Strong safe---where

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Fella's;

How soon, etc: "a1abdj is just a locksmith, who does a lot of safes and vaults etc. every day. The rest of use just read a lot, much of it pointed out buy guys in the business like Frank and Alyssa".

There are some of the "rest" of us who have been posting about the differences between safes & RSC's for years. I'm a professional locksmith who specializes in safe sales, true safes not RSC's, and in fact may have been the first on this site to point out the differences in detail. Yes, the shop sells Graffunder and AMSEC to the public. And yes, I do do repair work on safes also.

So, yes, I do have an interest in not being lumped in with the majority of the site members when it comes to this subject. I'm a safe guy and I've been doing it for awhile now. Long enought that retirement is not only in sight, but rather gleefully anticipated.

900F
 
We've all seen the video's/pictures of how 11 gauge doesn't stand up to a fire axe...
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In my case, we're actually talking about two layers of 10 gauge.

Let's throw some numbers out there because it's both fun and educational. 10 gauge is roughly .1345" thick. 7 gauge is roughly .1793" thick. The difference between the two is roughly .0448" For those that prefer fractions, that's roughly 1/25".

If you have a ruler in front of you, look at the smallest little marks on the inch scale. Those represent 1/16" of an inch. Now imagine half of that, and now you're talking the difference between the two.

Of course more steel is better, but this bickering between gauges is downright silly.

I don't buy into this cumulative stuff. You can get through 11 gauge with a fire axe. Then you can get through 1 or 1.5 inches of concrete with a fire axe. Then all thats left is the 11 gauge again. Boom, you're in.
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Using the math I laid out above, how much time do you think it would take you to chop a hole through a sheet of steel .1345" thick?

How long do you think it would take you to chop a hole through a sheet of steel .1793" thick?

If you multiplied your time on your .1345" sheet by two, do you think it would be higher or lower than your time on the .1793" sheet?

Add the concrete to that , and you'll see where I'm heading. Can you chop through cement type fills with an axe? Sure. How long will that take? I can guarantee you it's not as easy as you believe, yet it is not something that would take all day either.

If you going to call a it 1/4 inch of steel it should be a 1/4 inch...
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It's actually a bit more than 1/4", but I was rounding down. Maybe my math is wrong, but .1345" + .1345" = .2690". If I had four 1/4" plates, would I have 1/4" or 1"?

How long exactly do you think it would take you to pry open our safe? Forever? A year?
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More than 5 minutes, less that forever.

how would you go about getting the pry bar started? Because you can not get a pry bar started anywhere on our safe door in the first place
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I won't give away burglary advice on an open forum, but it can be done with a little bit of time. Like I've said previously, I could post photos of safes with 1/2" doors and 1/4" bodies that have been pried open. I generally don't like to post these types of photo for the above mentioned reason, so I suppose those reading will just have to take my word. If they don't believe me, they can call safe guys in their area and ask them.

Don't take it personal Frank, it goes for you and anyone else stating false information about us for their own personal gain.
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I don't take it personal. The majority of my business is commercial safes and vault door restorations. One vault door restoration equals roughly 100 gun safe sales, so I'm not arguing about gun safes for any personal gain.

If it was about personal gain, I would buy one of your safes, pry it open, and put it on youtube like some of the other guys in the gun safe business.

I also haven't said anything false. You said that your safe couldn't be pried open. I said that it could. You finally conceeded that given enough time, they could be. I think we're on the same page now.


linkage that has a warranty to last a lifetime and can take years of abuse. For example, you shouldn't need to be careful about slamming a safes door that has a glass relocker in it.
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If you are slamming a safe door hard enough to break the glass in the relocker, you are also slamming it hard enough to fire a mechanical relocker.

In all of my years of drilling safes, I can't recall ever drilling a safe due to a glass relocker being fired from a slammed door. I have drilled a few from attempted burglaries, and a few from safes being dropped by amateur movers.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's certainly not very common.

There are some of the "rest" of us who have been posting about the differences between safes & RSC's for years.
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I would like to mention this again. CB900F has been here (both on the earth and here on THR) longer than I have. He was giving helpful advice using his real life experience long before I came around to this forum. He's just not always as vocal as I am. ;)
 
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Last night I again set down and watched the youtube clips on the Liberty torture test and the Sturdy.
Both are very interesting and actually fun to watch even though in some ways it's painful to watch a well built safe getting destroyed because of how long it takes most of us working stiffs to save up to buy them in the first place but in the name of education it's a good thing that it is being done.
I am not a safe and vault expert but I have had enough real life working experience with metal to know that everything has it's limitations.
It's very obvious too me now more than ever that if you buy a good gun safe you very truely better bolt that sucker down and if at all possible put it in a strategic corner that helps eliminate the kind of leverage these guys on the films are given to get started on these safes.
I more than understand why a1abdj wont show pictures of pryed safes or go into detail about how one could go about getting this done even on a safe with very tight door to door jam tolerances.
Pondering this last night I thought of a way that this could be achieved with the use of only hand tools that does not include anything electric,hydraulic,or battery powered.
I get the message,it is doable,although on a quality gun safe it would still not be easy.
But fortunately for the overall majority of residential home owners that buy a quality gun safe for protection of our firearms as well as other valuables we dont want to have walk off in the hands of a thieving offender most of these better quality safes will as I stated before thwart for the most part most residential burglaries if they are at least bolted down.
And again your odds go up more if you not only have it bolted down but placed in such a location as to make a pry attack really tough for the perp.
At this point most of us know by now if the person or persons knows absolutely that you own that safe and they bring those types of safe defeating tools and they have time on their hands they most likely will breech the vault.
The good thing is that these types of safes we are talking about are meant for home owners use and not business use where a thief has all night long to work on the business safe.
At our homes the guy(s) who break in will in all likelyhood have some sort of prying tool to gain access to the house and once they come upon my Amsec BF,your Sturdy,your Liberty Presidential,etc. that has been well placed it's truely doubtful with what they brought with them to the fight they will be successful in getting into your safe.
If on the other hand you have one of these cheaper 12 gauge gun safes with a lightweight door you might get your clock cleaned like the poor soul I read about over on the GlockTalk forum who had his Sam's Winchester pryed right open in his home.
I have zero doubts that the Sturdy is a well made,well thought out gun safe and even though I purchased an Amsec BF I came very close indeed to buying the Sturdy and probably would have had I had a chance to see one ahead of time in person.
 
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even though I purchased an Amsec BF I came very close indeed to buying the Sturdy and probably would have had I had a chance to see one ahead of time in person.
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I was in the same boat, and ended up buying the AMSEC over the Sturdy. I was all about quality first, and looks second. When my research dust cleared, and I found out both were quality products, the AMSEC won because of looks.

No offense intended, but the Sturdy safes look rough, and home made to me. I wasn't going by looks alone as I mentioned above. But, when I have two safes that seem to be equal in quality/price, then I'm going for the one that looks the nicest inside and out.....and for me, that was my AMSEC.

Thanks to a1abdj and all his wisdom, I feel that I made a sound purchase, and am still happy with my AMSEC today!
 
"rough" My Sturdy blew away my expectations. First off I think the interior looks tacticool. And it looks like it was made by a person not some robot on an assembly line. I much prefer the looks to that of the Liberty piece of junk it sits next to. And the fact that the top shelf doesn't buckle under the weight of ammo, like my Liberty does, is an added plus to say the least.
 
"rough" My Sturdy blew away my expectations
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I absolutely agree. The safe I received from the Sturdy is a thing of beauty: tight tolerances, long beads on welds, heavy boxed door frame for amazingly strong torsional rigidity (as evidenced by the pry video), strong linkage, deep recessed door, an ingeniously simple yet robust locking mechanism, quality components and great workmanship. When I was looking for a gun safe with the minimum expectation of resisting any pry bar attack and most brute force attacks, this was the safe I found and I knew I made the right choice once I saw how it was constructed. No one is getting into this safe with a pry bar only by way of forcing the door open, it just ain't going to happen not in a day, not in a year.
 
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Bigbay...The price between the two are very close.
That is if on the Amsec you find the right dealer.
Point in case.
When I ordered my BF 66X36 at about this very time last year one local dealer was asking $2800.00 while the other local dealer was only only asking $2299.00 and both were quoted were exactly the same which was with the regular combo lock,textured paint(Sandstone)and the optional Storit metal shelves inside the door.
The price on the Sturdy was quoted to me by Terry himself via a personal telephone call he actually made to me one night as I was watching the Houston Astro's lose for their umptenth time.The difference was right at a hundred dollars between the two.
The reason I say all of this is being that your in NYC the local Amsec dealers might be charging you a lot more(or maybe not) than you can get through another dealer such as our own a1abdj,who can help you get lined up so you can take delivery on it through his contacts in the safe and vault industry.
In my opinion,as well as many owners of both these safes, either of these safes are very well made and will serve you very well.
They are not the rock of Gibraltar of safes,but they certainly are the best bang for the buck on gun safes that offer strength,size,weight,fire resistance and resistance to theft that others that many times cost a great deal more but still dont offer what these two deliver.
Let us know what you decide on.
 
They are not the rock of Gibraltar of safes (Sturdy and BF) ,but they certainly are the best bang for the buck on gun safes that offer strength,size,weight,fire resistance and resistance to theft that others that many times cost a great deal more but still dont offer what these two deliver
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Very well said heeler, both are the best two in the price range; pick either one and feel good about your choice.
 
I seem to be hearing that nothing less than battleship armor, 16" of hardenened steel armor plate, is worth considering, that anything thinner can be bent easily with the teeth, and that folks throw 20,000 pound vaults around like beer cans. Also that I need to have access to the resources of the CIA to even think of affording anything a 5-year old kid can't open with a church key. Maybe if we just put up a sign saying "Please don't rob me" we would be better off. At least it would be cheaper.

Wow!

Jim
 
I seem to be hearing that nothing less than battleship armor, 16" of hardenened steel armor plate, is worth considering, that anything thinner can be bent easily with the teeth, and that folks throw 20,000 pound vaults around like beer cans. Also that I need to have access to the resources of the CIA to even think of affording anything a 5-year old kid can't open with a church key. Maybe if we just put up a sign saying "Please don't rob me" we would be better off. At least it would be cheaper.

Wow!

Jim
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LOL, now that's funny.
 
I seem to be hearing that nothing less than battleship armor, 16" of hardenened steel armor plate, is worth considering, that anything thinner can be bent easily with the teeth, and that folks throw 20,000 pound vaults around like beer cans. Also that I need to have access to the resources of the CIA to even think of affording anything a 5-year old kid can't open with a church key. Maybe if we just put up a sign saying "Please don't rob me" we would be better off. At least it would be cheaper.

Wow!
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I don't think you're hearing that here. What you are hearing is that somebody who wants a safe that can't be pried open needs to have a safe built out of steel of sufficient thickness to prevent prying. Just like somebody who might want a safe that can't be torched open, needs to have a safe built out of materials of sufficient composition to resist torching.

Feeling, opinion, and fantasy does not make a safe secure.
 
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"rough" My Sturdy blew away my expectations.
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I guess rough wasn't the right word. I have no doubt the Sturdy safes are built well......I almost bought one remember? I guess what swayed me to my AMSEC BF series was that traditional safe look, and classy finishing touches inside and out.

Although the Sturdys are built well, they remind me of an army surplus filing cabinet, or an old high school locker. I didn't care for their big straight handle, and the finish (paint) that you see most of them in on their web site.
 
Fella's;

Some people make decisions based on research. Other people believe in astrology and are guided by the stars. And a very small percentage are apparantly guided by voices in their head that say things that were never said anywhere else.

900F
 
Bigbay;

I have experience with RSC's that have been pried open, never a true safe. Not sayin' it's never been done to a true safe, just not in my area to my knowledge. Repair a popped RSC? No, that's just money down a rat hole IMHO. I usually sell a true safe to whomever has had their learning curve enhanced by a thief.

900F
 
What's is a real safe---to make it easy, how thick and how much money---do you have a site of what you call a real safe---help
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All the way back to post #15

A safe with a UL TL-15 burglary rating. This rating certifies that a safe will resist entry for a period of at least 15 minutes against all common hand tools (hammers, pry bars, chisels, etc.), power tools (drills, saws, grinders, etc.) and pressure applying devices.

Although it does not have a UL rating, an E rate safe will have similar construction. AMSEC offers a factory built TL-15 gun safe, and Graffunder offers a factory built E rate gun safe.
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AMSEC sells gun safes with UL burglary ratings, and Graffunder sells safes B rate and heavier.

I'd plan on spending $5,500 +/- at a minimum, and going up from there depending on the level of security.
 
$5500 wil get you a B rated Graffunder before you spend another $1000 to $1500 for delivery and installation. I can only imagine how much an E rated one would cost! $16K? I get the feeling that may be more then the Poster wants to spend!
 
""I get the feeling that may be more then the Poster wants to spend!""

I agree. And look how heavy those are. You'd play hell trying to get it into your house, especially if you have a full flight of stairs to haul it up. I'd be worried one of those might just fall through the wooden floors of my house.

Get something you can actually get into your house, and spend a few bucks on alarms, making your place less attractive to burglars, etc.
 
Why they say 1 3/4 overall body construction then--12ga this--16ga that--1/2in this------i want just steel not over 1000lbs--no fire proof and good pry/ax
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Then get a Sturdy Safe, that's exactly what they offer.
 
BiggBay I think to satisfy yourself and to learn more about safes before you spend your money you need to start googling various safe manufacturers as well as reading up on safes from catalogues and the internet and going to safe and vault shops to learn more about their construction to get a better understanding as to why they construct their various models with certain materials and thickness of these materials and just what to expect from one of these models.
I learned an awful lot doing this very thing and feel I made a good decision with my own purchase in the process and for future purchases if necessary.
 
Why they say 1 3/4 overall body construction then--12ga this--16ga that--1/2in this------i want just steel not over 1000lbs--no fire proof and good pry/ax
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Gun safes (and their manufacturers) represent a very small portion of what's available in the safe market.

I just quoted a B rate chest (just a plain safe with shelves), no insulation, for a customer that wants exactly what you're looking for. It had to be light enough to go into the house, but offer decent pry protection.

It has a solid 1/2" plate door, and solid 1/4" walls. A gun safe sized unit weighs around 1,000 pounds and cost between $2,000 and $3,000 depending on dimensions.
 
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