Vintage gun safes

[KY DAN]

I am buying a "retro" safe this week and am unsure of the manufacturer.

I am waiting for it to be delivered to post pictures, it appears to be built from 1/4 inch plate and is a combination style lock mechanism.

Does anyone have pictures of safes from the 1970s-1980s?

Mine does not have a fireproof interior or any lining with the exception of the shelfing.

 

[Riomouse911]

I am buying a "retro" safe this week and am unsure of the manufacturer.

I am waiting for it to be delivered to post pictures, it appears to be built from 1/4 inch plate and is a combination style lock mechanism.

Does anyone have pictures of safes from the 1970s-1980s?

Mine does not have a fireproof interior or any lining with the exception of the shelfing.

Depending on the construction, you could line it with drywall to help a bit in case of fire. If it has permanently welded shelves you can cut sizes around the shelves.

if not, you can add metal shelving bracket strips to put in shelves or a series of rifle-barrel notches if you want.

Stay safe.

 

[trackskippy]

I have an old American Security Products safe I bought back around 1980. Looks like this....



The inside is basically like this, just reversed, and without all the stuff on the back of the door....



The 1/4" steel sounds about right, and the door is maybe 3/8". No fireproofing

 

[Jim Watson]

Quarter inch plate is thicker than most current RSCs. Bolts and hinges matter, too.

 

[dcloco]

........

Mine does not have a fireproof interior or any lining with the exception of the shelfing.

VERY easy to improve ANY safe. Either line the interior OR exterior with a layer of sheetrock, green sheetrock, or concrete board. Doubles or triples any rating the safe has. Add TWO layers to the shop - when the roof caves in.

 

[KY DAN]

When safe arrives I will search for a manufacturer, I didn't see one the other day.

As mentioned I will line inteor with dry wall to protect as best I can

 

[JTHunter]

While I have a used safe, it is NOT a gun safe. It is used to store financial records and "other valuable".
My guns (mostly rifles) are in a traditional glass-fronted wooden cabinet where I can access them fairly easily. The handguns are mostly hidden around the house near where I spend the most time.

And yes, all are fully loaded.

 

[Caplock]

I was offered a free safe once. It was at an old Masonic Lodge. Looked like it could have been from the 1800s. Combination lock and about 4 by 4 feet. Only had about a 2x2 on the inside. Probably was fire proof.
I couldn't move it. Was on the second floor and OLD stairs.

I wanted the safe in the basement. 12 by 12 ft. concrete room with an honest bank vault door that probably weighed a ton. I could imagine my gun safes being inside that safe and my entire reloading room. One can dream.

I did save a Masonic bylaws book from 1904 that was going into the dumpster. Lots of good info in that book.

 

[lightman]

My first safe was purchased in the late 70's and the construction was not any different than later manufactured safes. I would say that you would have to go back several more years to actually get a safe that you could call "vintage".

I bought that safe without an interior, mostly because I was young and the cost of the interior was more than I could afford. I designed my own and made it from plywood covered with an automotive grade upholstery and its still holding up well.

 

[hemiram]

I passed on a deal for a safe very similar to the one posted by Trackskippy because I would have had to get it up from the basement of the bank it was in and then get it inside my then house. About 3 hours or so after I told them (The bank that was closing the branch) I didn't want it, a friend showed up with his cousins who were passing through town and I had a crew that could have and would have done the job for just buying them lunch at Wendy's. I called back and it was already gone, of course. I tried to get several older safes that would have been great handgun storage, but all the really good deals sort of died in mid negotiation. As soon as I did buy a safe, a great deal came up, of course, but I was cash free from paying for the safe I had bought, so I lost it. It was a huge pain to move it to my apartment,and I dread it whenever I think about the future of getting it out of here.

 

[dcloco]

Of note, the old bank safe made it thru one of the worst fires. Notice how thick the walls of the safe are.

The Day I Lost My Home but Gained a Community (pcgs.com)

 

[lysanderxiii]

I have an old American Security Products safe I bought back around 1980. Looks like this....

View attachment 1132034

The inside is basically like this, just reversed, and without all the stuff on the back of the door....

View attachment 1132035

The 1/4" steel sounds about right, and the door is maybe 3/8". No fireproofing

Those AmSec units are very god quality, but like almost all of these RSCs are made from 10 gauge steel, the really good ones maybe 9 gauge. That is some pretty thick sheet steel, but it's not 1/4 inch thick.

As to the door, there are two styles - the thinner looking 1/4 to 3/8 thick door and the 1 to 1-1/4 inch thick doors. The "thin" ones are solid steel plate, the "thick" ones are folded steel the same gauge as the body.

 

[trackskippy]

I just measured the door on mine, and its 3/8". As is the "jamb" all around where everything locks up. On the jamb, you can see where they added another 1/8" piece of steel to what looks the be the rest of the plate of the front of the safe, which measures 1/4". Cant say for sure what the sides and back are, but they are pretty solid.

No illusions here either, in short order with a Stihl demo saw and the right blade, and its open, as are pretty much any of them.

 

[pharmer]

I have a Treadlok from 1987. The S&G tumbler needs replaced (loose) and it looks bad from caulking the door in anticipation of a hurricane some years back but it serves my needs perfectly. Joe

 

[hso]

I am waiting for it to be delivered to post pictures

Can you at least tell us who made it or the model so we can look for it?

Decorative "safes" are typically Residential Security Containers instead of rated safes. They're to keep the kids and casual burglar out, but not too much more. They provide inadequate fire protection, but frankly most rated safes provide inadequate protection in a house fire as they basically become a steam bath for the contents and then an oven. Only highly insulated safes give enough protection long enough to keep from ruining the guns inside.

If you're going to try to improve the fire protection of the thing you should look at better products than "drywall" which "protects" by giving up moisture as the heat reaches it (remember steamer comment above). Ceramic insulation from the fireplace store is a good dry alternative an can be had in panels. Where you site the thing in the house also affects how long it is exposed to how much heat in anything short of a full engulfment.

Also pay attention to locating the safe when thinking about fire protection. You'll want to locate it in the part of the structure that is likely to survive a house fire and that won't be found floating in water from the FD surrounding and drowning the house fire with hoses spraying thousands of gallons of water on/into the house.

If you're going to put it on concrete you should consider a barrier between the mild steel bottom and the concrete so you reduce the chance of corrosion.

 

[KY DAN]

Can you at least tell us who made it or the model so we can look for it?

Decorative "safes" are typically Residential Security Containers instead of rated safes. They're to keep the kids and casual burglar out, but not too much more. They provide inadequate fire protection, but frankly most rated safes provide inadequate protection in a house fire as they basically become a steam bath for the contents and then an oven. Only highly insulated safes give enough protection long enough to keep from ruining the guns inside.

If you're going to try to improve the fire protection of the thing you should look at better products than "drywall" which "protects" by giving up moisture as the heat reaches it (remember steamer comment above). Ceramic insulation from the fireplace store is a good dry alternative an can be had in panels. Where you site the thing in the house also affects how long it is exposed to how much heat in anything short of a full engulfment.

Also pay attention to locating the safe when thinking about fire protection. You'll want to locate it in the part of the structure that is likely to survive a house fire and that won't be found floating in water from the FD surrounding and drowning the house fire with hoses spraying thousands of gallons of water on/into the house.

If you're going to put it on concrete you should consider a barrier between the mild steel bottom and the concrete so you reduce the chance of corrosion.

Not trying to be secretive about the manufacturer of the safe, in my viewing of the safe I didn't see a name nor I'd tag.

The only name on the unit is the comb lock manufacturer.

The door has two gold horses and gold pin stripped boarder and the body is powder coat black.

 

[22250Rem]

Got my American Security Products safe in the late 80's. It's a twin to the picture trackskippy posted, except the interior in mine is set up to hold 17 long guns vertically. I think they must have sold a lot of them, as I've seen similar ones elsewhere.

 

[jmorris]

Also pay attention to locating the safe when thinking about fire protection. You'll want to locate it in the part of the structure that is likely to survive a house fire and that won't be found floating in water from the FD surrounding and drowning the house fire with hoses spraying thousands of gallons of water on/into the house.

Having seen a number of structures that have burned to the ground, the fireplace seems to hold up best.

 

[JTHunter]

Of note, the old bank safe made it thru one of the worst fires. Notice how thick the walls of the safe are.

The Day I Lost My Home but Gained a Community (pcgs.com)

DCLOCO - your link brings back memories of my Grandfather. His jewelry store was heavily damaged by a fire in the summer of 1954, a few months before I was born. He had some safes like the one in the article inside a vault and two of them had warped doors but still worked. As a teen, we would get together for the fall holidays and my brother and I would get up (pre-dawn) to go with our Grandfather to put the jewelry on display for the day in the front windows. That is when I learned how valuable a good safe can be. The safe I have now (not a "gun" safe - see post #7) is a steel and concrete laminate that weighs about 3,000 lbs. that I bought used from a store in St. Louis. You should have seen the "fun" they had moving that from their truck to the pole barn where it was going - about 100' over a rock driveway and both up and down about 18" from start to finish. They used a battery-powered pallet jack but had to lay down sheets of plywood to get over the rocks. Talk about "rough waters" - - !!

Having seen a number of structures that have burned to the ground, the fireplace seems to hold up best.

That is most likely because of the thickness and weight of the bricks and that bricks don't burn. I watched a volunteer fire department burn down an old 4 room house several years ago and, it wasn't until we used a 1.5" hose on the chimney, that it came down.
And yes, they let me do the chimney.

 

[hso]

the fireplace seems to hold up best.

Difficult to put a gun safe in a fireplace ;-), but taking a note from that...multiple layers of firebarrier around the safe can help.