I NEED a safe...

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1. If you want to keep the guns safe from your kids or family members then one of the sheetmetal cabinets will work fine.

They will not however deter anyone really wanting to get to your guns. The sheetmetal doors pry open fairly easily and have no fire protection.

2. A regular safe will protect from fire and 95% of your regular breakin offenders.

I just upgraded my two safes at the NRA convention from a Frontier safe dist in the Florida panhandle.
The price was well below retail.
$1060.00 for a 44 gun, fire rated, 3/8 door, 1" bolts, dial lock.

The same safe from a local company is $1500.00. No shipping.

Two with shipping and installation at my home was $2600.00.

Already sold my old safes.

If your looking for a regular safe, repy to this post and I'll dig out his number and post.
 
Malone...

I got a "scratch and dent" Browning a few months ago. It was a GREAT DEAL! I never saw any scratches or dents. One day, I was determined to find what made my new safe so much less expensive than the "perfect models". I got my glasses and drop cord and lit her up. Forty five minutes later (and much scratching of the head), I found what it MUST be. The flange on the bottom of my safe has a little rough spot! That's it! And a bottle of touch-up paint came with my safe. I didn't even think it was worth touching up! The moral of the story is to ask to see the "scratch & dent" models. You might save A LOT of money. (I did.) Nobody is going anywhere with this safe. (Unless it's Superman. :) )

KR
 
Check your local Sam's Club. These stores sometimes have great specials on safes - I saw a Browning 25-gun safe for $799.00 at our local Sam's a while back, and almost bought it (if I had had any sense, I would have, so as to make space for future purchases! :D ).
 
While browsing through Cabela's (Sidney, NE) hunting department yesterday I was looking at their safes. They have the sheet metal keyed units starting at $239 and the big thick bolted fire safes starting at $599. better prices than I've seen elsewhere.
 
Don't Laugh.. but check Wal-Mart, They carry the sheet metal kind, Safes that are not fire rated and some that are.

Really reasonable priced. :D
 
A lot of safe mfgs use sheetrock to insulate their safe. You can make a sheetrock covering for your safe yourself and save some $. Don't overlook used safes at safe dealers either.
 
Since most burglaries are of the "hit and run" sort, even a sheet-metal safe, if lag-bolted to a wall-stud, will do fairly well. Those with two locks are a bit more secure against pry-bars, of course.

Locating the safe in the corner of a closet, with the lock side against a wall, makes it difficult to get good leverage with a pry bar. Then, hang a long coat or some such in front of it...

Art
 
I saw Costco is carrying 14 gun Sentrys that are CA certified. The cost was around $370 if I remember right. If you're not familiar with safes, just keep in mind that capacity always seems to be measured with unscoped lever actions or something. A 14 gun safe will probably hold 10 mixed long guns comfortably.

You can often get a good deal on a safe at your local gun show. You usually have to arrange your own transport though.
 
The sheetmetal safes will only work in the absolutely quickest of hit and runs. If the guy has any tools, and at least 5 minutes, your guns are compromised.

I lost the keys to my Stack-On cabinet (nearly identical to a Homak) and broke into it with a big flat blade Craftsman screwdriver and a hammer in 3 minutes. :( pried enough with the screwdriver to get the hammer's claw in and it poped the locking plates after just a few tugs.

I would reccomend as a minimum one of the $300 10-14 gun Sentry Safes. They're small, but I've been wondering if they still aren't a good deal for the price. I've considered buying them as needed, then drilling and bolting them together so a burglar has to break into multiple safes.
 
I have a ten gun Sentry, and it's vastly superior to the thin Homak safes. I think I paid close to $200 for it. I bolted it to the wall and floor. They make larger models as well.
 
Just a couple of thoughts, FWIW. Trusting the security of what could be several thousand dollars worth of firearms to a $200 cabinet seems like a false economy to me. Don't get me wrong here, ANYTHING is better than nothing and a lag-bolted cabinet will at least slow them down and force them to make some noise.

Lots of folks seem to buy one of the cabinets instead of a real "safe" for reasons of convenience and portability as much as economy. Anyone who's ever tried to wrestle six or seven hundred pounds up/down a flight of stairs likely isn't hankering to repeat the experience. Renters and people in occupations that require mobility generally are daunted by the potential hassles of dragging all that mass around.

I was one of them until I got turned-on to a design that, IMHO, gives one the security of a real safe with almost the same ease of portability of a cabinet. An outfit called "Zanotti Armor" makes it, and it's a winner.

As their website is still "under construction", I'll give you the basics here.

Offered in sizes for from 16 to 52 guns. Weight ranges from 400 to 925 lbs respectively. All are designed in six interlocking pieces shipped in three or four boxes from the factory. The largest single packages weigh from 110 to 175 lbs, so delivery and installation can be accomplished without informing the whole neighborhood that you have a safe. The body is made from 1/8" and 3/16" steel; the door of 3/16"; the locking bolts of 3/4" hardened steel; and there is a triple-relocking system in case the combination lock is tampered with.

I used my tax refund to buy the 52-gun model. My brother and I carried the pieces down to the basement and assembled it in less than an hour. All of the panels are interlocked by 3/8" nickel-plated steel "L" pins that slip into sections of steel tubing welded to the panels inside. It's a very tight slip-fit, and the assembled unit looks like it's monolithic. All of the parts are hand-fitted at the factory, so alignment is perfect.

My cabinets are now relegated to ammunition storage and less-valuable guns. Our most-cherished items are in the safe. Without this modular design, there was just no practical way for me to have a real safe large enough to hold my collection unless I was willing to have it somewhere in plain sight in the main living area. Our home was built in 1912, and any single one-piece design even halfway up to the task size-wise just couldn't be maneuvered anywhere else, even with a platoon of help.

It wasn't cheap, but it was a bargain. The savings on my homeowner's insurance premium's firearms rider will pay for most of it in five or six years.
 
I also have a Zanotti safe. While I would buy mine again, there are a couple downsides to it. First is the cost. When you compare a Zanotti to a similar-sized non-disassembling safe, the Zanotti will be a 30-50% more expensive. Second, it has no fire protection. Neither do the el-cheapo cabinents, but it's still a downside.

I assembled my Zanotti in about an hour, by myself. I could have done it in about half that if one of the pins would have gone in a little easier. The hardest part was picking up the door to put it on the hinges. I'm sure I'll be thanking myself I bought the Zanotti when I move myself out of my apartment.
 
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