Horizontal Gun Safes

There are, there are underbed boxes, there are 'box spring' boxes
BUT, putting the door on top open it up to easy leverage attacks
just buy a contractor box and be happy or put a safe on it's back if you are so dead set on it. See that does the same thing.

Have fun opening or closing the door. In any safe that worthwhile, the door is going to be really heavy. So if it's on its back, it'll be difficult to open. If its horizontal, either the door is going to be ridiculously long and unwieldy in order to swing out enough to open, or it will have to hinge from the top or bottom. Once again, the weight becomes a factor.

1) Don't want my gun safe in the garage, where it makes it unlikely to get to my guns in a defense situation.

Click to expand...

Bolt a big safe down in the garage, and get a handgun safe for the emergency situation. You won't have time to get to more than one gun in a defense situation. Put one in your bedside table, or better yet, a shotgun somewhere handy. I wouldn't want to fiddle with my safes in the middle of the night, nor would I have time to deal with safes if someone kicks in the door.

Have fun opening or closing the door. In any safe that worthwhile, the door is going to be really heavy. So if it's on its back, it'll be difficult to open. If its horizontal, either the door is going to be ridiculously long and unwieldy in order to swing out enough to open, or it will have to hinge from the top or bottom. Once again, the weight becomes a factor.

Click to expand...

It would take very little engineering to overcome this problem. Think about how many car's hoods are opened and held open....but I like the attitude...


Also, I would be uncomfortable keeping my guns in a garage. Harder to control temperature, humidity, etc...and in many cases it just means fewer walls/security devices between your things and the world. Granted, if somebody wants in badly enough, they're going to get there, but I'll settle for keeping the honest people honest, and dealing with the rest if they choose to come in...

I went with the "contractor box" option (Easy choice as I had a leftover one and 'free' is pretty dang cheap).

I put it crossways under the foot of the bed and made a platform from 1.5 inch steel piping from the local home improvement store. It even pivots at the head end and I made a prop to keep the platform in the air while the lids open.
Granted, I needed the largest size coverlet I could find, but it looks good, if a little 'industrial'.

I'm picturing a locking cabinet* that takes a whole bunch of long guns horizontally in a way that the butts are presented to the guy opening the door.
Then gun length/height wouldn't matter, so long as they fit between the door and rear wall, a slight angle would allow some seriously long guns in a 4' deep cabinet.

Bolt a handgun safe to the top for the little ones, I suppose.

Might not be what you're looking for, but thanks for giving me an idea!



* (not a "safe", just a sturdy locking steel box)

I have always wanted to build a heavy plywood box on wheels that rolls under the bed. It wouldn't cost much. You could make it out of cabinet grade plywood and finish it real nice.

Add a combo lock waiting for the last number, or a keyed lock with the key hidden somewhere very close.

how about a set of used full height Gym Lockers turned on its side

It would take very little engineering to overcome this problem. Think about how many car's hoods are opened and held open....but I like the attitude..

Click to expand...

Well, I was referring to putting a safe as they are currently made on its back - but it's a good point.

I don't know about other safes, but my Browning safes have a door think enough that you need to open it further than 90 degrees to really get full access to it. Any engineering solution would certainly eat up a lot of valuable space in the safe, and I don't think I'd want to trust it. I've had a hood slam shut on my hand once. A safe door would probably shear it off.

A cabinet, lock box, contractor box, ect, are not even close to the same league as a real safe. Those wouldn't be a big deal.

snakyjake said:

Why aren't there horizontal gun safes?

I'm trying to select a gun safe, and here's the problems I'm running into:

1) Don't want my gun safe in the garage, where it makes it unlikely to get to my guns in a defense situation.

2) I don't have a basement.

3) Vertical safes are too obvious.

4) Medium size vertical safes are too easy to knock over. I also don't like the idea of bolt things through my floor or wall.

5) I want my gun safe(s) in the most likely areas I'll need them...the bedroom is ideal.

6) Some safes are way too difficult to move because of weight, size, hallway, stairs.

I liked bedbunker, but I can't carry nor fit the safe through my hallway.

I think a modular horizontal gun safe would be the perfect solution. Other than that, I have to consider wood trunks (but the locking mechanism is really poor).

It seems there would be a huge market for people like me. But perhaps I'm too few.

Jake

Click to expand...

1) Your defensive gun should not be locked up in a safe. When you need a gun, you need it now, not in several seconds after you decide there is a threat, then open the safe and find it.

2) OK

3) Safes don't have to be out in the open. They can be under stairs or in closets or behind false walls.

4) A safe that isn't bolted down is doing half a thief's job for him: concentrating all your valuables in one easy to grab container. Whatever you do either bolt it down or don't bother.

5) Put a gun in your bedroom. Are you imagining using all your guns in a defensive situation?

6) Nothing is too hard for professionals to move.


For security from theft you have two options: either make the guns difficult to find, or make the container they're in difficult to get into/move. If somebody can walk into your house, find your cabinet with all the guns in it and wheel it out on a dolly in five minutes flat, what good have you done? You have increased the speed at which a thief can steal your valuables; the less time they spend inside your house, the less likely they are to be caught.

Most "Safes" on the market today are only good enough to keep the honest folks honest. A determined thief with a gas powered cut off saw can open your safe like a sardine can in about 20 minutes. Cheap import safes can be peeled apart at the edges with an ax.

If you are planning to concentrate all your valuables in a box and then not secure it to anything, you would seriously do better to consider just hiding your guns around the house. At least then theft of everything would take a long time.

I had an old simple footlocker style steel case - not up to safe or even serious RSC grade but stouter than a security cabinet - made by Treadlock. I don't think they are still available. Its shielded key lock arrangement would sure make it slow on the draw for a home defense weapon.

Lecturing aside, I heard a rumor that Fort Knox was making exactly the type of safe you're talking about, but I can't locate it on their website. It was more on the line of a single handgun safe but several feet long to slide rifles and shotguns in from the end.

They're mentioned at the end of this video.

Your defensive gun should not be locked up in a safe.

Click to expand...

It needs to be locked up in some way.

Click to expand...

I'm interested to hear what makes you think this is true.

I also don't like the idea of bolt things through my floor or wall.

Click to expand...

If your safe isn't bolted down, all you have done is conveniently packaged you guns for transport by anyone breaking into your home.

about ten years ago, when I had just moved into a new apartment, and trying to figure out where to put my RSC (it was in my brothers garage at the time), I noticed a neighbor trying to hand truck a filing cabinet down his front steps, and offered to give him a hand.

When I got a better look at it, and found out he was trying to decide between putting it in the garage and putting it at the curb, I offered him fifty bucks, and he told me I could have it free if I took it right then. I did.

It was a 42 inch two drawer Lateral Filing Cabinet (like this:http://www.officemax.com/office-fur...ies/lateral-file-cabinets/product-prod3570162) and it fit most of my rifles. It locked, and when I got home from work two days later I found my then girlfriend had put a bench top on it and set it up as a computer desk.

Not a 'safe' but as good as many RSCs, and it didn't LOOK like a safe. I wish I still had it. I've seen them on Craigslist a few times for <$200.00, and I keep thinking I'll get another one of these days.

The lateral file idea is a good one with regard to camouflage. It would be neat if one of the safe manufacturers ran with the idea and built a safe in that configuration.

I had forgotten about that Amsec. They are an excellent company and there isn't anything unusual about a cedar chest at the foot of the bed.

I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I found it quite informative myself.

I think part of the problem with horizontal storage in a box is the accumulation of humidity. Yes, that can be dealt with. You are placing your firearms at the lowest point in a room where the air it traditionally the coldest or warmest depending on your heating and cooling needs.

Any gun that you expect to be available in a crisis needs to be very accessible, and probably not in a large safe, box, etc. Children can be an issue. A two prong approach is probably warranted. Most stuff stored in the "box" and some placed in selected locations. Don't let them walk around the room... like my wife does with a can opener or scissors in my kitchen. I can never find this stuff when I need it.

snakyjake said:

#1 Kids.
#2 Not wanting a burglar to have access to my guns as I'm coming home.

Click to expand...

You assume I have kids at home. Not all solutions apply to all. My defensive gun is never locked up. It is either on my hip, or in my bedside holster. Always under my control.
The antis have conditioned some to think their ideas are the right ones. Educating your kids about guns goes way farther than a lock. Sooner or later a curious child will figure a way to get in to them. An educated one knows that if he does, he will never get to shoot them again, or that they can seriously cause harm.

Surely there is an Amsec dealer out there somewhere that still has one of those horizontal decorative gun safes in stock.
Just know though that they are only 14 gauge steel and it uses a formed door.
So IF the bad guy discovers that it's just not an upolstered bench to sit on but truely a safe he has the benefit of getting a great amount of prying leverage on it because it's already laying down unlike a bolted down vertical normal gun safe.
That's of course if he's carrying a three foot or longer crow bar or finds one at your house.
Ironically I now own(and it's locked away) a 24 inch crow bar that was left behind by the last guy who used it to break into my house.

Edit to add...They are 14 gauge metal construction rather than the 12 gauge I previously stated.
The older ones were 12 gauge.