Harbor Freight Gun Safe?

I recently made a major safe upgrade and bought a 35 gun Liberty safe from Dexter Safes out of Putnam CT.

What a well run company and pleasure to do business with. Show room visit was a pleasure and the delivery and install were impressive.
850 lbs; techs did a great job and made it look easy.

6 digit electronic lock and when I open the door the LED lights come on...........Will keep my little 15 gun Liberty from 1998, but wow do I like the new gun storage box!
 
Grendizer138 said:
I’ve been shopping for another safe. We’d have to move it up three flights of thin stairs, so something that’s around 10 ft3, has atleast one side under 18.5”, and weighs no more than 300 lbs. Prefer a mechanical lock.
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One thing to keep in mind.... you can take the f***ing door off these things and probably take off 100-150 pounds or more for installation argument purposes. I just moved two safes with a friend, one in the 250 lb region and one that was probably around 450 lbs. The 450 went from "f***ing christ why are we doing this" to "ok this sucks but we can do it" after the f***ing door was removed. In all honesty with shitty floor/stairs you better off buying like two of the 200 ish pound safes and installing them yourself, maybe bolt them together or something where they're installed.
 
Grendizer138 said:
I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but the Tractor Supply Winchester safe was similar in quality, or better, than the more expensive ones I looked at…at a very affordable price.

View attachment 736765View attachment 736767
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One of the most important thing to check is the thickness of the side and back doors. Gun "safes" commonly have 12GA or 10GA steel, easily attacked with a carbide saw; sawzall or fire axe. Less common is 7ga (3/16") and 1/4" - still not in the league of a TL15 or better but the difference between steel gauges can make a huge difference in resistance to being penetrated. The thinner the gauge of the steel, the less likely you are to see it listed on the website or in the safe literature. And a 12GA safe can be just as impressive looking as a 7GA one - especially with extra thickness in the door to impress the buyer at minimal extra cost.

10GA seems to be the most common thickness for brand name safes, though some have thicker higher ends. The Liberty Franklin 35 gun safe, for example, is 11GA. A big brand name does not mean you are getting a robust or thick gun "safe".

As to TL15 - all it means is that a UL pen tester could not open toe door or make a 4" hole in 15 minutes using tools that can be hand carried by one person, excluding torches. Torch resistant(TR) in addition to the TL (Tool) would be TRTL15.

If you want to switch an electronic to mechanical safe lock, be sure the electronic lock is draw bolt rather than swing bolt. I haven't seen any mechanical swing bolt locks (none in the S&G catalog)
 
Rob Boudrie said:
One of the most important thing to check is the thickness of the side and back doors. Gun "safes" commonly have 12GA or 10GA steel, easily attacked with a carbide saw; sawzall or fire axe. Less common is 7ga (3/16") and 1/4" - still not in the league of a TL15 or better but the difference between steel gauges can make a huge difference in resistance to being penetrated. The thinner the gauge of the steel, the less likely you are to see it listed on the website or in the safe literature. And a 12GA safe can be just as impressive looking as a 7GA one - especially with extra thickness in the door to impress the buyer at minimal extra cost.

10GA seems to be the most common thickness for brand name safes, though some have thicker higher ends. The Liberty Franklin 35 gun safe, for example, is 11GA. A big brand name does not mean you are getting a robust or thick gun "safe".
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The safe can be 1/4 inch or 10 gauge but if your garage has tools especially a grinder that the thief has access to, well, the thickness doesn't matter.

You base the thickness off the level of protection by local law enforcement, possibly a security monitoring service and placement of the walls and top to reduce attack capabilities.

Security camera's are great if you like taking pictures of masked individuals that's if they are smart enough to cover up.

Best level of protection is to add a dog with a very deep bark into the equation most thieves are smart enough to add "not worth my trouble" to the equation!
 
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chris_1001 said:
Let’s face it. Most of what we are doing is to keep Maura happy.

Not much else is going to keep true thieves out

Don’t over think this.
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Yes and no, in mass the bottom 90% easy of gun theft attempts involve shit like junkies/crackheads, maybe some gangbangers and other laybout rejects that just want to get whatever they can get in the least amount of time. If someone makes it mildly annoying to remove a safe or gun cabinet, theyll move onto something else. Like most crackheads are not going to stick around trying to pry your shit off the floor while your alarm system is howling in their ear.

If you've ever lived in a BDC/MDC/SDC for enough time you've probably "felt" this. EG, these people will steal shit from unlocked cars, but they are too lazy or not brave enough to break windows.

The top 10% on the other hand, at that point you're basically screwed, but that is an entirely different ballgame.
 
Grendizer138 said:
Guys, no need to flex your gun collections; OP asked about 10-gun safes. As for me, I need to get one that can go up three flights of stairs - the third flight being 22” wide. Any volunteers to help?
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FWIW sometimes its not about flexing but its also about having "guest" space. Even if I only owned like 3 guns I would want to have space for 2-3x that. You can go from being empty to being a gun hotel overnight if you have a friend that gets in trouble or a family member that dies and the guys wife calls you in a panic because she has guns and no license, so on etc.
 
drgrant said:
FWIW sometimes its not about flexing but its also about having "guest" space. Even if I only owned like 3 guns I would want to have space for 2-3x that. You can go from being empty to being a gun hotel overnight if you have a friend that gets in trouble or a family member that dies and the guys wife calls you in a panic because she has guns and no license, so on etc.
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That's a good point and a good reason I need another safe. Thanks!
 
dgrantdoherty said:
That's a good point and a good reason I need another safe. Thanks!
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About 6? or so years ago a friend of mine had an "incident" and I went from having "enough space for a few extra guns" to "complete and total clusterf*** of storage" in the course of a weekend. Having to do the chinese slide puzzle thing just to get your guns in and out of a safe sucks. At that point I just had him buy me a cabinet to take care of the overflow till he got his shit straightened out. It worked but it would have been easier if I had just had the extra storage to begin with.
 
drgrant said:
About 6? or so years ago a friend of mine had an "incident" and I went from having "enough space for a few extra guns" to "complete and total clusterf*** of storage" in the course of a weekend. Having to do the chinese slide puzzle thing just to get your guns in and out of a safe sucks. At that point I just had him buy me a cabinet to take care of the overflow till he got his shit straightened out. It worked but it would have been easier if I had just had the extra storage to begin with.
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I've had it come up in the past but luckily I only know poors so it was only a couple hipoint carbines and a shield.
I need richer sketchy friends
 

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