More words than most people will want to read about Vaultek RS 8000 safes but, if you're thinking of buying one, this could well help more than the shill at worst, or fanboy at best YouTube reviews. (the smaller sizes RS models are ruled out as pointless for this post since I'm concluding that if you own enough stuff to need one, you'll fast outgrow them)
1) They're not 'safes'. They're more accurately described as 'pretty beefy lockers'. (Steel wall thickness better than an ammo can wall, similar to an ammo can lock flap, maybe a little heavier, four roughly 3/4 steal bolts on (two on one side, one each top and bottom of the door which lock behind the stamped steel inner doorframe but not into cylindrical recesses). This construction doesn't make the RS safes bad, just just different. Know what you're getting and paying a lot for and read up a bit on how 'real' gun safes are constructed (some of which I touch on below) lest you over-estimate them. Vaultek rifle safes being what they are vs 'safes' has advantages too.
- They are movable by one motivated person to second, or third stories if you're a patient, average 'strong guy' and know 'mover tricks'.
- They weigh little enough you won't need to shore up a floor in an old house. They are, vs a determined thief, about as secure as most actual safes with . (Most (virtually all) of those 'safes' with big thick walls have legit strong doors that are unequivocally [usually] stronger but the walls of them are really just light gauge steel wrapping, basically, drywall that will fall to moderately skilled attack at a similar pace to the RS Vaulteks. ).
- They take up relatively little more room than their contents.
- They aren't air sealed so won't stay more humid inside than their environment. (They can be no less humid inside than out even if you keep disenchants in them.)
- They look less intimidating to a thief so they may well try things to open them they'd be scared off trying vs a safe that looked tougher even though most of the same attacks would work.
- The look screams gun safe in use even to the uninitiated in a way that a little 'decoration' would let you be able to say "Oh, that old thing? It was here when we bought the house" about more traditional safes
- They aren't fire proof or water proof at all. 'Real' safes can be, to a point, water and fireproof but they often fail to actually save your guns in a serious house fire anyway so, maybe a toss-up?
2) They have some 'quality of life' problems.
- The app is crap (and a privacy concern, [the terms are not re-assuring] but you don't 'need' the app so just skip it and note how much attention the 'cool app' gets in YouTube reviews to assess the biases of the reviewer.). There are apparently temp, intrusion and humid warnings you could get via the app but... at least for me, the downsides outweigh the limited utility of these features you could cover with other less sketchy 'smart home' devices.
- There's only one location to connect the power supply on the back, bottom of the right side. (It will run on battery but it's not practical long term.) The connector and cable are flimsy so don't put it where the connector will get bumped. The plugged in safe (beefy locker) does maintain charge on a replaceable 18650 battery for backup and the safe can be opened with a key if the electronics croak.
- The branding 'decorations' are over the top and ugly (IMO)
- The lights turn off if you leave the door open long enough to do any meaningful re-org (about a minute) but if you walk away with the door open, an alarm sounds after about 9 minutes (a good thing). Why not just let the damned light stay on for the same, long enough, time the alarm is delayed? There's a button to turn the lights back on but it also times out.
- The barrel mounts are shown being 'stackable with extensions' to get your rifles clear from the back wall if you have a mounted optic (or grip and mag of you put them in the other way) and the pegged ones mostly stay in place between peg vs shear and magnets vs strain but could be a lot better engineered. This gets to the real 'issue' I have with mine which is that putting things away looks like you could easily stash something without worry you'll bash it against its neighbor. The marketing content paints a rosey picture of 'each thing has its slot' in fast access, no dings ways that aren't true day to day as much as you might like. Is it a deal breaker? No. But an extra two or three seconds every time I pack something into or out of it to being ginger careful gets annoying. (And no, I'm hardly a 'my guns can't look worn' guy but to needlessly smack a light lens against a bolt handle or the like is surely better to avoid.
- The remote opening button thing is limited to within 6 feet and a safety hazard if your purpose is to keep rugrat hands off the guns. Even the manual warns the only useful opening mode for the "SmartKey" is risky. There's a less safety problematic biometric version of the smart key if you want to spend another $85 you could spend on ammo instead.
- The floor and ceiling and 'slot liners' are 'not especially firm' double-stick tape adhered foam. Like, barely firm enough foam but.. sufficient. The sides are 'flocking over painted metal.The crackle paint finish is durable and hides marring and grunge.
- The door close and open is anything but silent. (clanky, not beepy) These are not, for this and other reasons "quick access" solutions for home defense.
- The fingerprint reader is nowhere near as good as, for example, iPhone Touch ID. You're gonna be tapping more than once. Be sure to encode multiple fingers.
3) They're small and smaller even than they seem in some annoying ways. The marketing imagery is misleading (not so much dishonest, just misleading) about how much you can really keep in them and you you should plan for the limitations before you commit.
- The peg grid system, while handy and sturdy enough, will force you to needlessly (aesthetics (questionable ones) won over optimal efficiency) give up an extra inch here and there in ways that can frustrate optimizing for both accessibility and item volume.
- Clearance as you close the door means many items can't be attached to the door's peg grid close to the opening edge which uses up real estate you may have thought you had. There are no peg grids on the walks or ceiling.
- The bundled accessories even with the + model are more limiting than they'll seem if you don't have a plan that involved a lot of website clicks, fiddling with tape measures on your stuff and careful 'looking for scale' in the videos. You'll waste some of the included accessories and need to buy more even if all you're planning to keep in it is a half dozen pistols and three or four rifles. Some bundled accessories are just dumb. (Barrel mount extensions with no pegs, the single pistol/single rifle mag door holders).
- If you have any single long gun longer with a barrel longer than a 16' you'll almost surely have to go with the 2/3rds wide rather full width second shelf with the open side directly above it. (Could door mount it.. but.. compromises.) Have two longer guns? You're S.O.L for some of your pistol storage. You're not getting more than one long gun on the door and if you do mount one there, it will constrain what else you can mount on the door to a much greater extent than you think from just looking at the marketing images and videos.
All this said, if you're in the category of "not a collector but do have (or plan to get). a variety'', they're an expensive but highly organizable purpose built option with an at least legally compliant level of security. You can use magnets on the inside walls in the dead spaces to attach things like gloves, slings, small tool kits. Creativity is rewarded. They're black so if you stash them in dark back corner of a closet and black tape over the Peavey-esque front panel, they will go largely unnoticed. With care and planning, you can comfortably fit a dozen pistols including (probably) most longslides in comfy foam lined slots plus three, maybe four 16" barrel or less long guns plus forty-ish mags magneted to the doors with 3rd party magnet panels.
The worst part of the comfy foam lined pistol slots in rows of up to six is, if you have one empty slot in nay row, you can't even store your staple gun in it to pretend and make the open slot stop taunting you to go to your LGS to properly fill it. Jokes aside, if I had a better laid out house, I'd have a gun room or proper safe but if space, strong floors and good environment (humidity) are constrained and you're not going to exceed the above capacity in ways you can't manage with ancillary storage, they're a pricey and tidyness-encouraging but viable option. I'm happy with mine but if I'd paid anything like full price for it, I'd be.. annoyed.
