How do you keep/store your S&Ws

[Ironhand]

Either in an empty Crown Royal bag in the safe, or in an old canvas Webley holster inside my bedroom closet hanging from a coat hook if I think I need to keep it close by. The gun is wiped down with a thin coat of either CLP or GI gun oil, so I'm not worried about rusting.

 

[Tom K]

Typical gun safe interiors are poorly designed for handgun storage. There are usually just a few shelves as if the average gun owner has 20 rifles and shotguns, but only five or six handguns. You can usually add more shelves, but they have to be spaced far enough apart to be able to reach to the back and there's a lot of wasted space.

I've tried most of the things suggested in this thread - socks, gun rugs, in the box, racks, etc. Most of them have the drawback of not being able to see your guns, and that's one of the pleasures of ownership. Most of these schemes also make it difficult to locate and get to any given individual gun.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and build a safe interior just for handgun storage. (I now have a separate safe for my long guns, and more handgun storage in the future - if I need it!) I gutted my old safe and built an interior with drawers on heavy duty, full-extension ball bearing slides, and actually just got finished with it this evening. I haven't lined the drawers or arranged my guns in it yet, but I did fill up one drawer just to take a picture. There is essentially zero space between the drawer fronts and the inside of the safe door when it's closed, nor any space behind the drawers. I had to spend a couple of hours tweaking the drawer slides to get the door to shut without forcing it.

Each drawer's interior dimensions are 18" deep by 19-3/8" wide, and about two inches tall. One drawback is that the drawers can't be any wider than the door opening (or course!). Gun safes are always made with a wide lip on each side so there's a fair amount of wasted volume on each side of the stack. It's a tradeoff.

Now I'll actually be able to see what I've got, and get to them easily when I want to go shooting. I'll number the drawers and stick an index on the inside of the safe door. All I have to figure out now is how to categorize them....

 

[gdogs]

I like the Hyskore modular foam racks as well. The nice thing about them is that you can take them apart and with long threaded rods put them back together in the length and variety that you need. I have one that runs the entire length of the top shelf of my safe and a few singles/doubles where I can fit them on the lower half. Also handy are the Handgun Hangers, they significantly increased my safe's handgun capacity.

 

[calle37]

Loaded and at hand 24/7

 

[opaul]

Museum Quality-but what about ammo.

Very Nice TomK! I like that.
Now, where do you put all the ammo for those guns? Right now, I've been putting ammo in the bottom of my gun safe but I'm running out of room quick.

 

[Knightrider03m]

I carry all of the handguns that I shoot. After I clean them I place it back in the safe OR in my hostler if I am going to carry it soon. Both my snub nose and my M&P9c stay inside their pocket holsters.

 

[Tom K]

.... I haven't lined the drawers or arranged my guns in it yet, but I did fill up one drawer just to take a picture....

Addendum - I now have the drawers lined with some nice green velvet. I wanted something classier than shelf paper and I had a roll of this on hand. I didn't want to stick it directly to the drawer bottoms (in case it got stained, or I got tired of the color or whatever). So, I cut out pieces of 1/8" thick hard fiberboard that just fit the bottom of the drawers and coated them with spray adhesive. Then I laid them on the velvet, and cut around the edges with a utility knife.

Result, a nice removable bottom layer. It's actually a bit nicer looking in real life than it shows in the picture. Probably about as close as I'm ever going to get to having a Victorian style "gun room".

Now if I decide to redo some of the drawers in S&W blue it'll be easy to change.

Very Nice TomK! I like that.
Now, where do you put all the ammo for those guns? Right now, I've been putting ammo in the bottom of my gun safe but I'm running out of room quick.

Ammo goes in my very old, original Treadlock gun safe. It's just heavy gauge sheet metal with no fire protection or other lining.

One thing I did do was line the inside of the door surround of the ammo safe with LED rope lights. It provides a nice soft and even illumination so that I can see what I'm looking for without having to resort to a flashlight or such.

 

[JDW250]

Addendum - I now have the drawers lined with some nice green velvet. I wanted something classier than shelf paper and I had a roll of this on hand. I didn't want to stick it directly to the drawer bottoms (in case it got stained, or I got tired of the color or whatever). So, I cut out pieces of 1/8" thick hard fiberboard that just fit the bottom of the drawers and coated them with spray adhesive. Then I laid them on the velvet, and cut around the edges with a utility knife.

Result, a nice removable bottom layer. It's actually a bit nicer looking in real life than it shows in the picture. Probably about as close as I'm ever going to get to having a Victorian style "gun room".

Now if I decide to redo some of the drawers in S&W blue it'll be easy to change.

You, sir, are a genius! I just picked up a this gun safe for my modest collection of long guns and hand guns. I'm no where near the level of collector as the majority on this board, in either quantity or value. So I don't need near the space as most of you do. I put my most common shooters out in the open on a shelf. My other handguns are stored in their original cases at the bottom of the safe. After I filled her up (note I don't have everything in at the time of this picture), I immediately noticed the wasted space/limited access issue. You're post has my hamster spinning the wheel to overload. I'm thinking I could install something similar on a smaller scale (i.e. a lower quadrant of my safe). I think I'll be making a trip to the hardware store a little for some supplies.

 

[LOBO]

Sack-ups for my handguns.

 

[SC_Slowhand]

Tom K.

Brillant and some great craftmanship in the construction of the drawers. Definately some food for though concerning any future acquisitions I may have.

 

[ladder13]

Tom, tell us more, I like that setup alot. What are the drawer rails attached to and how? Is that a plywood frame inside the safe and how is it built to handle the weight? questions, question.

 

[Tom K]

Tom, tell us more, I like that setup alot. What are the drawer rails attached to and how? Is that a plywood frame inside the safe and how is it built to handle the weight? questions, question.

I kind of did it the hard way. Because I wanted to use absolutely every bit of volume available in the safe, I precut the pieces that make up the outside of the cabinet and assembled them inside the safe. That way the sides are farther apart than the width of the door opening, and the drawers are wide enough to just clear. Same way with the height – the bottom drawer just clears the bottom lip of the safe and the top drawer likewise, with the top and bottom of the framework inside the upper and lower lips of the opening. It frustrates me that there is wasted volume on each side of the assembly that I can’t use, but I just couldn’t figure out any way to make that space accessible.

The framework is ¾” particle board spray painted dark gray and the drawers are ½” birch plywood, with 1/8” birch plywood bottoms. The drawers are all screwed and glued, edges routed, sanded, stained and sealed. I pre-assembled the drawer slide pieces to the framework sides before I put them in the safe so that I could lay them down flat to work on them. The slides are held by three screws each. There’s a brace piece I added in the middle just to make sure that the sides wouldn’t bow out, but that was probably unnecessary overkill. All the framework parts are held together with simple L brackets, and the sides are attached to the back of the safe with L brackets for stability.

This could be done more simply than I did it, if a person were to just build a cabinet of drawers that would fit through the safe door opening. Any reasonably skilled person or custom cabinet maker could put something like that together without much trouble. Just measure the door opening and depth of the inside of the safe (accounting for the door thickness!), make the outside dimensions of your cabinet ¼” or so less, and work from there. When it’s all built, lay in some boards in the bottom of the safe to match the height of the bottom of the door opening, and slide it in. Done. BUT, you would not be maximizing use of the available volume as I did. As with most things, it’s a tradeoff.

I made another set of drawers for the bottom of my other safe that holds my long guns. It’s six feet tall and consequently much taller than needed for rifles and shotguns. I measured my longest guns and figured I could fill the bottom 16” or so with seven more drawers. The long guns simply sit on top of the drawer cabinet. I made the top out of ¾” plywood which I feel is more robust than particle board, and put carpet on it to protect the gun butts.

 

[OLDSTER]

storage

All of my guns are stored in a silicone sock and stored in a zip up gun rug. Or the original box it came in.

Same here. Silicone socks and gun rugs.

 

[ladder13]

Thanks, looks like you did a great job. I like the sliding drawer concept much better than just piling guns on top of one another(like I do, with Bore Stores ), makes access and finding what you want easier.

 

[dores585]

Bore-Stores for all the pistols, long guns, and some mags.

 

[kdailey]

I use a variety of storage racks. I once had them stored in gun socks, and stacked on the shelves, but to hard to find what you are looking for. Stored in the racks, easy access. Before storing they are cleaned and Ren Waxed. Heat Rod and some dessicant in all my safes. Put a Humidity Gauge in the safes and keep 45-55%.

 

[shawn mccarver]

When you aren't shooting, fondling or otherwise handling your gun; what it is best way to keep them looking good. Is keeping the gun in a holster a bad idea? How about keeping them in gun socks? I keep my M37 in a mini crown royal bag

Anyone have any plans for the racks like they use at S&W? It looks like 5 of these racks fit on each shelf of the cart. It is hard to tell, but it looks like each rack may hold up to 8 or 10 revolvers. If you have sufficient space, storage in this standing position seems to make good sense.

Here is a picture from this forum.

 

[texagun]

Logictox, those cases look like a good way to organize and protect your revolvers from damage, but I caution you on the potential for corrosion. The foam cushioning in those types of containers tend to attract and retain moisture/humidity, and can do some nasty things to your nice guns.

My thoughts exactly. I use those cases for transportation but would never use them for long-term storage. The potential for the foam retaining moisture is moderately high and I have read of damage to bluing from being in contact with that kind of foam. As many others have recommended, I use EEZOX and Bore-Stores for long-term storage.

 

[Timber Wolf]

Clean "holy" cotton socks mostly. Some in the door panel holder (all loaded and ready to go) and the lucky guns in Borestores. The ones I am actually shooting are just thrown in nekkid on top of the socks.

 

[TexasRider]

All of mine get a wipe with lambs wool and a shot of G96 on it. Then they go into Boyt canvas cases with the cushioned lined interiors. They stay nice too.

Thare are a lot of nice options here too.