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Plenty of good reasons reasons why you like a gun owner should seriously consider purchasing a gun safe. The first is in order to avoid children that are too young to know gun safety from accessing your firearms...and also should your kids are well-educated and responsible, consider that their friends is probably not. Furthermore, it's vital that you protect your valuable guns from fire damage. Finally, there's the issue of burglary. The frontline defense against theft is made for men and women to not learn about your guns in any way. However, if you've been seen with a huge number of guns at the range or maybe if your name is assigned to a collection by way of a consignment sale at the local gun store, the first brand of defense-anonymity-may have been compromised.



Based on skilled professionals who led to this article, the greatest risk for the firearms owner is fire, followed secondly from the threat of the opportunistic thief. From Doug Tarter of Ft. Knox Safes, "The common thief rarely targets a firearms vault armed with an acetylene torch or drill. It is much more likely that they can identify the safe after breaking-straight into your residence and make use of your tools to achieve access, like the sledge hammer from the garage leaning up against the safe."





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Weight and Composition



The very best and many impenetrable safes are made from steel. Since steel is heavy and expensive, many manufacturers attempt to scrimp wherever they could to make bigger profits. Which means you must be certain of the extra weight and composition of the safe you buy prior to deciding to pull the trigger.





Thickness Or Gauge In The Metal



How thick is thick enough? Well first of all most gun safes come with bodies that range in thickness from 12 to 7 gauge. 12 gauge is just too thin at about .081 inch and can easily be broken into having a blowtorch and drill machine. Ideally, you want to have 10 gauge or lower doors and sides. Do not forget that the thicker the walls are definitely the more its going to cost you.



Some manufacturers often thicken the doors but use 12 gauge steel to the side and back. Not a whole lot help possessing a safe having an impervious door that can be smashed into in the remaining three sides. So, ensure you get yourself a safe that has an overall thickness of 10 gauge or less (8 gauge is best).





Which Lock?



Combination



Pros: Low maintenance; no batteries; harder to look at combination sequence.



Cons: Slow to operate; might be temperamental; unless an established brand is used, the mixture may be much easier to defeat; must have locksmith change combination for you personally.



Electronic



Pros: Simple to use; economical; flexible (high-end models can integrate with home security/surveillance systems); more features (multiple user combinations and penalty lockouts); does not call for a locksmith to change a combination. Ask the salesman which lock they selected for personal safe. Several we spoke with work with an electronic lock.



Cons: Require battery changes. Should you frequently change and, as a result, ignore the combination, a locksmith will have a hard time opening it. (Fingerprint wear on electronic locks can be a myth. They actually make use of a non-wearing material.)



Biometric



Pros: Comparable to electronic locks-speed, ease and flexibility; most enable the storage of several fingerprints.



Cons: Not 100 percent reliable (when your finger is dirty, the lock may well not work); expensive; still a developing technology. Needs to be much better in a short time.





Gun Safe Fire Rating



If you’re taking a look at conventional gun safes with fire protection, compare the construction of the fire protection and ignore any rating (other than UL 72).



No currently sold conventional gun safe carries the minimum true Fire Endurance rating of UL 72 Class 350. How well a gun safe will do inside a fire is dependent upon:



Fire insulation



Form of fire insulation



Structural integrity and reinforcement of fire insulation



Thickness of fire insulation



Coverage of fire insulation



Sealing of your body - non-continuous body welds will unlock and let hot gasses and smoke in.



Sealing of the door - intumescent door seals really are a must.



Structural integrity from the body and door - your body and door should be sufficiently strong enough to resist buckling and deformation because of high temperatures. They might have to protect the gun safe from falling beams or falling through floors within a fire too.



Thickness of steel in the outer shell - along with maintaining the gun safe’s structural integrity, thicker steel adds more thermal mass to slow down the temperature rise as well as heat transfer within a fire.





DOs and DON'Ts of Safe Buying



DO buy a safe that is certainly bigger than you feel you want.



Your gun collection will definitely grow as time passes. A good safe is more than simply a gun locker - it becomes a safe and secure storage device for the family's other valuables also. You'll find you quickly top off a large safe. Spend the money for that size, protection, boasting you want. Your gun collection might be worth many tens of thousands of dollars so it makes sense to buy the security of your respective valuables.



DO spend more to get a safe which offers fire-resistance.



But you must do your homework - you may spend lots of money for "fire-proofing" that truly will not be very effective. Make sure if sheet-rock is commonly used that it is properly installed. When you have valuable documents and media files, it's not a bad idea to purchase a lesser, commercial-grade fire safe to place inside of the gun safe. This provides you double protection. Choosing a reliable brand like Cannon or Winchester is the best way to be sure that the safe you acquire lives around the guarantee of the manufacturer.



DO investigate the safe's specifications.



Even though a safe is large and heavy doesn't mean it's particularly secure. Heavy-gauge steel is far more resistant to cutting and drilling than light 12- or 14-gauge steel. Some safes out there have walls so thin they can be penetrated with a fire ax. We recommend 10-gauge steel at a minimum, and 8 gauge is way better. The safe should carry a UL RSC (Underwriters Laboratories "Residential Security Container") or better rating.



DO enquire about the safe's safeguards against tampering.



A top quality safe will feature extra armor or devices to defeat drilling. Low-grade safes could be opened in certain minutes with simple, battery-powered hand tools. All safes ought to have relockers to help you make sure the safe remains locked when it comes to a burglary. Relockers are hardened pins that happen to be triggered throughout an attack, and can not be retracted without hours of drilling. The volume of relockers with a safe ranges from 2-10 depending on the safe's size and burglary grade.



DON'T store powder in your safe.



A tightly-sealed metal box using a large quantity of powder inside can be a bomb. Store powder inside a separate, lightly-constructed cabinet or wood box. The biggest thing for powder is always to make it dry and clear of moisture and light.



DON'T store vast amounts of primers within your safe.



If someone primer goes off it may detonate others, causing a chain reaction. For those who have many 1000s of primers, don't store them multi functional corner of your own reloading area.



DON'T leave the wooden pallet on your own safe and rely on the safe's mass alone to discourage thieves.



A 10-year-old kid using a rented pallet jack can move a 1000-pound safe effortlessly if the pallet is attached along with the safe is just not bolted down.



DON'T place your safe in plain view, including the front of your own garage, or corner of your respective living area.



This is merely an invitation to theft. And be discrete whenever you load and unload firearms - so you don't advertise towards the whole neighborhood which you have a big gun collection or valuables needing worth extra security.



DON'T leave power tools or cutting torches near your safe.