Maybe I got too much safe? Is there such a thing?

Well if it's worth doing it's worth over doing I suppose. I bought and had delivered a Graffunder E7248. This thing is a beast!!! This heavyweight champion of my home weighs in at 5400 lbs (advertised, didn't have my truck scale handy) and has a door construction of 1.5in of solid steel plate. The body is constructed of 1in of solid steel plate and backed by 1.5in of some sort of concrete based fire resistant fill. Inside of that there is a 14ga steel shell separating the fill from the interior. Standing in at 72in tall by 49.5in wide and 29.25in deep (just the box, hinges and lock stick out further) one can imagine this safe is big. The interior of this safe is spacious as well as beautiful and is a tan fake suede lined shelving which my wife thinks feels wonderful to the touch. Nothing fancy on the outside just a textured black paint with the Graffunder logo and silver hardware. A group 1 dial lock by S&G rounds out the package.

Why? Because I can! Being a firearm enthusiast like many on here, guns are an area where I choose to spend a lot of my money. Originally I purchased a Liberty Colonial 23 (labeled Timber Ridge by Gander Mountain) to protect my collection. This "safe" has served me for many years and I still believe would do a reasonable job for even your above average smash and grab burglar who entered your home without a plan.

Well as these things happen my collection has grown in size as well as dollar amount over time. I no longer fit in the Liberty nor did I feel comfortable with the level of protection offered vs dollar amount of items being protected. Enter the decision to purchase a new safe. I decided it would be more cost effective as well as mentally comforting to go ahead and buy once and cry once. This means buying the last safe I hopefully will ever need. As has been recommended, and rightfully so, buy bigger than you need. I took that one step further and bought the biggest they offered. Now this is not a decision taken lightly. I'm sure some of you have shopped for gun safes before and something of this nature is far from cheap and down right cost prohibitive, therefore I financed the purchase like a car, 5 years and it's paid for and should last longer than a vehicle. After looking at the construction of the Graffunder safes and quality of work and craftsmanship that go into them I decided this is what I wanted. I prefer good cold steel vs a composite safe, there's something comforting about steel and lots of it.

My particular safe was an in stock item and had been in stock for some time. It turns out not many folks are in the market for a behemoth E-rate burglary safe (who would have thought) and the owner was more than happy to give me a discounted price so that he may free up some space in his warehouse. Once I cut the check for the safe the fun started. I learned quickly there are not many people equipped nor willing to deliver such a monster and had to get the dealers assistance in finding such a service. There are services who deliver these things but it is usually a commercial delivery with huge entry’s and not much navigating in order to place it. I was asking for a residential delivery and this upped the ante. I’m sure the poor guy who accepted the challenge did it as a favor because he did not seem too thrilled to be doing it and after 7 hours of construction, careful maneuvering, and colorful language he and 4 other guys along with mechanical help had it in place in my home. The price of delivery on this alone was well more than the entire cost of my Liberty plus delivery and bolting down. Alas, this guy earned every cent as my monster broke one of his 5500lbs pallet jacks in the process and dented the steel toe on one guys boot (luckily no injury). I was even advised by this fellow when I sold the home the safe goes with it! I got the impression he doesn’t want to move it again. Despite the careful placement of aluminum structures designed to disperse the weight I ended up with some cracked tile in my entry, I chalk that up to the nature of these things and did not mention it to the movers.

After having my combination set by the locksmith and moving in, my collection only takes up 3/5th of the available space in the safe. I plan on finding a way to disguise this thing, I don’t feel like anyone targeting my home will be able to enter or cart off this thing but the last thing I need is some yahoo having a go at it and activating the relocking devices making it awful inconvenient for me to access my stuff.

So, after the whole experience would I do it again. YES! I sleep better at night knowing my valuables are protected by a real safe, one that makes most gun safes look and feel like something that came out of a happy meal. Is it necessary, probably not. Some people, my wife included, would call me paranoid. I like to think of it as prepared. I’d like to thank Frank and all the other safe experts on here for a valuable education which led me in this direction, keep up the good work guys. As for the non safe experts if you have the budget I recommend a look at Graffunder, I’m not certain I could be happier.

Sorry, I'm not real good with the camera and have no idea what those spots are, the wife is better at photography. As you can see the safe is not the only defense 7yo German Shepherd Dog, Pepper 85lbs, on the left (she's the stable one) and 8mo old German Shepherd mix, Rusty ?lbs, (the crazy one, pretty sure he'll need meds) on the right. Ya, he's gonna get big .

Fargazer said:

If you are comfortable telling us, was the total price (purchase plus installation) north or south of ten grand?

Click to expand...

Either the price of steel has gone up in years since Langenator bought his or they saw me coming. I don't have the sheet in front of me but I think MSRP of the E7248 with fire protection is around $13k. Like I said, I got a bit of a discount but after shelling out an arm and a leg for delivery and state sales tax it came out close to the $15k mark. That's the only thing about this safe that I really didn't like.