New gun safe - which and why??

[Renard]

I know this has been beat to death on most every board, maybe even on this one. But that doesn't mean I can't bring it up again.

Need a new safe. Need something big and as fireproof as I can get for a reasonable price (ie. can't afford Graffunder or Fort Knox in the size I need). Narrowed it down to:

AMSEC BF7250
- highly rated by most
- better fire protection than Liberty?? (this seems to be up for debate but they don't use drywall)
- lesser quality or featured interior? haven't seen one but looks to be the case
- not local??

http://www.gunsafes.com/American-Security-BF7250-47-Gun-90-Minute-Fire-Resistant-Safe.html

Liberty Presidential 50
- highly rated by some, just another inferior gun safe brand to others
- high fire protection rating that seems valid (but it is just drywall)
- high quality interior (relative to AMSEC) and love the door organizer
- locally available
- looks more like "fine furniture" which the wife likes

http://www.libertysafe.com/safe_presidential.php

Price on both comes out to be about the same, either mail ordering the AMSEC or buying the Liberty locally (RMSS in Ft.Co)..

So, which should I buy??

Also, are there any American Security dealers in northern CO? The "dealer lookup" on their webpage seems to direct you to locksmiths and the one I contacted worked on safes but didn't sell them..

Thanks for any opinions/advice/random comments!

[theGinsue]

I know that COlo Spr is a drivefrom Loveland, but...
http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37813

[waxthis]

I know what your going through. Im in the same dilemma, although I'm not looking for a safe as large as you, perhaps 20-30 long guns. Although I do like Liberty, I feel they are a bit high compared to the competition. I have narrowed it down to these two companies.

https://www.patriotsafe.com/

http://www.steelwatergunsafes.com/

Good luck....[Beer]

[gcrookston]

I had a customer that had his business broken into. They stole the safe out of his office, which held a few guns and some important documents. About a week later he got a call from the police, saying they'd found his safe out in a wooded area not far from his business.

It had been hammered on, cut on, torched on. It was still closed. Per warranty, he shipped it back to the manufacturer. They were able to open the safe. They placed the undamaged contents into a brand new safe replacement of the same model and shipped it to him.

From his experience with the theft and with the manufacturer, I decided to purchase the identical safe.

Liberty Presidential 50

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj19/gcrookston/DSC00348.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj19/gcrookston/DSC00349.jpg

[rboyes]

I spent about a year (my deployment) debating about which safe to get. I eventually decided on a Sturdy Safe (sturdysafe.com). It isn't all pretty on the inside like some with the fancy fabrics, but it is built extremely tough, and that's what sold me.

[bobbyfairbanks]

I am very impressed with liberty safes. I went to there website and watched them try and destroy there safes by any means including dynamite. I am completely sold.

[hollohas]

I didn't have a ton of money to spend on a safe so I got a "24 gun" 30-min Cannon on sale ($200 off) from Costco.com for $550, free shipping and arrived in a week. It's not the most burglar proof safe but the price was right and Cannon has a great warranty.

One day I'll upgrade to a safe with a long fire rating and so big that I have to remove a wall from my house to get it in. :)

[HBARleatherneck]

Liberty


PLATINUM DEALER


Soot Busters
29650 C.R. 361
Buena Vista, CO 81211
Phone Number: 719-207-1444
view more ›› (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)‹‹ close (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)
By Appointment- Full Line Show Room
Free delivery to the Central Rockies and most of the Front Range.- Install service for a fee
Locksmith Services Available

Mark,
he will beat that terrible RMSS by a bunch. and delivery will still be cheaper. and he is a nice guy, not like the POSs at RMSS.

i am not actively selling my Liberty Franklin 50, but I would, just to buy at least a TL30 safe.

[Renard]

Thanks for the info. I also received a PM about Mark and gave him a call. Unfortunately Liberty is backed up until the end of summer but I am in no rush so I guess I have more time to research.

I would love a TL-30 rated safe as well but anything big enough is going to cost $7K minimum and probably weigh too much to sit in the house.

I am more worried about fire than theft. I had a 5000lb media safe out of a bank vault (4 hours media rating) where we used to live but it was too big to move. And it took up half the garage.

Still haven't decided if Liberty's fire ratings are as good or better than AMSEC.

I have come to the conclusion that you can't buy a large "gun safe" that is capable of actually stopping theft and preventing fire damage for less than $7-8K. That and quite a bit of luck.

[GoldFinger]

I didn't have a ton of money to spend on a safe so I got a "24 gun" 30-min Cannon on sale ($200 off) from Costco.com for $550, free shipping and arrived in a week. It's not the most burglar proof safe but the price was right and Cannon has a great warranty.

One day I'll upgrade to a safe with a long fire rating and so big that I have to remove a wall from my house to get it in. :)

I wanted to order one of these today and now they are not even available at Costco anymore, they were just there Saturday. Dang.

[Rant1]

If anyone happens to be at a Costco and sees one there, throw me a PM will ya? Thanks.

[beast556]

Another+1 for Sturdysafe. My next safe will be a sturdysafe. Thick steel and a fire blanket probly the best you are going to get before you get to TL rated safes.

[Storm]

I know this has been beat to death on most every board, maybe even on this one. But that doesn't mean I can't bring it up again.

Need a new safe. Need something big and as fireproof as I can get for a reasonable price (ie. can't afford Graffunder or Fort Knox in the size I need). Narrowed it down to:

AMSEC BF7250
- highly rated by most
- better fire protection than Liberty?? (this seems to be up for debate but they don't use drywall)
- lesser quality or featured interior? haven't seen one but looks to be the case
- not local??

http://www.gunsafes.com/American-Security-BF7250-47-Gun-90-Minute-Fire-Resistant-Safe.html

Liberty Presidential 50
- highly rated by some, just another inferior gun safe brand to others
- high fire protection rating that seems valid (but it is just drywall)
- high quality interior (relative to AMSEC) and love the door organizer
- locally available
- looks more like "fine furniture" which the wife likes

http://www.libertysafe.com/safe_presidential.php

Price on both comes out to be about the same, either mail ordering the AMSEC or buying the Liberty locally (RMSS in Ft.Co)..

So, which should I buy??

Also, are there any American Security dealers in northern CO? The "dealer lookup" on their webpage seems to direct you to locksmiths and the one I contacted worked on safes but didn't sell them..

Thanks for any opinions/advice/random comments!

I have an AmSec 7240 and it's a great safe. You can get recessed shelving in the door, if that's what you're looking for.

Here's my analysis between the AmSec and Liberty.
I like the 360 degree bolts on the door of the Liberty. Another plus is the ball bearing plate in the door to prevent drill attacks (last I checked they still did this on the higher end models).

On the AmSec it has 2 layers of steel with concrete insulation poured between. This, I think makes for better security against a wall attack.

When I was shopping for a safe, I wanted a Liberty, but it was recommended that I get an AmSec instead by the dealer. My vote would be for the AmSec.

If you want either locally, try Master Security in Denver/Arvada (http://www.mastersecurity.com/). I believe they still carry Liberty, and they do carry AmSec. They will install it for you. I'm not sure if you can get the price listed in the link for the AmSec as they usually go with MSRP, but ask if they will price match. They may do it for the business.

HTH,
Storm

P.S. Whatever you get, get it bolted to the floor. It'll make it a lot harder to carry away.

[ldmaster]

Is a stocking AMSEC dealer.

I have a Heritage, and a jewelers vault.

Construction wise they are all almost the same. 10 gauge steel walls? Sound thick, right?

Let's see ANSI... Ten gauge....0.1345 inches. About a 10th of an inch.

ALL of them use "10 gauge" sheet metal in the walls. An electric "nibbler" tool will shave that right away. All that being said, as my collection grew, so did my need for more interior space, so the shelves came out and the safe now looks like a gigantic stack of pistol boxes and rifles in sleeves.

Fire protection is drywall, "quad wall" fire protection is two layers of drywall (each side of the drywall is considered a surface/wall). All locks anymore are
S&G and are pretty durable.

For security I count on the alarm, and on my positioning of the safe. It's in a corner, the door opens away from the wall, it's bolted into the cement foundation and bolted through the walls to the studs beyond. on the exposed side of the safe is a gigantic immovable cabinet. It's a six foot safe, so it's close to the ceiling. If the alarm doesn't scare the bad guys off, then they're serious bad guys with LOTS of good tools for getting into a safe. Plasma torches are common, I have no illusions about my safe being "proof" against anything that is a serious attack. I'm counting on the loud siren and the police to get there.

That being said, safe companies come and go all the time, lifetime warrantee's are pretty meaningless. Make sure the lock mechanism is sound, and there's really nothing inside to break.

Spend all you want!!!

[rockhound]

http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3385837

i like mine, course i got it for a much better price.

[michael_aos]

I'm looking at an AMSEC BF-series, from Colorado State Safe & Lock.

[Byte Stryke]

http://files.sharenator.com/Thread_Crap_Wont_Die_RE_mega_zombie_forum-s300x371-97014.jpg

[claimbuster]

I have two Liberty's. Bought one from Dean's back 13-14 years ago and the second one about 3-4 years ago from RMSS. Been very happy with them.

[funkymonkey1111]

I spent about a year (my deployment) debating about which safe to get. I eventually decided on a Sturdy Safe (sturdysafe.com). It isn't all pretty on the inside like some with the fancy fabrics, but it is built extremely tough, and that's what sold me.

Has your sturdy safe given you any trouble? they are at the top of my list

[hatidua]

I've read conflicting things about fire ratings but one thing always sticks in my mind when I see aerial photos of burned out neighborhoods - there's nothing left. I have a really difficult time believing there was not a single gun safe amongst all those homes that burned down in that Waldo Canyon fire and yet I don't recall any photos of the lone gun safe standing amid the ashes...

[Rooskibar03]

Huge plus 1 for Mark and Liberty.

Great guy, excellent price, awesome service. I love my Liberty, just wish I'd gone bigger.



Liberty


PLATINUM DEALER


Soot Busters
29650 C.R. 361
Buena Vista, CO 81211
Phone Number: 719-207-1444
view more ›› (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)‹‹ close (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)
By Appointment- Full Line Show Room
Free delivery to the Central Rockies and most of the Front Range.- Install service for a fee
Locksmith Services Available

Mark,
he will beat that terrible RMSS by a bunch. and delivery will still be cheaper. and he is a nice guy, not like the POSs at RMSS.

i am not actively selling my Liberty Franklin 50, but I would, just to buy at least a TL30 safe.

[HBARleatherneck]

Huge plus 1 for Mark and Liberty.

Great guy, excellent price, awesome service..

[Monky]

Liberty


PLATINUM DEALER


Soot Busters
29650 C.R. 361
Buena Vista, CO 81211
Phone Number: 719-207-1444
view more ›› (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)‹‹ close (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)
By Appointment- Full Line Show Room
Free delivery to the Central Rockies and most of the Front Range.- Install service for a fee
Locksmith Services Available

Mark,
he will beat that terrible RMSS by a bunch. and delivery will still be cheaper. and he is a nice guy, not like the POSs at RMSS.

i am not actively selling my Liberty Franklin 50, but I would, just to buy at least a TL30 safe.


Huge plus 1 for Mark and Liberty.

Great guy, excellent price, awesome service. I love my Liberty, just wish I'd gone bigger.

Mark is a GREAT guy to deal with.. can't beat his delivery fee either.. FREE to the curb or $100 inside.. which.. with only having to watch him sweat was pretty damn awesome..

As far as prices go.. I paid substantially less than what I had 'built' on the internet..

[BlasterBob]

I also have a Liberty safe and am quite happy with it..bought it at our local Big R store.

[sellersm]

Any love for either Big Horn or Steelwater safes?

[polski]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltK-bDbADa8&feature=related

One of the senior managers at my office had his home go up in Waldo Canyon flames. I heard through the grapevine that his 2 hr fire rated safe did not make it. I'm trying to find out the brand/model.

[bigun1962]

You get what you pay for. There are a lot of good safes. Both mine are Ft. Knox. When I get another one it will be Ft. Knox. I almost bought a Liberty, but the Ft. Knox dealer came around in final negociations.

[AK47 Ranger]

Ive got a Liberty fatboy Jr and am about to get another as I am out of room.

[HoneyBadger]

In regards to the Waldo Canyon Fire: One of my co-workers lost his shed and privacy fence to the fire, but the firefighters saved his house. Every day he drives to work past the ghosts that used to be homes and as he described it to me: the foundations are still intact but weak. One home had a brick arch that is still standing, but only because the wind hasn't blown it over yet. On a home at the edge of the fire line, he could make out what he thinks was a refrigerator, next to an oven... both of them barely more than a shapeless pile of reforged metal. He did not see a single gun safe on his street, and since he volunteered that he did not have the heart to look at the other 300+ burned homes, I didn't ask. If the wildfire was hot enough to turn 99% of a home into ash, I have no doubt in my mind that no commercially available gun safe in the world would have survived the several hours of 3000+ degrees and the residual days of 800+ degree ashes. My co-worker thought that he had lost his home and in his words: "Replaceable or not, it's just stuff. Remember your priorities."

[rondog]

Every day he drives to work past the ghosts that used to be homes

Wow, that has to be a wierd, eerie feeling. Living in the middle of burned-out Hell, with your place OK and everybody else's gone.

[RobertB]

Beats the alternative, I suppose...

[hollohas]

I sure do like what I have seen of Pendleton safes...especially the revolving feature. Anyone own a safe from Pendleton?

http://www-pendletonsafes-com-us-west-production.s3.amazonaws.com/images/scaled/28b20288d980b5221b17da4fcc0392f599d0ff00-499-909-d482d5d5f5659c719ccd7d7eb69b745337825d21.jpg

Also, there's this from Pendleton regarding fire ratings.


We believe an informed customer is the best, and often happiest customer in the long run. When armed with all the facts, we can make truly educated decisions about which products will be the best fit, and provide the most value over time.

Most mid to upper level safe companies boast impressive-sounding fire ratings that ensure protection for (X) amount of time with (Y) outside temperature, not to exceed 350 degrees inside the safe. However, these ratings are often deceiving due to the methods by which the safes are tested. As it stands, there is no standard set of tests specifically for evaluating the fire resistance of a gun safe. In fact, most companies use different private testing organizations to evaluate and assign fire ratings to their safes. These testing procedures often vary, and are exclusively based on how well paper documents resist damage as ambient temperatures rise. The problem with this approach is that most people incorrectly assume that paper in a safe will burn before a gun. This is not true. Since steel and other metals "gather heat" much more easily than paper, guns and other valuables will heat up more quickly and reach higher temperatures than documents in the same amount of time. You might notice this principle the next time you go outside to pickup the newspaper from your driveway on a hot summer day. While the hood of your car is too hot to touch, you can easily pick up the paper and carry it inside without any discomfort. It seems to go against logic, but it can all be explained by the scientific principle of Specific Heat Capacity.

When a safe is in a house fire, it acts like a huge convection oven – the fire outside the safe heats up the air inside the safe which, by convection, transfers heat to the firearms and valuables stored in the safe. How quickly your valuables become damaged by the fire depends on three things – the temperature inside the safe, the burning or melting point of the various materials that make up your valuables, and the specific heat capacity of those materials. Specific heat capacity is the amount of heat required to change the temperature of one kilogram of a substance by one degree. In other words, the higher a material's specific heat capacity, the more heat energy is required to raise the temperature of that material. Specific heat capacity is extremely important when taking into consideration the fire-rating of a safe. The paper document used in a typical fire-testing procedure has a specific heat capacity of 1.4 (Kcal/Kg °C) and an ignition point of 451°F. By comparison, aluminum, steel, gold and silver have much lower specific heat capacities of 0.91, 0.49, 0.13 and 0.23 respectively. This means that the steel barrel of your rifle or aluminum casing of your scope will heat up a lot more quickly and easily than any paper document in the safe. With an ABS plastic gun stock melting at 221°F and wood solids starting to break down at around 575°F, you can image how quickly a gun can become ruined under heat conditions that would cause little, if any damage to a paper document in the same safe. If companies began fire-testing their safes using guns and other valuables as the standard, rather than documents, they would find that conventional fireproofing does little to prevent the safe's contents from being quickly destroyed by a typical house fire.

[Rooskibar03]

I'm by not means an expert but in doing research for my liberty I learned about safe construction and from my understanding plates instead of pins for the locking system is something easily destroyed. Even looking at the picture the door looks very flimsy compared to others.

Neat idea but I'd rather have my guns still inside then look at a cool carousel.




I sure do like what I have seen of Pendleton safes...especially the revolving feature. Anyone own a safe from Pendleton?

http://www-pendletonsafes-com-us-west-production.s3.amazonaws.com/images/scaled/28b20288d980b5221b17da4fcc0392f599d0ff00-499-909-d482d5d5f5659c719ccd7d7eb69b745337825d21.jpg

Also, there's this from Pendleton regarding fire ratings.

[hollohas]

I'm by not means an expert but in doing research for my liberty I learned about safe construction and from my understanding plates instead of pins for the locking system is something easily destroyed. Even looking at the picture the door looks very flimsy compared to others.

Neat idea but I'd rather have my guns still inside then look at a cool carousel.

That thing pictured is far from flimsy, it's 35"x31" and weights 1050lbs. Liberty's use mainly 12-11 gauge steel (except for the Presidential and National), this one is 6 gauge and the tops and bottoms are 1/4" thick (less than 3 gauge).

Although I think the pin locking vs plates sounds like a fair assessment.

[babirl]

My latest "residential security container"/gun safe is an AMSEC BF-series after many years of research.

"Best of both worlds" yet still not a "real safe" - However, it's a serious upgrade that comes at a definite price difference from what most are willing to invest and what's available locally w/out some serious shopping.

I'm confident the high-end Liberty, Sturdy, and a few others are just as good, but none are "cheap."

Err... http://www.graffundersafes.com/

B2

The "thermo-God-dynamics" lesson noted... Do some research, ask the pros, and ignore the hype.

There's a reason some of these "high-dollar" US manufacturers are still in business... Oh yeah, buy the largest RSC you can afford and fit up to about 40"! (Measure twice/think about a 38" door swing...)

Also, assuming a real RSC and >1000#, I'd recommend hiring a pro-mover

[burdoglovr]

Liberty


PLATINUM DEALER


Soot Busters
29650 C.R. 361
Buena Vista, CO 81211
Phone Number: 719-207-1444
view more ›› (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)‹‹ close (http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/#na)
By Appointment- Full Line Show Room
Free delivery to the Central Rockies and most of the Front Range.- Install service for a fee
Locksmith Services Available

Mark,
he will beat that terrible RMSS by a bunch. and delivery will still be cheaper. and he is a nice guy, not like the POSs at RMSS.

i am not actively selling my Liberty Franklin 50, but I would, just to buy at least a TL30 safe.


how much would you sell your liberty for?