gun safe or secured room

[Battis]

I've been checking out gun safes for my basement, and I'll probably get one soon. But what about securing a specific room with a steel door? The room where I keep my guns is actually a corner room with only one way in. You could not break into the room by smashing through the horsehair walls on either side of the door (house was built in 1892). To the left of the door, in the wall, is a chimney, to the right is a linen closet. The windows in that room are small and could be easily secured, plus they're on the driveway side of the house and very visible.
Anyone have any suggestions or experience with interior steel doors?

[HATCH]

You can get a safe door

[Battis]

I should add that I've done research on safes (see the video) and the wrong safe can be as accessible to a thief as a plain steel door. I guess it depends on how much I want to spend on the safe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=ltK-bDbADa8

[country gent]

Anything can be defeated given enough time the trick is to make it take so long and so much work that its not worth it. A heavy metal door on the room better a safe door and door jam then a safe in the room gives double protection. I like the looks of some of the metal roll up doors that are available. In a basement a room can be laid in off blocks and mortar with heavy rerod then the inside rooms safe so they have to cut break thru the concrete block wall and then defeat the safe. The harder longer it takes the less likely of some thug trying.

[LAGS]

A Secure Room made out of wood studs and drywall is not secure no matter what Door you put on it.
Concrete or Brick including the floor and ceiling would be the best, and then the Door is your weakest point.
Over the years in doing construction, I have built many a Bank Vault or Evidense Rooms for several Police Departments.
But even in the Secured Room, they have the High risk stuff in a seperate safe within the room.

[Bzcraig]

The best your budget allows however any wall short of steel is pretty easily breeched.

[MaryB]

Not an expert but from watching shows think layers. Poured concrete with rebar an a sheet of steel in the middle... make it as hard as possible to gain entry. Longer it takes them to cut through the chances are they will go somewhere with easier pickings.

[Beagle333]

Getting into my safe might be difficult, but having enough time to work on it is even harder, because I have two independent alarm systems, monitored by two different companies, to detect you before you even find the safe.

[Battis]

I'm moving away from the steel door idea, and I don't think I'd build a panic/safe room (lack of building skills). The safe I looked at tonight is a Stack-On Elite 30 Gun Safe, on sale for $499. It looks good, then I watched that video about safes and now I'm wondering if it's worth it. It's light as far as safes go (448 lbs) but moving it and setting it up would still be a challenge.
Gotta think about this one...

[VA Jim]

Most firearm thefts are "Grab and run" (for quick drug money). Any safe is better than no safe. That being said, buy the best you can afford.

[Petrol & Powder]

You're just buying time. Anything can be defeated given enough time to attack it. That being said, a safe is an excellent purchase.

If you go with a safe there are a few things you can do that increase the security.
1. Hide it. they can't break into it if they can't find it.
2. Bolt the safe down and/or build a cage around it. This prevents the thieves from simply carrying the safe to another location and breaking in to it with all the tools and time they need. It also prevents the safe from being pushed over and attacked on the floor, which is makes the safe easier to defeat.
3. Place the safe on a small pedestal. This is key. Even a few inches off the floor will protect the safe from minor flooding, such as plumbing leaks. It also reduces condensation from forming at the junction between the safe and a cold concrete floor.

[2ndAmendmentNut]

Amsec BF line at the minimum. 90min fire rating and 1/2" steel in the door. Brown safes are nice also and they offer really nice doors if you want to make a safe room.

As others have said, you are just buying time. How far away is your local police department?

General rule of thumb is to buy a safe worth about 10% of your collection.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Battis]

All good points. The more I read about safes, the more questions I have. I don't like what I'm reading about imported safes. Then there's the SecureIt gun lockers and they make some sense in their selling pitch (regarding the weight of safes, metal thickness, etc).
Bottom line, like several posters said, it's all about buying time. Like a bullet proof vest, everything has to be right for it to work.
With that in mind, hiding the safe, or just the guns, is a good idea.

[country gent]

The safe bolted into the floor and at least 1 wall possibly 2 walls is a good deterrent. In a block inclosure of 4 walls top sides (2) and back is better. Best is the base feet and some fabricated feet poured in to heavy concrete. This you have to cut out where the safe will sit make a frame to sit into the opening then pour new concrete around this frame of 6"-8" thick maybe a foot this is a permanent mounting and makes tha safe almost imposible to move with out destroying the floor and using special equipment. A good safe of fairly heavy construction bolted in will stop 90% of the thieves, unless you have some high dollar firearms the other 10% probably wont bother.

[RogerDat]

You're just buying time. Anything can be defeated given enough time to attack it. That being said, a safe is an excellent purchase.

If you go with a safe there are a few things you can do that increase the security.
1. Hide it. they can't break into it if they can't find it.
2. Bolt the safe down and/or build a cage around it. This prevents the thieves from simply carrying the safe to another location and breaking in to it with all the tools and time they need. It also prevents the safe from being pushed over and attacked on the floor, which is makes the safe easier to defeat.
3. Place the safe on a small pedestal. This is key. Even a few inches off the floor will protect the safe from minor flooding, such as plumbing leaks. It also reduces condensation from forming at the junction between the safe and a cold concrete floor.

All good suggestions. I would add place safe so it hampers ability to pry on the safe. In a corner, closet or cul-de-sac. If you don't have a natural location then build a wall in an obscure corner that blocks three sides of the safe and bolt it down. The thief's goal is to get the safe on the floor with the door up so they can use their weight on the pry bars. Or to work a pry bar around the edges of the door, which is hard to do with a safe that has walls that extend past it's sides. The pry bar will hit the wall and limit ability to pry.

On that build a wall I might suggest glue and screw plywood or OSB on the safe side, cover with drywall if you need to but glued wood to studs is a whole lot stronger and a PITA to tear apart. Did a remodel on a prefab house with that construction. Real chore to break apart. Made a tornado shelter room in the basement using that approach.

IF you decide to go with high end safe it might save you some money to look into used from a lock and safe business in your area. People trade up sometimes, or sell to those type of businesses.

[mold maker]

Rule #1 By a safe at least 2-3 times as big as you think you'll need.
#2 No safe is totally safe. It is only to inconvenience the would-be thief, and you.
#3 All safe locks will eventually need service and it's expensive.
#4 Most safes are only used to keep prying eyes and little hands safe. An inexpensive locker will
serve that purpose.

[Petrol & Powder]

In one of my previous houses I had a crawl space and no basement or slab. I used 2 sections of threaded rod that went through the floor of the safe and down into the crawl space. Those two rods were passed through and secured to, a section of channel iron that spanned several floor joists. It was far more secure than just bolting the safe to the floor.
Ideally I believe it is preferable to enclose the safe in a small space like Country gent and RoderDat suggested.

It's a layered defense and you're just buying time but even creating a little bit of delay can be extremely effective for the homeowner. A few hours of work to hide a safe and make difficult to remove or attack can make the difference between a successful burglary and an attempted burglary. It's worth the effort.

[Plate plinker]

Safe in a safe room and cameras. That is what I am doing.

[DerekP Houston]

Yeah, I thought about that for awhile too but reinforcing all the interior walls etc was just not worth it for me. I bought a large liberty safe, bolted it to the slab, and put it in a corner so 2 sides are inaccessible. Honestly now that it's covered in kids magnets and drawings nobody even blinks at it until I open it.

Note: Ours was purchased as little kid insurance and to keep wandering hands out, not high crime/theft prevention. We have 2 noisemakers (dogs) and a smaller safe next to the bed for my EDC.

[John Taylor]

Something to think about, anything that makes lots of noise when someone enters the room where the safe is. My shop is hooked up with an alarm system that will notify the police but also there are two truck air horns that are activated with a motion sensor. Most thieves are trying to be quiet so they won't get caught. The horns are loud enough to do ear damage inside a building.