Safes and Secure Storage

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by melbo, Jan 31, 2006.


  1. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Am looking to add to my secure storage at home.

    Firearms need a tall safe.
    For other than Guns, you like "Safe or hidden in plain site" better?

    thoughts?
    Suggestions?
     
  2. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    After my breaking this past fall, I vote safe, safe, and another safe. Heck, I wish I had put everything I "used to own" into the safe. Now, its sort of like locking the barn door after, etc, etc, etc.
     
  3. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    If possible I would say a combination of the two would be the very best option, inother words a safe that is hidden in plane sight, or not so plane of sight. I have seen some of them that are a couch and you pull off the cushions, raise a lid and then open the door of the safe. Something like that I think would be a prime choice since anyone breaking in is unlikely to look in the couch and if they do then they have to move take it with them or get into it.
    I used to know a FFL in the city who had been broken into several times. The first time may or may not have had a safe, the next time he had them in a safe, the people took the whole safe guns and all. Next time he got a bigger safe and bolted it to the floor and wall, they brought a tourch with them and cut the door off the safe and took the guns. He finnaly found a way that he never got another gun stolen. He had concrete front pourch about 3 1/2 feet tall and had rebar in it and so on that was solid, so he went into the basement under the pourch and went throught the wall there and opened it up and built a small room there the size of the front pourch (about 5'x6') with steel reinforced concrete walls. Then he went and found a door to a bank vault with the steel frame and put it in as the door to the room and welded the rebar in the concrete walls of the basement to the frame. He then went on the inside of the vault door and drilled a few holes andtapped them for bolts and poured about 40 pounds of gunpowder into the open space in the middle of the door! :shock: After that anyone wanting into his guns either had to know the combo, use a jackhammer and a few hours to go through the pourch or digg down and take a jackhammer through the walls (also useing a tourch on the rebar for either of these) or if they tried to use a tourch or drill the door leave a big crater where the house used to be. He made sure folks who knew what was there knew the security measures and IIRC even ended up putting a note on the door of the vault stateing that it was filled with powder (which would be gone if it blew and could have claimed to have just had the powder stored inside ;) ) and he never had another problem after that.
    While the powder might be a bit extream if you have a basement and a cement pourch where it would be a major job to get through then putting a small room under it and comeing uup with a bank vault door might cost somewhat more than a smaller safe or 2 but you shouldnt need any more room than that for all the goodies and should also be about the most fireproof and burglar proof system you could get, then if you can set say a pivoting shelf in front of it or some such so no one even knows where to try to get into then all the better.
     
  4. sniper-66

    sniper-66 Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Safe inside a vault will give you a magnificent feeling, but you also gotta have a security system and one big F'ing dog! Also have a camera system that takes really nice mug shot quality video and have the recorder hidden somewhere that they will never find it!
     
  5. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I like the idea melbo had on the camera of haveing the feed go to the internet so that there is no recorder on the premises. That and of coarse at least one or 2 of the less pricey thunder sticks that stays out of the vault for things that go bump in the night, last thing you want is to have to try to get to a vault and remember and work the combo so you can get to a gun if theres someone coming through the door or window.
     
  6. sniper-66

    sniper-66 Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    What I don't like about the internet is that if someone can cut the line, they just cut your recording. That is why I have mine well hidden in the house. I also don't keep all my guns in the vault. My insurance will cover up to $2K on guns, so I keep $2K worth out and around the house for protection.
     
  7. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    I think it's almost impossible to stop a determined thief without taking extreme measures.
    Maybe Severed Heads on stakes along the drive?

    I'm leaning not a safe but hidden nonetheless for small valuables. Most of the safes I see these dys that are under the $1500 do not look like the safes my father used to have. Every 'gun safe' I see these days at shows looks cheap too.

    I like the powder idea. I had thought about some similar measures myself.
     
  8. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Mmmm---. Booby traps for the boobies. Not a bad thought, but only for SHTF situations, otherwise chances are pretty good you won't need a safe, 'cause you'll be in one. (I haven't figured out how to get around that yet.)
     
  9. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Well if its a gun safe just hang an explosives paquard (sp?) on it and if it goes boom you just say you had all your reloading suplies in it.
    On the small valuables you can always get the things like the shaveing cream can that the bottom comes off of and stuff like that that you put the stuff in and put it in the cabnet or in spice jars or whatever, basicly stuff that thievs dont tend to be interested in.
    Especialy in a more rural area you could also do kind of like some of the ideas I had seen posted somewhere to avoid trespassers like signs around the property that warn that trespassers will be shot then just inside the fence here and there dig up the ground and mound it up to resemble fresh graves and maybe go to the local butcher shop and get some big soup bones and such to have sticking out of the ground here and there.
     
  10. Seacowboys

    Seacowboys Senior Member Founding Member

    Several years ago, I was bothered with someone stealing firewood from my cabin and decided to do something to help out. I augered a hole into a couple of pieces and put a 12 guage shell into each of them. SUre nuff...few nights later someone helped themselves to some of my wood pile and a day of two later there was an unexpected fire in the house of some low-white trash that lived a mile down the road and I wasn't bothered by wood thieves again.
     
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