I listed my priorities thusly:
Price All the justifications for spending four figures have little meaning if I don’t have that kind of money to spend. Yes, I would love to own a huge gun safe that can withstand a near strike with a thermonuclear warhead, but I need something
now, not in 20 years when I have enough money for one.
Some fire resistance. OK, there hasn’t been a house that burned to the ground here in as long as I can remember. The fire department, unlike the police, has a really fast response time here in the city. All I need is 15 or 20 minutes, tops; then my house get’s flooded by a bunch of bored firemen.
Lock. I wanted an electronic lock for speed of opening, but I wanted a mechanical lock in case a fire melts the keypad or the electronics get jumbled. (The electronic locks have a plastic membrane keypad)
Room enough. I have three long guns and five handguns. I don’t need a vault with a wet bar.
Theft resistance. I don’t need something that will stop a motivated professional team of burglars, I just need something that will stop the normal smash-&-grabber or a teenager. In reality, with a high school only five blocks away, teenagers are my biggest threat. If I lived way out in the country, I might need something that takes a long time and torches to open, but here, no.
I looked at one of the $180 large steel cabinets, the ones with a key lock. That would satisfy my lock requirement since it’s quick and safe from electronic bugs. I didn’t like the lack of fire resistance and there was also a pretty wide gap around the doors. They might keep my kid out, but I had little confidence it would keep out a determined teen or regular burglar.
After a lot of looking I bought
this one for $465 delivered to my house. It’s fire resistant, has an electronic lock with an emergency key backup (to use the key you have to pretty much destroy the electronic lock), thick walls and hard-plate, and at 300 pounds empty, nobody’s going to be toting it away while I’m at work.