honestly hard to find an American made gun safe at that price point.
And as much as I try to shy away from Chicom goods for strong personal/political reasons,they do make certain brands of gun safes pretty damn good.
I was fortunate that I bought my Amsec BF before the recent crack down of certain practices of dealers that have now run the price up on these fine safes quite a bit.
But one thing for all to remember is that if you think something like the safe you want is too high today just wait a couple of years and you will see the error of your ways.
Buy what you need.

But,as the original poster is saying he is trying to stay in what appears to be a maximum price range of around $1500.00.
And it's honestly hard to find an American made gun safe at that price point.

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How it MAY be able to be done is by going to his local locksmith who also deals in safes/RSC and look for a used one that was a trade-in from a client who up-graded. Some great deals can be had as the locksmith would really want to get it out of his shop

That's certainly true enough Oneounceload.
And living in a big city these kind of deals are fairly readily available thru said safe dealers/Craigslist,etc.
In fact just a few weeks before Christmas I came across a pretty gloss green Liberty Lincoln 25 that was made in 2006 that a guy was trying to sell for $750.00 as he was moving out of state.
Unfortunately my younger brother could not swing it or the $300.00 for a safe & vault guy to pick it up and deliver it.
Not sure where our OP is located but if it's in Smallville USA then these great deals are not so easily found.

heeler, I agree that it is hard to find an american made product for $1500 but it can be done. Sturdy offers two models that come in under that price but they do not have fire protection added, they charge more for that. If I had to stick to that budget, and I wanted a new product, I would have to go with an offshore made product. I think I would have to go with Steelwater Safe. Get a lot of bang for your buck with them.
This is not my first endevor into researching a safe/RSC, getting to the point of pulling the trigger so to speak with all the choices out there is a tough decision to make. Just about the time I think I have made up my mind I discover another product I did not know about. I just heard about Sun Welding Safe Co. yesterday, made in america and they look like a nice product. I live in small town USA and finding a used model is a rare find, but the search continues, when I finally do plunk down my cash I will post what I went with.

Today I looked at a Browing Prosteel Copper. I was seriously considering going with it, but upon close inspection I found a made in china sticker on the hinge side of the door. Deal breaker right there, I thought that the Prosteel was made in America, guess not all of them. The search continues.

opsman,starting with the Browning Silver series up to the Medallion,Gold,and Platinum these are the models that are made here.
The Silvers are 11 gauge bodied,have lots of bolts,but are similiar to the Liberty's and Champions with those built up refrigerator doors and Browning does not tell you just how much steel there is in their "Duo Formed Door"
Liberty is a bit more forth coming with that info and after several e-mails Champion finally informed me that the Triumphs door had a 12 gauge outer skin and a 10 gauge inner plate.
The Lincoln is practially the very same.
Not too bad but for the same price(October 2009) my BF has a half inch plate steel door.
A huge difference!!
I personally like the Medallions because of certain features of the interior and the outside door hinges.
However since they are pretty much at the same price point as the Amsec BF I would go with the Amsec(which I did) as it is truely a better safe.
The Medallions direct competitors at this price point is also the Liberty Lincoln and the Champion Triumph.
Since I consider the Sturdy on the level of the Amsec I dont consider these others in the comparison against them.

Edit to add...Talist,I am not trying to get your thread off track but since several issues have been asked about brands,prices,origin of manufacture,etc. I thought I might add some info from my own fairly exhaustive researching on this issue.

I received my Franklin 25 about a month ago, it's everything it was cracked up to be AND MORE! Well worth the extra money over some of the other brands.

-Nick

When you're looking at folded steel safes using folded steel doors, make sure you're looking at them closely. The methods used to construct these safes tend to be a bit sloppy, certainly more so than plate steel safe.

Here's an example of one we ran across the other day. The door is closed and locked in this photo, and that's my pinky finger going through the bottom gap, behind the door (it's nowhere near being in contact with the door frame), and out the side gap.

Wow!!
That's pretty much unacceptable.
I truely hope the maker replaces that safe for the owner or dealer.
Give me a plate steel door any day!!

Edit to ask...Is that a domestic made gun safe or import??
I tried getting my pinky finger in five different areas of my Amsec BF and the best I did was to squeeze maybe 1/8th of an inch of flesh in the space between the door and frame.

I truely hope the maker replaces that safe for the owner or dealer.

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You would hope wrong.

We discovered this during a delivery for another retailer. We wouldn't have noticed it had it not been going down a flight of stairs where one of my guys felt it when grabbing at the bottom. The manufacturer suggested we adjust the hinges (which make the door go up and down) claiming that sometimes that also makes the door go in and out. I'm assuming he has never done it.

We did adjust the door down, which decreased the size of the bottom gap. It still didn't do anything to bring the door towards the frame (big surprise). This involved tearing out some of the insulation. Total disaster.

I too have been studying which safe to buy. I want American and will budget up to $3000. Narrowed down to Sturdy, amsec and Liberty.

As an engineer, we tend to study things to death. Some observations and several questions maybe some one can answer. Liberty was my first choice(local dealer), however the Lincoln door is flimsy and the bolts rest on a adjustment tab and the "edge" of 11 guage sheet metal; structurally very week. Amsec - like the 1/2 door but am worried about the bolts only supported by the 11 g skin, which I assume is weld to the 14g liner in a box section? Comments?
Sturdy-more metal and structurally the most impressive; but the shelves are amateurish.
Does any one have the optional $100 upgrade? Is is adequate from an esthetics viewpoint? My gut feel is that the Sturdy is much more solid structurally, but crude and not "pretty". The amsec is polished but has some weak points due to the thinner skin?
Please help, Help! I want to order next week!!

I think the Sturdy is a great choice without the fireproofing. It allows the safe to be a bit lighter, which may allow you to put a safe where a heavier version would not go. It is also a well built safe. The price without the fire liner is also very fair.

The AMSEC is my suggestion to those that need a decent level of fireproofing. The AMSEC body and door frame is made in a similar fashion to the Sturdy, except it is filled with "concrete". It too, is a solid design. It costs a bit more than the unlined Sturdy, but you get a decent level of fire protection, a good looking safe, and a nice interior.

I purchased a Fort Knox safe several years ago. Its a defender series (a more modestly price fort knox product). I selected it for several reasons. Great fire rating, 10 gauge steel construction, large (2"?)locking bolts on all sides of the door, made in the USA close enough to home I could pick it up and save on delivery charges. It may be a bit more expensive (I paid about $1600 for mine) but worth it....

Chris

cobra1, I think all these "safes" are heatsinked and not insulated. I'd be real curious to see how each mfr. heats the safe up to its temp. Do they use a gas burner and convective airflow? Electric elements?

Read up on emissivity sometime (if you don't already understand it) - I'd like to see a safe be made reflective - seems to me a house fire would put off a good deal of radiant heat and not much convective heat (once it's vented by the FD or self-vents); and one with a low emissivity = high reflectivity would stand a better chance of living thru a house fire.

I'd love to see the tests done by each mfr. to reach their ratings, since it appears there are no standards used. And compare said tests to a real house fire...

I'd like to see the R value of the safe, instead of thickness of sheetrock / concrete used for a heat sink.

I don't really have much of a recommendation on which of the three safes to choose from, but I have a couple tidbits of info that may be something to consider before you pull the trigger, so to speak. After all the reading I did around gun safes a few months ago, I noticed a few interesting things that really highlighted some key points for me, when it came to choosing a gun safe.

First, the fireproofing most gun safe manufacturers use won't do much in the event of a real house fire. They may be "rated" for certain temps, but those temps are only simulated in an over. In reality, house fires get much hotter and burn much longer than those "rated" safes can deal with. And there's also the warm-up and cool-down times for a fire, too. The high-quality safe companies don't actually use fireboard for fire protection. They use a solid shell poured around the inner steel liner to get a good, solid, one-piece shell for fire protection. If your house fire is a real doozie (as in, your house burned to the ground), your average fireboard safe won't protect your guns for very long. If you have a fire department nearby, that may allow for consideration of lesser fire protection and ease some of those concerns. It also depends on how much you're willing to pay for this extra "insurance" against fires. Do you have an older home? Are your guns quite valuable? Do you feel that you really need fire protection where you're keeping your safe? Or are you getting it just because you'll feel warm and fuzzy about having it "just in case"? These types of questions can go a long way to helping you find a compromise as to what you want versus what you need.

On to my second thought: I don't have much trust in something as thin as 1/8" steel plate. While it's true that it's better than nothing (especially those cheapie gun cabinets you could probably pull apart bare-handed), and it will definitely keep kids and perhaps the dumb burglars out, a true gun safe that is built to protect against burglary isn't just heavy. It also has a thick door and walls made with hardened plate to prevent drilling, grinding, torches, hacking apart, etc. Thin-walled, less-expensive safes can have a fire axe driven through them. Then it's just a matter of some cutters or a saw to open it up. Some of the high-end safe models have 1/4" to 1/2" plate, or thicker! It's not just about how many door bolts you have. If it's easier to just hack the safe open with an axe or torch, why would they waste time sawing through steel bolts?

I've considered getting a gun safe. But, if I'm spending a nice wad of cash on a gun safe, I need to set my expectations: I'd better have nice guns to put in it. And I'm also planning to get something built a but better than most of the common "gun safes" are built, even if I have to spend considerably more to get it. But until then, a simple, non-fireproofed safe would do just fine. Something to keep kids and hooligans out. I don't have any really nice guns, yet. But, I also realize that I can't expect high-end security just because I paid a bunch of money for it. It may seem like a lot, but $1,500 isn't all that much in the world of security. You get what you pay for.

Now, any safe is better than nothing. If your budget only allows for $1,500, then get what you can afford. And the concrete fiber board will provide some limited protection in the event of less-intense fires.

A few tips, as well:
Don't forget to bolt that safe down, and try to put it in an area that's not very easy to remove for a burglar. Most of them will just wheel the safe out and deal with opening it later. If you can prevent someone from even getting it out, that would go a very long way to protecting your firearms. (That's where that 1/2" steel plate really makes it heavy and hard to wheel out without 3-4 guys, or a forklift! And some people even build structure around the safe, or wall it in and hide it behind a false panel.) And for heaven's sake, don't go advertising that you have guns to all your neighbors by putting the safe in the garage. If no one knows you have guns (aside from people you trust), you'll have a much lesser risk of burglary, in general.

As for finding a high-quality safe, the best safes I've found, so far, have been the Brown safes, both in regard to fire and burglary protection. Unfortunately, they're also a bit spendy. But, again, if you have a lot of guns, or if you have expensive guns, it may be worth shelling out for something that will provide superior protection. I have no idea what the OP has to put in this safe. So, a Brown fire safe may be some serious overkill for their needs. But, you can find a burglary-rated non-fire safe for under $2k. And one around the size the OP is looking for would be around $2,200 or so. It has 1/2" steel plate for the door, and 1/4" plate on the walls. (Fire protection on the same size puts it around $3,500....ouch!) If you can live without fire protection, that's a great safe to protect your gun collection. Here's their line of "value-priced" weapon safes, if you're interested: http://www.brownsafe.com/features_weapon_safes/Weapon_safe_single_door.html It'll probably be what I'll go for, when I start expanding the collection with guns that are worth a bit more than I can afford right now.

I don't mean to sound smug about any of this stuff, so I apologize if I do. I'm a mechanical engineer, so I tend to really go nutso on the details, and always try to reach perfection. I really just want to share what I've learned during my searching, as well. This stuff really opened my eyes to what kind of quality we really get when looking for gun safes.