Purty soon the safe sellers are going to pop up and tell you the Residential Security Containers (RSC's) you are looking at are NOTHING like the safes they sell and that you have to spend 5 grand to get any protection at all.
Well I'm not a safe seller. Safe sellers are typically gun stores and sporting goods shops that happen to sell safes. I'm a professional locksmith which specializes in safes and vault doors.
Whereas most safe sellers simply sell safes and pass along all of the information they've read in the catalog, I move safes (sometimes weighing thousands and thousands of pounds), install safes, work on and repair safes, and even open them up when they're locked (without combination or after a burglary attempt).
The difference between a safe seller and myself, is that a safe seller can only dream about the 007 type of experiences that I get to live day in and day out.
With that said, it's my professional responsibility not to blow smoke up anybody's rear end. I'm not going to give people information which I know to be false just to make a sale (which many safe sellers do). There's a little thing in the locksmith business known as "ethics", and since safes amount to an "insurance" type of product, the customer should be made well aware of all the facts surrounding their purchase.
I need to purchase a decent gun safe. I'd like to keep the price reasonable, between 1000-2000, but I dont want to skimp and get a junker. What are some good makes?
In that price range, one of the best safes currently on the market is the AMSEC BF series. This isn't one of the best safes because I sell them, it's one of the best safes because of the way it's built. The AMSEC BF series offers a better safe, with better security, than many of the other safes in the same price range.
And what fire rating should I get? I've seen everything from 1200F for 30 minutes to 1550 for 1 hour. Is there really a difference between 1200F and 1550F?
Gun safes are really for the storage of guns, and not everything else the manufacturers claim they are good for. Document safes are UL rated for a reason. Not many gun safes have a UL fire rating. Fire ratings are also not intended to keep the safe's items in pristine condition, but merely to keep them salvagable. I have seen safes with damaged contents after a fire.
A Chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In gun safes, that weakest link is the thin steel often used. When comparing safes for security, the first thing I would look at is the steel. After that, make sure they are using a UL listed lock.
The number of locking bolts or how many sides of the door they are on makes little difference on a gun safe. Again, the thin steel of the safe will rip and tear before a door bolt sheers. Of course a little common sense applies: 5 bolts are better than 1, but 30 is overkill.
As far as locks are concerned, I personally prefer mechanical locks. They tend to be more reliable and last longer than electronic locks. Electronic locks are a lot faster to use, especially under stress, if that's important to you.
In conclusion: some gun safes are better than others, but most of them are not the "holy grail", "I can do everything", "end all be all of safes" that manufacturers make them out to be. Different safes are built for different purposes. Gun safes are built to offer a lower level of security in order to keep firearms out of unauthorized hands. If you have valuables or other important items, you need to look at something besides a gun safe.
