Briney used a 20 gauge shotgun, not pepper spray. Big difference.
Gun safes....are my guns really safe against burglary??
- Thread starter 77blackcj5
- Start date
Briney used a 20 gauge shotgun, not pepper spray. Big difference.
I saw a top level "Full safe" on tv the other day that went against
another brand but this time an expert put the same amount of Dynamite......
INSIDE each safe!!
The second hand was blown apart and in a heap.
The quality safe had the door sprung open at the bottom a little but still in tacked.
another brand but this time an expert put the same amount of Dynamite......
INSIDE each safe!!
The second hand was blown apart and in a heap.
The quality safe had the door sprung open at the bottom a little but still in tacked.
the ringo kid
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BUT would attract all-kinds of unwanted attention in the process.
the ringo kid
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Call on these two guys who can crack any safe:
Let em try cracking this safe stolen and protected by the Hole-in-the-Wall-gang
Let em try cracking this safe stolen and protected by the Hole-in-the-Wall-gang
A man in Sweden got his gunsafe stolen, this was in the news a few days later 
(I hope it translate to english)
29-arig man skar upp vapenskap - spr"angdes | Aftonbladet
If not.. aparently he was also storing blackpowder in the safe
and when the perp tried to cut it with a torch... You get the picture
(I hope it translate to english)
29-arig man skar upp vapenskap - spr"angdes | Aftonbladet
If not.. aparently he was also storing blackpowder in the safe
and when the perp tried to cut it with a torch... You get the picture
Fast method for not too think safes...
Drill hole in side with hole saw. Use sawzall to cut from hole toward the four corners. Pry bar peels it open like a sardine can.
Drill hole in side with hole saw. Use sawzall to cut from hole toward the four corners. Pry bar peels it open like a sardine can.
Cardboard_killer
Member
My safe is one that wouldn't take much to get into it. But it will stop a smash and grab crack addict, and that's what I have in my neighborhood. If I had a 400,000 house, I'd have a 6,000 safe and alarm system. But I have a 40,000 house, so I have a 600 safe and an alarm sign and insurance. I admit that my small collection worries me, and the fear isn't the loss of money but that some criminal would kill someone with a gun I didn't secure reasonably well.
Edit: I did not know you cannot abbreviate neighborhood on this forum. I hope I don't get dinged over it.
Edit: I did not know you cannot abbreviate neighborhood on this forum. I hope I don't get dinged over it.
Last edited:
marvin the martian
Member
Update to a Browns Safe. Saw this on Showdown of the unbearables Brown Safe VS RockCrusher - Popular Mechanics Showdown - YouTube
Hope the link works
Hope the link works
Snapping Twig
Member
Worked for me.
They sure tried, but no joy.
Have since gone the wired alarm and dog route, new front door and heavy duty door jam.
Bolt the safe down!
They sure tried, but no joy.
Have since gone the wired alarm and dog route, new front door and heavy duty door jam.
Bolt the safe down!
comtedeloach
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Are your guns safe from a smash and grab? Probably. Are you safe from someone who has a week and a torch to cut open your safe while you are on vacation? Probably not. Even if you encased them in concrete they can still be stolen given the people stealing them enough time. Should you worry too much about it? No.
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OP
77blackcj5
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Its hard to not worry about it. Like most have said probably all I can do are things to slow them down and give time for adt and cops to show up. I don't think this kind of thieve is interested in working on a safe. Sure am glad I had the one I got though.
da gimp
Member
You guys are educating thieves/no accounts on how to upgrade their skill sets to improve their burglary techniques & defeat safes & security systems. This is one of the dumbest threads I've ever seen.
My philosophy is that I just want to make it harder for bad guys to get my stuff. Nothing is perfect.
I talked to a store owner that was having troubles with burglaries. He started selling safes and, totally by chance, put them in the store so they could be seen from the outside. The store burglaries virtually stopped. The police told him the safe itself scares most thieves away. "Anything valuable is already in there - and I don't want to take the time to mess with it." Those police also said they've seen numerous scenarios where a house is broken into, not much if anything is stolen, and then the house next door is robbed. Yep - in those scenarios the first house had a safe.
I'd hate to lose my stuff - but most of it's replaceable. I worry mostly about things getting into the hands of bad guys and then having it cause harm to others. So my objective is to secure it well enough (high end safe, secured well to concrete, hidden) to make it a significant enough PITA for them to just conclude "Let's go see if there is an easy Xbox we can go grab."
I talked to a store owner that was having troubles with burglaries. He started selling safes and, totally by chance, put them in the store so they could be seen from the outside. The store burglaries virtually stopped. The police told him the safe itself scares most thieves away. "Anything valuable is already in there - and I don't want to take the time to mess with it." Those police also said they've seen numerous scenarios where a house is broken into, not much if anything is stolen, and then the house next door is robbed. Yep - in those scenarios the first house had a safe.
I'd hate to lose my stuff - but most of it's replaceable. I worry mostly about things getting into the hands of bad guys and then having it cause harm to others. So my objective is to secure it well enough (high end safe, secured well to concrete, hidden) to make it a significant enough PITA for them to just conclude "Let's go see if there is an easy Xbox we can go grab."
the ringo kid
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A man in Sweden got his gunsafe stolen, this was in the news a few days later
(I hope it translate to english)
29-arig man skar upp vapenskap - spr"angdes | Aftonbladet
If not.. aparently he was also storing blackpowder in the safe
and when the perp tried to cut it with a torch... You get the picture
Nej, the link didnt work for me but--I love happy endings.
Nej, the link didnt work for me but--I love happy endings.
The perp was blown five meters out from the garage, dead
SecureIt Gun Storage "The Gun Comes First" SHOT Show 2017 - YouTube
Be warned this video is a little long, but the first 16 minutes are very imformative when it comes to selecting a RSC. Highlights are as follows:
1. Decentralization
2. Capacity or lack thereof
3. RSC vs safes
4. Fire rating
Be warned this video is a little long, but the first 16 minutes are very imformative when it comes to selecting a RSC. Highlights are as follows:
1. Decentralization
2. Capacity or lack thereof
3. RSC vs safes
4. Fire rating
Cardboard_killer
Member
Does any store bolts separate from the frames? I've thought about keeping most of my bolts (except for my home defense weapons) at an alternative location, so, if anything gets stolen, they will be harder to make functional and sell.
Lee's Landing Billy
Member
47 is right!! Four of my guys bought safes from this man. They weigh 5,000 pounds and 3 men can stand up in them. Old jewelry and bank safes. The real deal. When my guys got theirs they were less than $4,000 installed.
A few thoughts:
1) Response times
I agree with the post a couple slots above that suggests the response time will be slower than you'd like. We have glass break alarms in addition to the normal door and window sensors and our cat managed to drop a vase off the mantle. Glass break alarm sounded, system texted me that a breach occurred and the security company called me about 15 seconds later. I confirmed no one was home, and then called the police to dispatch someone to the house.
At that time I was in the next town over at the local gun shop - about 10 minutes away. I arrived about 5 minutes before the police - long enough for me to clear the house and be waiting out front when they arrived. The only thing I found was the broken vase, the cat hiding from the alarm and no signs of forced entry.
Now we live in a suburb and a 15 minute response time isn't their best effort, but it is very normal.
We've had one other alarm over the years and the response time then was about 4 minutes - but that was due to a second officer being very close and enrollee to provide assistance to a traffic accident, they had enough coverage so he diverted to our alarm instead. That was an exceptionally fast response time.
Even in an urban area an 8-12 minute response time is pretty normal, and suburban response times will have something closer to a 15-20 minute response time.
Way back in my deputy days we covered a very large county, and if you were patrolling one end of the county and got a call from the other end of the county a 45-60 minute response time was going to be the best you could do if no one else was available.
2) Think about how to minimize the time available to a thief
As noted above any safe can be cracked if the thief has enough time, and your goal should be minimizing the time available.
a) This is where the security system comes in handy - an audible alarm at least notifies that that the police are on the way and that the police are en-route.
b) Depending on your security company, you may be able to speed the response time when you are on vacation by notifying them that no one is going to be home between specific dates.
Some companies also provide streaming video from cameras to not just the company but also to your cell phone (if you've got sufficient coverage) when the alarm is activated. Video showing suspects in the middle of ransacking your house will potentially get an immediate call to the PD concurrent with notifying you.
Those additional options however will generally cost you more money, either up front in equipment or in a higher monthly monitoring fee.
c) Location also helps. For example we live in a "P" shaped loop at the end of a sub division, so the leg of the P is a choke point as is the fact there are only two streets leading into the subdivision exiting on the same street one block apart. A thief not only has to get out of the house but also travel through two choke points and a half mile to get out of the sub division without attracting attention. So far no one has tried to do that in the 8 years the sub division has existed.
d) A thief (or thieves) in the average smash and grab burglary will focus on the living room and the master bedroom as that's where most of the consumer electronics, jewelry and other easy to pawn items will usually be found.
If the alarm is sounding, they will usually not waste time on bathrooms, or kids bedrooms, other than perhaps a quick scan for video games and TVs. That makes a kid's bedroom closet a good place to place a gun safe, particularly if it is a second closet that can be locked. Bathroom closets work well too, particularly a 3/4 bath with no shower and less moisture issues.
Ideally if your gun safe is suitably placed, a smash and grab thief who is pressed for time will never even know you have a gun safe in the house.
3) Risks in the immediate to intermediate future.
Criminals often share information. If a burglar isn't good at cracking a safe or isn't willing to commit a robbery, he may give your address to someone who is.
Consequently, if you've had a burglary and the thief saw your gun safe, you're a target for a future break in specifically targeting the gun safe. Worse, you're also a target for a robbery, not just a burglary, as having someone in the home gives them the option of forcing someone to open the safe. If a criminal is threatening your wife or kid, you're going to comply.
Keep that in mind if you get a knock on the door. In addition to strengthening the door and door frame, you should consider an external camera to see who's at your front door and more importantly around your front door, before you consider opening it.
Also, even if you do not have a concealed carry permit, (local laws permitting) consider conceal carrying in your home for the intermediate future. If someone kicks in your door, a gun in a drawer in the next room or even across the room won't do you much good.
4) Other deterrents
The good news is that those monitoring signs in the front yard actually provide a pretty good deterrent. If you've got criminals cruising suburbia looking for a house that might make an attractive target (no cars in the drive and no cars in the driveways nearby, with a high probability that no one is home) they are going to target a house without a security sign in the yard.
Dogs are both a good deterrent and a good early warning alarm, but not everyone is a dog person. (Cats are mostly useless, plus they trigger false alarms when they break stuff.) Unless you kennel your dog(s) or limit them to certain rooms in the house when you are out, which I think is cruel, and it reduces their effectiveness at deterring a break in, dogs (and most other pets) also preclude using motion sensors so you'll need to rethink some of the security system to offset that (glass break alarms, etc).
Everybody here has probably seen signs that say something like "This house protected by Smith and Wesson". They probably have some deterrent effect in preventing a further robbery.
We keep a neat house but I intentionally leave my body armor, a holster or two, and a box of my self defense ammo clearly marked as "self defense load" where they are readily visible in the master bedroom. I want to send a clear message that the residents are armed in order to deter a follow up robbery if we ever have a burglary.
5) Gun safes and fire protection.
Most gun safes that are sold as fire safes are no where near to being up for the job. They use gypsum and it provides fire protection only until the board starts to crumble, at which point it falls to the bottom between the steel walls and the firearms get charred. The contacts between the inner and outer walls as transfer heat. And the reality is that in a fully involved house fire a 45 or 60 minute heat rating is not where near long enough as the pile of cinders that used to be your house is going to stay hot for hours.
If you truly want fire protection you need to do some very careful research and be prepared to spend serious money.
You might also want to consider building your gun safe into your house, using multiple layers of a wall board (ideally one that will not fall apart in a fire) on top of, around and beneath your safe, and then incorporate it into a door enclosing your gun safe.
Your best bet though is to just make sure you are properly insured against theft and fire and not have to worry about it
1) Response times
I agree with the post a couple slots above that suggests the response time will be slower than you'd like. We have glass break alarms in addition to the normal door and window sensors and our cat managed to drop a vase off the mantle. Glass break alarm sounded, system texted me that a breach occurred and the security company called me about 15 seconds later. I confirmed no one was home, and then called the police to dispatch someone to the house.
At that time I was in the next town over at the local gun shop - about 10 minutes away. I arrived about 5 minutes before the police - long enough for me to clear the house and be waiting out front when they arrived. The only thing I found was the broken vase, the cat hiding from the alarm and no signs of forced entry.
Now we live in a suburb and a 15 minute response time isn't their best effort, but it is very normal.
We've had one other alarm over the years and the response time then was about 4 minutes - but that was due to a second officer being very close and enrollee to provide assistance to a traffic accident, they had enough coverage so he diverted to our alarm instead. That was an exceptionally fast response time.
Even in an urban area an 8-12 minute response time is pretty normal, and suburban response times will have something closer to a 15-20 minute response time.
Way back in my deputy days we covered a very large county, and if you were patrolling one end of the county and got a call from the other end of the county a 45-60 minute response time was going to be the best you could do if no one else was available.
2) Think about how to minimize the time available to a thief
As noted above any safe can be cracked if the thief has enough time, and your goal should be minimizing the time available.
a) This is where the security system comes in handy - an audible alarm at least notifies that that the police are on the way and that the police are en-route.
b) Depending on your security company, you may be able to speed the response time when you are on vacation by notifying them that no one is going to be home between specific dates.
Some companies also provide streaming video from cameras to not just the company but also to your cell phone (if you've got sufficient coverage) when the alarm is activated. Video showing suspects in the middle of ransacking your house will potentially get an immediate call to the PD concurrent with notifying you.
Those additional options however will generally cost you more money, either up front in equipment or in a higher monthly monitoring fee.
c) Location also helps. For example we live in a "P" shaped loop at the end of a sub division, so the leg of the P is a choke point as is the fact there are only two streets leading into the subdivision exiting on the same street one block apart. A thief not only has to get out of the house but also travel through two choke points and a half mile to get out of the sub division without attracting attention. So far no one has tried to do that in the 8 years the sub division has existed.
d) A thief (or thieves) in the average smash and grab burglary will focus on the living room and the master bedroom as that's where most of the consumer electronics, jewelry and other easy to pawn items will usually be found.
If the alarm is sounding, they will usually not waste time on bathrooms, or kids bedrooms, other than perhaps a quick scan for video games and TVs. That makes a kid's bedroom closet a good place to place a gun safe, particularly if it is a second closet that can be locked. Bathroom closets work well too, particularly a 3/4 bath with no shower and less moisture issues.
Ideally if your gun safe is suitably placed, a smash and grab thief who is pressed for time will never even know you have a gun safe in the house.
3) Risks in the immediate to intermediate future.
Criminals often share information. If a burglar isn't good at cracking a safe or isn't willing to commit a robbery, he may give your address to someone who is.
Consequently, if you've had a burglary and the thief saw your gun safe, you're a target for a future break in specifically targeting the gun safe. Worse, you're also a target for a robbery, not just a burglary, as having someone in the home gives them the option of forcing someone to open the safe. If a criminal is threatening your wife or kid, you're going to comply.
Keep that in mind if you get a knock on the door. In addition to strengthening the door and door frame, you should consider an external camera to see who's at your front door and more importantly around your front door, before you consider opening it.
Also, even if you do not have a concealed carry permit, (local laws permitting) consider conceal carrying in your home for the intermediate future. If someone kicks in your door, a gun in a drawer in the next room or even across the room won't do you much good.
4) Other deterrents
The good news is that those monitoring signs in the front yard actually provide a pretty good deterrent. If you've got criminals cruising suburbia looking for a house that might make an attractive target (no cars in the drive and no cars in the driveways nearby, with a high probability that no one is home) they are going to target a house without a security sign in the yard.
Dogs are both a good deterrent and a good early warning alarm, but not everyone is a dog person. (Cats are mostly useless, plus they trigger false alarms when they break stuff.) Unless you kennel your dog(s) or limit them to certain rooms in the house when you are out, which I think is cruel, and it reduces their effectiveness at deterring a break in, dogs (and most other pets) also preclude using motion sensors so you'll need to rethink some of the security system to offset that (glass break alarms, etc).
Everybody here has probably seen signs that say something like "This house protected by Smith and Wesson". They probably have some deterrent effect in preventing a further robbery.
We keep a neat house but I intentionally leave my body armor, a holster or two, and a box of my self defense ammo clearly marked as "self defense load" where they are readily visible in the master bedroom. I want to send a clear message that the residents are armed in order to deter a follow up robbery if we ever have a burglary.
5) Gun safes and fire protection.
Most gun safes that are sold as fire safes are no where near to being up for the job. They use gypsum and it provides fire protection only until the board starts to crumble, at which point it falls to the bottom between the steel walls and the firearms get charred. The contacts between the inner and outer walls as transfer heat. And the reality is that in a fully involved house fire a 45 or 60 minute heat rating is not where near long enough as the pile of cinders that used to be your house is going to stay hot for hours.
If you truly want fire protection you need to do some very careful research and be prepared to spend serious money.
You might also want to consider building your gun safe into your house, using multiple layers of a wall board (ideally one that will not fall apart in a fire) on top of, around and beneath your safe, and then incorporate it into a door enclosing your gun safe.
Your best bet though is to just make sure you are properly insured against theft and fire and not have to worry about it
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