Hi all, opened my safe the other night and kowabunga dude surfs up! My trusty well used M-10 HB "surfed" off the K frame shelf fell past my poor attempt at a save and fell down right onto the lip of the safe door. Oh bother I thought as I picked it up to inspect for damage. Landed smack on the left stock, a nice horizontal ding across the checkering and cracked it length wise on the inside of the panel. Well, that's a lot better than landing on the cylinder or such and causing havoc with the mechanics. Anyhoo I spread the crack and used an epoxy glue in it and after that cured I did the old steam iron and damp cloth to steam most of the dent out of the grip panel, ya gotta look to see it now. I suppose I should work on two things, one, stack em better and two, work on my catching skills!

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Stay safe people!

Hey Bob, How ya doing? I had something similar happen once. I was rooting around on the top shelf for something and my 70 series Colt went surfing. I missed the catch and it bounced off the 70 featherweight putting a nice mark in the stock. At least hitting the 70 deflected it away from the safe and it landed safely on the carpet !!!

Maybe we need to get together and play catch for practice.................

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Big Fred

All of my guns are in socks in the safe -mainly to prevent them getting scarred from banging into each other. I wonder if a sock on yours would have lessened the damage or made it easier to catch?

How about self-adhesive foam weatherstrip on that bottom edge?

If you do that (to ensure that it will be cushioned) it will probably never happen again (Murphy's Law in reverse).

I like the attitude---a lot. Makes you mad but, like life, it is a past tense and all you can is all you can do.
Blessings

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TEXAS, by GOD

Two rules, ya don't catch guns or knives. Bad things can happen when you try!

I keep all of mine in a rug,a holster,or a box. Despite what the naysayers espouse,I've never had a problem with rust or corrosion,even with the high humidity found down here. A light coating of BreakFree CLP is the only thing I use. YMMV.
f.t.

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South Carolina-God's country

Thanks for the support all! Hey Big Fred I'm doing fine and hope you are too. I keep my handguns in plastic zip lock bags kept open, never had any rust problems, although they do protect the guns well enough they are slippery. I think the solution is to buy another big safe to cut down on the interior clutter. I have four smaller safes for hand guns as well but boy is it a pain to find anything!

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Stay safe people!

It happens to all of us. its only a matter of time and how mad you get about it. Then you solve the problem, and there are many good solutions.

I've gone through a number of different things to prevent it, and some are better than others. My first was a mix of needing more space and wanting padding. I just did what seemed the most logical, I bought a load of gun rugs and put each gun in a rug. Then somehow jammed them all in the safe. Soon I discovered finding a specific gun was nearly impossible. You just looked in each rug, after pulling it out. If you did a good job of stuffing the guns in, you sometimes you had a few left over without space. The solution to finding the gun involved putting specific guns in better/leather rugs, and then eventually putting tags on the zipper to show which gun should be inside.

One thing that kept nagging at me was remembering the day I decided on that system. I was driving a pickup at the time and coming home from the gun show where I'd purchased the rugs I had a companion. It was a large clear plastic bag, like a construction size bag, sitting next to me. All that excess foam and what not also took up valuable space.

So at work one day we got a new phone system. Computer based, it was a large open frame with "cards" inserted. Each of the dozens of cards came in a cool little box with about an eighth inch foam liner. It looked like it would hold 2 revolvers. So instead of letting the installers pitch them, I did a rescue. That first night I took 2 boxes home. One was a full length and the other a half length box. And sure enough, 2 6" RMs would fit the long one, and 2 shorties 4" would fit the half size. (these weren't PC size cards). So the next day I brought all the empty boxes home and went to work. I'd already adopted a system of oiling each gun and putting it in a large zip lock. Brand name ziplocks are thicker, so I used them. I found I could get a whole lot more in the same space. Better still, I could just write on the end flap what was inside, including serial #.

Nothing solves clumsy. Extreme care works for a while, but sooner or later you do end up with a bashed gun or two. Upsetting as it is, its a sign from God you have 2 many guns. So sell some of them. What reason do we need hundreds of firearms? The cash in the form of $100 bills takes a lot less space.

Years ago we used to attend Jerry Taylors string of gun shows down in central Kentucky. He had an old hillbilly who always got an end cap. He was kind of dirty (OK really threadbare). Better still, he had probably 100 or more handguns he'd display at every show. You could identify him a couple of ways. He always wore an old fashioned top hat, complete with moth holes. And he carted his wares around on a two wheeler in milk crates. He also didn't bother with formalities like packing his guns in rugs or padding. He just scrapped them off the table into the milk crates. Considering the method, the old fools guns were nicked and dinged, but not too badly damaged. His prices were generally lower than anyone else, but then they matched the condition. If you wanted a working gun, he had them. If you wanted a pristine collectors piece, look elsewhere. But then he didn't let things like a scratch or chipped stock worry him. He also saved a bunch of time loading up.

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Dick Burg

Glad I read this thread. I need to fix this before it happens.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed