Are we wasting our time an money paying for fire insulation in gun safes for the home then? Sounds like it.
Hmm. A couple of days ago I wrote to Sturdy Gun Safe Co. asking if they could produce a safe for me which is equivalent in weight and protection to the Amsec RF6528. As of yet, no reply. I guess the answer is, "No, we can't."
must say that Sturdy called me today, but left no message. So, I shall call tomorrow and see what Terry says. In the meantime, I spoke to someone at Amsec who said the RF6528 has 1-1/2" plate in the door and 3/4" plate in the rest of the safe.
What do you think, knowledgeable ones?
Ca is full of liberals, who will not let the arson investigators burn like they did when we tested potential fire insulators. They now do them few and far in between, with a lot more restrictions. We are currently looking into seeing if it‘s possible to do again, but you need to understand the difference between a normal house fire and one of these controlled burns. In a normal house fire, the fire department will more than likely show up within an hour and quench things down. In the fire investigator controlled burns, they want to burn the house down as quickly as possible, using ways to hurry up the burn time (which increases the temperature) and they quench the site down after the burn. This makes the test less realistic. Not only that, people can easily say we influenced the outcome of the burn, because they couldn‘t watch the whole thing for them selves. The best tests are the real accidental burns, which we have gone through successfully and we have testimonials of the firemen who reported to that blaze, most of which bought safes from us soon after.The only thing that people seem to argue back and forth over is your fire rating or material. You guys do have that crappy video showing the house fire but its not the best PR piece. Im sure in sunny CA there are enough houses that fire departments burn down for practice or even their "Fire Training Houses" to prove one of your safes with a good video.
Lberty has a video were they put some wood simulated guns and some dollar bills in one of theirs and burn it up for about 45 minutes or so. People ohh and ahh over it.
Sounds like your still saying Amsecs smaller UL Fire Safes are being made virtually the same way as their gun safes, which is very incorrect. How can you still believe this, yet you have even said so yourself, “if you want a safe to protect items from a fire, get a "Fire" safe. If you want to protect items from a bad guy, get a burglar resistant safe.” Show me a picture of an AMSEC GUN SAFE, not a small UL fire safe with 5” or more of cement fill, go through a good fire. We have proof our fire safes make it through standard fires on our site.AMSEC uses the drylight in their smaller BF series safes that do pass the most strict testing available to safes today, and they're built in a very similar fashion to the larger gun safes. They certainly aren't using 5" of fill, and they have a UL tag.
I forgot to mention earlier; This is a little past your time Frank (because your 30 yrs old right?), but at one point, Asbestos was the fire insulator that manufacturers used because it was most effective as well as cheap. Now a days, people use ceramic to replace Asbestos and it’s not cheap, therefore, less use it.Out of the thousands (literally) of safes with UL ratings, from hundreds (literally) of safe manufacturers, why can't anybody point me to just one that uses ceramic as it's primary insulator? If it worked as advertised, certainly somebody would be using it.
Since no one (not even AMSEC mfg reps) can tell what the safes gauge really is, lets pretend this Amsec RF6528 was made with a 1.5” thick door, ¾ body and ¾ inner liner.I spoke to someone at Amsec who said the RF6528 has 1-1/2" plate in the door and 3/4" plate in the rest of the safe.
Sounds like your still saying Amsecs smaller UL Fire Safes are being made virtually the same way as their gun safes, which is very incorrect.
Show me a picture of an AMSEC GUN SAFE, not a small UL fire safe with 5” or more of cement fill, go through a good fire. We have proof our fire safes make it through standard fires on our site.
This is a little past your time Frank (because your 30 yrs old right?), but at one point, Asbestos was the fire insulator that manufacturers used because it was most effective as well as cheap.
Now a days, people use ceramic to replace Asbestos and it’s not cheap, therefore, less use it.
Since no one (not even AMSEC mfg reps) can tell what the safes gauge really is
I’m not even adding in weight of linkage and frame in the door, or the thickness of the fire liner itself.
We feel you should be leery of mfg. who are not out right saying on their websites what gauges they are using. If it was any gauge thickness to boast about, they would be boasting about it.
adirondack, when you mention 11ga and 14 or 16ga, I think you're referring to the Amsec BF safe (which weighs 1,682 pounds), not the RF6528 (which weighs 3,455 pounds
Yet it's not used on UL rated safes as a primary insulation (UL-72 for data storage). Comparing the science behind a vault is completely different than a free standing safe. Even a small vault (say 10x10x8 interior has 800 cubic feet of air space contained inside it (air is a good insulator). The largest double door data safes have only 20 cubic feet or so of air space.
Are we wasting our time an money paying for fire insulation in gun safes for the home then? Sounds like it.
In Sturdy Safe's defense though, for the cost of one RF6528 you could get two Sturdy Safe's with their options pretty much maxed out and split up your collection to two separate locations.
Frank, a cube is a cube. Whether it's a data fire safe 2'x2'x2' or a vault 9'x9'x9'
Well I don't think it is wasting money having effective fire insulation (especially if it is a real fire insulator like ceramic fiber)
Gypsum on the inside of a gun safe isn't a good idea in my opinion. Think about it, as the gypsum heats up and steam is driven out (happens with concrete too) the pressure inside the safe will increase and so too will the boiling point of water and this will usually continue until eventually the expanding door seal you spend extra money for will fail releasing the pressure of the interior to the environment but then the super heated air from the fire will now be able to enter the safe.
Are we wasting our time an money paying for fire insulation in gun safes for the home then? Sounds like it.
I'm seriously considering using the backhoe to scoop out a big hole and build a concrete vault room in the backyard to use as a storm shelter and serious gun storage...layered security, heavily alarmed, hidden entrance...
Ok, just making sure your not saying amsec's UL Fire Rated safes are made the same as their non UL Fire Rated gun safes.All four of the smaller safes carry a UL fire tag. None of the gun safes do.
I looked into it. At one point in time, when the Honeywell name brand safes existed, they made their 2754DB with Kaowool (Which is CERAMIC) and got it UL Classed 350 at 45 minutes up to 1100F. I called a guy who used to sell them, and they said it was lined with gypsum board and kaowool. However, not all walls were covered with the Kaowool and we do not know how thick of ceramic they used. Again, this was not the mfg, this was just a salesmen, so we still need to take this info lightly. Look at this search to see where else it was listed at one point.…waiting for that example of a UL Fire rated safe that's using ceramic
I’m sure everyone would like to see.I have some. They've survived well compared to your average gun safe. I will need to obtain permission to post them, but would be happy to do so. I have some photos of the smaller BF safes after fires as well, and if I already have permssion for those I will edit this post with them.
Looks like you had already addressed it was a “composite safe, which by nature, has very little steel in it”. I hadn’t seen that. My bad for the rant of “proof it didn’t have that much steel in it“. Terry (the owner of Sturdy) still has no problem with burglary safes such as the UL listed TL safes. We feel they are good theft resistant safes, regardless of steel thickness, if you can afford the price and weight.I could tell you what it is. I have a few here at the shop.
Terry was told by UL testing facilities, to not bother fire testing a safe lined with just sheetrock/fireboard.Other than some of the best fire rated safes operate on the same principle that you denounce. This possibility is also covered by UL testing.
Thanks for your feedback on all this Frank
you’re the best
I looked into it. At one point in time, when the Honeywell name brand safes existed, they made their 2754DB with Kaowool (Which is CERAMIC) and got it UL Classed 350 at 45 minutes up to 1100F
I’m sure everyone would like to see.
Terry was told by UL testing facilities, to not bother fire testing a safe lined with just sheetrock/fireboard.
How soon will the fire department get there? Are you in the sticks, where your house will burn to the foundation? What's your house made of? Concrete block? Log home?Are we wasting our time an money paying for fire insulation in gun safes for the home then? Sounds like it.
So for me it is either a <$1K safe, or a $10K+ safe.
My other criteria is warranty. Perhaps a burglar fails to enter the safe, but leaves the safe damaged. Having it replaced by the manufacturer's warranty would be nice. One less thing for me to worry about.
But the main point is my insurance policy will replace everything and anything for $1K. So why spend more than my insurance policy (assuming everything is replaceable by the insurance policy, which I've checked)?
I have an insurance policy with a $1000 deductible. If my guns are destroyed or stolen, I get brand new ones with my insurance money. For me, it doesn't make sense to spend more than $1k on a safe.
That all depends. How much is your firearm collection worth? The reason I ask is that most insurance policies only cover up to $10,000 for firearms loss unless you pay extra for more protection.
What if I build a closet around my gunsafe with a door and built of sheetrock and ceramic wool or even firebrick, would that not be a cheap and effective way to gain additional fire proofing?
Using your example, of a 2'x2'x2' cube, let's assume the walls of that cube are 5" thick. In this case you would have a total surface area on all six sides of 4,456 square inches, with an internal volume of 2,744 cubic inches. This gives you .62 cubic inch of air space to protect from heat for every 1 square inch of surface area.
Using your example of a 9'x9'x9' room, lets assume the walls are 10" thick. In this case you would have a total surface area on 5 sides (we will assume a ground level vault on a slab) of 58,320 square inches, with an internal volume of 681,472 cubic inches. This gives you 11.68 cubic inches of air space to protect for every 1 square inch of surface area exposed. Even if you applied heat to all six sides (69,984 square inches), you're still protecting 9.74 cubic inches of air space for every 1 square inch of surface exposed to heat.
Terry (the owner of Sturdy) still has no problem with burglary safes such as the UL listed TL safes. We feel they are good theft resistant safes, regardless of steel thickness, if you can afford the price and weight.