RESOLVED August 4, 2008
I was wrong about the Walmart wire shelving. It only holds up to 250 lbs per shelf. So I went back to Home Depot and bought a 4 shelf unit that holds 350lbs per shelf. I have it loaded up and it seems to be holding, even with one shelf technically exceeding the max weight (the cans weigh 368 lbs total on that shelf - all have 1,750 rounds of .40 SW).
It will have to do for the moment until this second round of law school apps is done. In the meantime, a locksmith is going to install a lock/bolt on the door. I thought about doing it myself as it looked pretty easy.... but decided to let a locksmith do it because in case I mess up, finding a matching door and restaining to match all of the other doors would be difficult.
the 4 shelf unit at Home Depot is finished in chrome (I wasn't too thrilled about it as I've always thought chrome looked a little tacky, but I didn't care enough to look elsewhere). It's only $67 or so. 5 cans to a shelf fit perfectly. If you put the bottom shelf high enough, the whole thing can hold 25 .50 cal cans including using the floor as a shelf.
I won't get around to building a real ammo cabinet until probably February of next year. August-October of 2008 will be spent working for a government law services office (won't name which one so I don't get myself in trouble with them) as well as putting together law school applications. The rest of October and November will be spent putting up this year's holiday lights and will use all of my spare time, 50,000 lights this year, so it's going to be a lot of all-nighters working on it). January will be spent using my spare time taking down the display. So February seems like that'd be when I'll be able to spend some time doing this right.
