How Safe is your Collection

Many years ago I had firearms stolen by a condo manager and maint. man, working in concert they hit every tenant in the complex. I vowed to never let that repeat. Years later I met a fellow named Bob who my bank contracted to do their key, lock and safe work. I said Bob I'm considering buying a gun safe what would you recommend? Without hesitation Bob replied a bean bag chair. You may require more than one. He said this w/a straight face. Really, I'm in the market for a safe. I sell'em, but not one of them is bulletproof against two adult males, statistically two men will remove the safe using tools they brought or borrowed from you and open it at a remote location. I'm sure there have been exceptions, monitored alarms work fairly well. Depends on what you want to spend. This is what suggest ...bolt an inexpensive model to the slab in plain sight, put a few bricks in it. This does several things primarily it's loud and time consuming. These guys come prepared, they're gonna take your safe. Bean bags full of foam w/a big zipper but do what you think best. I'll sell you a safe.

Burglars aren't the worst enemy.

Secure storage is a CYA against grandchildren and others having unauthorized access, proof you secured them in the event of a lawsuit, etc. Let's face it, the chances of our gun safe being stolen or homes randomly burglarized is about the same as getting struck by lightening or hitting the lottery.

Fire scares me more than thieves.

Years ago, my grandmother's house in Denver was burglarized during her funeral, it was the MO straight out of an old Dragnet episode where the bad guys looked for funeral notices in the paper and hit the homes while the family was at the service. They got most of the goodies that were visible and went through drawers and closets, but they never got her big pile of silver dollars. They were in an upholstered ottoman/hassock that had a pull-off top with a storage compartment underneath.

Security has to be in layers like an onion. The safe is the middle of the onion. Or maybe it's a diversion?

A few years ago a local man lived in a house trailer (manufactured home). The thieves backed up to where the safe was and cut a big hole in the side of said trailer with a power saw, pulled the safe in the bed of the pickup and away they went.

Insure all your guns under a separate insurance policy. Best way for me. Really not that much money. I have a few collector guns and a bunch of useless 870 2 3/4 and 1100 2 3/4 inch shotguns that are not worth what I paid for them. Let them have them all , then I can down size and buy 7 really really nice shotguns , Pistols and rifles. Just me , I wound not miss them. They are tools and some times tools get out dated. MD

I doubt 2 men could move my safe to another location to work on at their leisure, but I have no fantasies that it is impermeable.

It weighed almost 800 pounds empty and I have, probably, add more than the dry weight in contents.

Some things belonged to my dad, others to my father in-law and the rest I accumulated over time.

I would be very sad if any of it suddenly became someone else's property.

Hopefully I would be around to discourage that.

-Brian

The hidden in plain sight idea is great. Almost everything can conceal something if used right. I have had both guns and tools stolen but that was from a drug addicted family member who I had arrested and prosecuted. I have had him sent to jail 3 times for various reasons including theft and criminal impersonation. He messes with me again and he will get a 4th trip to the slammer....

Not safe.

800 lbs safe. Loaded with everything is over 1,500 pounds. Levels of security to get to it, including a full grown Rottweiler on 24-7 patrol.

And have insurance. Safe enough. Secure enough.

1,150 pound safe here and that's an empty weight. It's full. Plus there's no way to get a vehicle anywhere near where it is so that's a good thing.

My guns are safe from everything but the government.

I have a safe for some of them that don't get used a lot or are "collectible",a "locker" for cheap stuff , mostly easily replaceable .22's, etc........, I have them scattered and hidden all over the house......it would take me an hour to gather them all up and I know exactly where to look. Thieves would never find probably 10% of them , and with my monitored alarm they wouldn't have much time. I also work odd and varied hours so if they want to roll the dice that I've left for the day and I'm only going to work for a 3 hour training or something, well, I hope they came ready to play when I catch them in my house because I'll have toys on me.

I've got the safe, and it's bolted down. It's the biggest one I could afford at the time and with the space allowances I had to deal with. But I consider my biggest security measure is the factor it's in an area that you don't see without looking hard and the fact that I don't tell anyone that I have it. I've lost things from family members and the fact that they took it hurts worse than the actual loss.

I had an unfortunate boating accident.

The majority of gun thefts are by people known to the guns owner, unfortunately

Also be careful of "service people " who might see a safe or guns laying out on a table , if I have someone in my basement to work on something I hide any evidence of guns

You don't need the HVAC guy telling his felon buddies "I was in this house today and dude had like 30 pistols laying on a table "

When I had my safe installed in the former garage turned into a den I was amazed at how a 5'10", 180 could tilt the safe and then walk it into the corner where I wanted it. He then told me he was going to bolt the safe into the concrete pad and it was going to take dynamite to move it out, otherwise they would have to get the door off. When I told my son, to sell the safe along with the house as it had only cost $1K at that time, he said he would get it out. As he knew the combo to the safe and could get inside and he spent 20 yrs. in the Army working EOD I believed him. If you get a safe, bolt it to the floor. It might help deter thieves, along with the "Dog on Premises" signs posted around the property.

Disclaimer: I realize the following may not be practical or within budget for everyone, but...

A built-in vault room in a basement is the most secure you are going to get at home. There are a few I am aware of in homes built in the last 20 or so years by friends/family. Most basements around here are walkouts, and the vault typically goes in the end away from the walkout. Sometimes it will be under a concrete porch, but I'm not sure I'm a fan of that idea. In new construction, two additional walls to enclose a room in a corner of the "deep" end of the basement is a minimal adder to the foundation cost. The vault roof adds some to flatwork cost because of all the support framing that must be put in to pour it. You can specify the wall thickness and rebar mats/grids you want. Beyond that, the major costs are the vault door and what you do to finish the room.

Its pretty easy to make existence of the separate room non-obvious in a home plan with lots of corners, and easy to make the door opening non-obvious in even a semi-finished basement. With two exterior basement walls with 8-9' of dirt fill, sidewalks, and landscaping on the outside, a full floor truss structure over the top of the vault roof inside, only two exposed walls on the inside (one of which could be mostly blocked by a staircase), and a very heavy vault door with several built-in "tricks", such a room would be impossible to remove, and very difficult and time-consuming to penetrate. If the door and exposed interior walls were also watched by a very well concealed IP camera with battery backup and cellular network backup that records to cloud storage, senses movement and sends alerts to your phone, even better.

As a bonus, if the vault door is inward-opening, you have a truly secure storm shelter. Even an EF5 tornado isn't going to get into an underground structure like that.

My personal belief is that a gun safe is an enclosure designed to keep honest folks, honest. I'm old enough to remember a valuable old Pennsylvania Flintlock hanging over the fireplace and displaying our classic hunting weapons displayed is a beautiful glass door gun cabinet.
More recently, I have been researching construction of a basement gun vault but so far the projected costs are staggering for a large but modest collection. What I have learned is that everything from wood framed drywall walls with a "vault-type" door to reinforced poured concrete walls & ceiling, sitting on a 12" slab are being called a gun room. A couple troubling features seem to be disturbing me most are 1. a secure overhead and 2. an effective ventilation & dehydration system.
Today I'd like to have a space where I can safely display my collections as well as having an undisturbed bench for cleaning & minor gunsmithing.
Any bored architects in our group?