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Thread: Fireproofing and reinforcing a cheap gun safe, thoughts?

  1. #21
    Banned
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Central Virginia
    Posts
    7,439
    RogerDat hit most of the points but I'll concur and add a bit:

    The main safe should ALWAYS be bolted down to the floor and if possible, secured to the walls also. If the thieves can get the safe on its back, it's over in minutes. If the thieves can remove the safe and take it to another location, it's over in minutes.

    If possible, limit access to the safe on all sides so that there is just enough room for the safe door to open but not enough room to allow tools to access anything other than the door.

    Hide the **** thing ! They can't steal what they can't find !

    Anytime a safe is on a concrete floor it should be on a small pedestal. Nothing fancy needed here; two layers of 2 by whatever lumber (3" thickness total). The reasons for a small 3" pedestal are to reduce condensation from the safe sitting directly on a cold, damp concrete slab and protection from minor flooding. Trust me on this; the $20 worth of scrap lumber and hardware to build a short 3" pedestal will save you thousands of dollars later.

    A safe that is on a wooden floor should be bolted to the floor joists and not just the floor & subfloor. In a previous house I had a safe on a floor over a crawl space. It had two threaded rods that passed from the inside of the safe, through the floor and below the joists in the crawl space. The two rods were secured to a section of channel iron that spanned across 3 floor joists and the rods were peened over the nuts so that they couldn't be unscrewed. It's unlikely that a thief would know the existence of that hardware and enter the crawl space equipped with a pair of bolt cutters during a burglary.

    A fire sprinkler over the safe is good insurance against fire but it's more effective on city water than a well. In any event, in a fire it's better than nothing.
    Speaking of fire, documents should be in a second smaller fire safe inside the first larger fire safe.

    Don't leave your oxy-acetylene torch, plasma cutter or angle grinders next to your safe - I swear I've seen people do that

    Leave easy bait. Stick a non functional pistol in the sock drawer of the dresser in the master bedroom. Prop up an old shotgun minus the firing pin, behind a door. Leave costume jewelry in a nice jewelry box on top of a dresser. An easily stolen small decoy safe might divert an attack on a hidden safe. If the decoy safe has a hidden camera trained on it, even better.

    I'm a big fan of floor safes mounted in concrete slabs. Floor safes are not very big and are prone to flooding but they are also very easy to hide and extremely difficult to defeat in situ. They are good choices for securing a few handguns, keys to larger safe rooms, jewelry and bolts, trigger groups, etc. from seldom used guns stored in other safes.

    And last - Valuable objects such as firearms, jewelry, tools, electronics, etc. should be carefully photographed and those digital images should be stored OFF-SITE. Items such as firearms, electronics, tools should be photographed with a minimum of 3 photos of each item: One overall photograph, One photograph of the serial number and One photograph of the make & model of the item.
    Important documents and hard to replace documents should also be photographed or photocopied. Things such as: passports, driver's licenses, birth certificates, insurance policies, titles, deeds, etc. should be recorded and stored off-site in case of loss by fire or flood.
    Those digital images and copies of documents should be stored at a trusted friend or family member's house (in their safe!), an attorney's office or a safe deposit box. DO NOT STORE THOSE PHOTOS AND PHOTOCOPIES ON SITE !

  2. #22
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Texas
    Posts
    274
    I had to temporarily move due to storm damage on two occasions. At one temporary home I had to leave the safe in the garage. I covered it with a cardboard appliance box and put case hardened locks on the garage door.

    Hurricane Harvey flooded my canon safe with 14" water. I called Cannon to purchase the internals. They replaced my safe at no cost to me as their warranty protects the buyer against flood, fire and theft. I kept the old safe as well. Buy Cannon safes!!

    When my home is finished the safe will reside in a tight, locked closet. Will likely store lead ingots under the floor boards to make it too heavy to move. It will have some type of fasade to cover it. Also considering a noisy device should the closet door be opened. Alarms only work when turned on.

    A coworkers dad's safe was stolen from their ranch house last year. It was not bolted to the floor or hidden.

    It's sad that one has to go to such measures to protect valuables from the lazy pukes who steal.

    1Papalote
    Last edited by 1Papalote; 06-11-2018 at 03:44 PM.

  3. #23
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Location
    brisbane ,qld,australia
    Posts
    2,144
    Ive often thought that a gunsafe disguised as a bed base,or a setee would be a good way to hide it away.Obviously not so easy to access,but if I had to leave a house unlived in for a period,I would do this.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
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LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check