Need Advice on a "Safe": Amsec v. Sturdy v. Other?

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I own two AMSEC safes and think they are money well spent. They were fine when I bolted them to a wood floor in a hundred year old house and they are fine on concrete.

Buy more safe than you need and it will be money well spent.
 
Waterhouse:

I got a sturdy too, but went with the fire-lining. Pleased with it immensely. Great customer service. I wish they'd have maybe put a little more effort/materials in the handle to improve its quality though. Botched the tricky corner decals too. All in all satisfied.
 
Do any reasonable safes offer ANY protection from a torch or plasma cutter?

I am planning to build my own safe, but everytime I look at how compact my plasma cutter is, and how cheap they are, I get discouraged.

I thought I read about a layer of material inside some safes that burns with a noxious smoke when the steel is cut with a torch, but i could never find out what that coating was.

Any info or ideas would be appreciated!

Bob
 
Do any reasonable safes offer ANY protection from a torch or plasma cutter?

If by reasonable you mean cheap, then no. However, there are plenty of reasonably priced safes that are designed to do this, probably starting in the $8,000 range.

Small plasma cutters don't cut thick steel well. Many of these safes use thicker steel plates with copper behind them to disperse the heat of a torch.

Modern composite safes use "concrete" fill materials which are naturally resistant to heat.

Keep in mind that most safes designed to thwart serious attacks are going to house serious valuables. We have customers that will spend $100,000 on a safe without blinking an eye.

It's an ongoing joke that we share with our customers, but your best bet is to lock up your tools (inside of the safe). Most criminals are not carrying plasma cutters with them. They will either take the entire safe to where they have the tools, or use the tools found near your safe. If they can't get to your tools, you're already one step ahead.
 
This thread confirms my theory that you either go cheap (e.g., Stack On) or go for the gold (e.g., AMSEC, Sturdy Safe, etc.).

Messing around with safes in between is a waste of money if you take a few moments to analyze the situation.

Fire Protection... For me in California, only an over-the-top security system could protect my belongings against a California fire. I'll bet some others have not stopped to think about the severity of a real house fire.

Theft Protection... I figure I'm dealing with either an non-dedicated thief or a dedicated thief. A dedicated thief can get into almost anything, but will have trouble with the top quality safes. That's fine. I have a lower-end safe with insurance. A smash-and-grab thief isn't going to mess with a Stack-On safe that's well-bolted down and in an inconvenient location.

With my cheaper safe, I still keep out kids, wandering guests, and non-dedicated thieves, and I save thousands.
 
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I appreciate the continuation of this topic as I haven't yet made a decision on which safe I'm going to purchase. Thanks to all participants and especially to a1abdj and Sturdy Safe.
 
It's an ongoing joke that we share with our customers, but your best
bet is to lock up your tools (inside of the safe). Most criminals are not carrying plasma cutters with them. They will either take the entire safe to where they have the tools, or use the tools found near your safe. If they can't get to your tools, you're already one step ahead.
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Not such a joke, I have a GS-6 combination file safe cabinet in my shop for just that purpose. I was able to fit my 10 ton hydraulic ram kit, my portable plasma cutter and the extension cords that could reach my gun's secure storage from my 220 50 amp outlets in the shop so they won't be able to just roll the bigger cutter through the house and use it. I set a pepper spray bomb in the shop that'll make anything that moves in there too miserable to break into that file safe.

It's tough for anyone to justify the expenses of really good secure safes. Most of the gunsafes on the market are just not worth their $1000. - $3000. pricetags and there's no single answer to burglary anyway. No safe that will stop a determined and knowledgable burglar. Don't assume that all home invasions are committed by dufus druggies with skinny white needle tracked arms. There are people who make a career of it and act like professionals do in other technical fields.

Adjust your thinking to compensate for not wanting to budget a jewelry store vault like safe. I've been turning my whole house into a maelstrom - a burglar's bad day.


I've set up a combination of secured areas, a network of misery I like to call it.

I've put grade 2 locks on every door in the house so they think there's something good to steal in each closet and bathroom. I bought fifteen keyed alike Schlage entry locks in ebay for $14. each shipped and have them on every door in this house - even the linen closet. We don't, of course, lock them when home. I just liked the idea of the burglar having to do his burglary thing over and over, just to find out what's behind the door.

Use solid doors, not hollow cores and put grade 1 deadbolts - preferably two of them at entry points. Take a look at a device called "The Ultimate Lock".

A good alarm system with sirens and bright strobes coming from at least one place in every room. 'Burglar Bombs' at selected locations where you want extra deterance. It's really amazing what kind of thing you can do if you put together your own alarm, and there's full time monitoring available for about $9.00 a month that's at least as good and probably better than anything provided by the major players for four times as much on contract.

My "den" or inside shop, or whatever this is called has the gunsafe and IS the gunsafe too.. I got tired of having to lock up my beauties every time we left. I've been building this room up over five years to be the most secure area in a pretty secure house and I think that by the time some burglar gets to this room he'll be half crazy from noise, flashing lights, locks everywhere and his own frazzled nerves that he'll take one look at the door that looks like a mideivel oak and steel bolted together torture chamber door that he'll decide to forget it and haul out of here if he still has time before the cops get here.

If someone breaks into my house while my wife, dog, and I are gone they're going to think they fell into the depths of Hell. The cops will catch them at the bottom of my driveway and be forced to 5150 them because of their incoherent babbling, their deafness, and their inability to breath.

If I could use concussion grenades without wrecking things in here they'd be bleeding out of their ears too.


I've made a hobby out of my imaginary burglar's miserable encounter here, and keep adding new traps as I think them up. :)
 
I just bought a American Security 6030 gun safe and during the installation the locksmiths had to take the inner door panel off. It was to my dismay that I saw that the hinge side 1 1/2 diameter locking bolts were just stubs bolted onto the surface with a 3/8 inch bolt holding each one into place. In short, on the hinge side there just 5, 3/8 inch effective bolts plus the external hinges for security. The 10 "massive locking bolts" seem to be an advertising ploy when in reality there just 5 bolts engaging the inner door frame opposite the hinge . Is this something that I should address or not worry about it?
 
Rustinorygun:

I would be very angry about this and attempt to get some sort of restitution from the manufacturer.

If I am looking at the correct AMSEC model, your safe has external hinges. It does not offer much security if there are no hing-side locking bolts. All you have to do is saw the hinges, and the safe is open.

I saw AMSEC's specs on their website stating that there was TEN locking bolts. Having only five seems really dishonest and fraudulent.

Sorry this had to happen.

Bob
 
I just bought a American Security 6030 gun safe and during the installation the locksmiths had to take the inner door panel off. It was to my dismay that I saw that the hinge side 1 1/2 diameter locking bolts were just stubs bolted onto the surface with a 3/8 inch bolt holding each one into place. In short, on the hinge side there just 5, 3/8 inch effective bolts plus the external hinges for security. The 10 "massive locking bolts" seem to be an advertising ploy when in reality there just 5 bolts engaging the inner door frame opposite the hinge . Is this something that I should address or not worry about it?

This is very common among all safe manufacturers. Dead bolts (which are locking, but not live) are commonly welded or bolted onto the door frame.

To know if it matters, you would need to know the shear strength of the bolts. I'll tell you this: A common nail usually has a sheer strength of thousands of pounds. From a quick google search, I'm getting numbers ranging from 7,500 pounds to 8,200 pounds for 3/8" bolts.

In other words, those five 3/8" bolts will withstand anywhere from 35,000 to 40,000 pounds of force. I doubt the door frame would.

Whether a safe has 2" bolts or 1/4" bolts really doesn't matter. In almost every case, the frame is weaker than the door bolts.

I would be very angry about this and attempt to get some sort of restitution from the manufacturer.

Restitution for what?

If I am looking at the correct AMSEC model, your safe has external hinges. It does not offer much security if there are no hing-side locking bolts. All you have to do is saw the hinges, and the safe is open.

There are 5 bolts on the hinge side, each being secured with a threaded bolt to the door frame. I don't know why they aren't welded, but I would venture to guess that the bolt method provides greater strength than a surface weld.

I saw AMSEC's specs on their website stating that there was TEN locking bolts. Having only five seems really dishonest and fraudulent.

There are 5 live locking bolts on the opening side, and 5 dead locking bolts on the hinge side. All ten are accounted for.
 
a1abdj:

Sorry- I misunderstood what Rustinorygun meant when he said "stubs bolted to the surface". I thought they were cosmetic only, not dead locking bolts.

Either way, the 3/8" bolts would not be loaded in pure shear. The hinge side door frame would not be able to constrain the locking bolts to remain perpendicular with the door frame. The load on these bolts would tend to load the 3/8" bolts primarily in a tension mode, where they are resisting a force applied 90 degrees to the long axis of the bolt. This force would attempt to rock the large locking bolt away from the surface that it is bolted to, loading the 3/8" bolts in tension.

This design may very well be strong enough, but Rustinorygun obviously thought he was getting live bolts all around, and was disappointed. I guess more information while shopping is a good thing....

Bob
 
I knew that the 'dead' bolts were just that, dead. I just thought that with the reputation Amsec has that they would be anchored in more of a stout manner, ie; bored through the frame of the door to and then anchored to make more use of the cross sectional area and create more resistance to tear out. Granted the bolt may have a 6000+ psi tensile but you have to look at the steel that the head of the bolt engages (thickness X surface area) I see that as the weak point.
 
It is a weak point, but you have to look it at in context.

Tool rated safes using 1" A36 solid plate are only rated to 60,000 lbs of applied force (don't quote me on this, as I'm going from memory). Most criminals aren't carrying around equipment capable of this. The closest you're going to see is a porta power, and there's not a lot of gun safes that are going to to be able to stop that.

There are many safes with real burglar ratings that use similar construction methods. I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.
 
For the record, I think just about every time I've had a customer standing behind me when I've removed the door cover, they've been disappointed. I think they're expecting something similiar to the round bank vault doors with all of the gears.

It doesn't really matter what type of safe it is, or who makes it. Although they function as intended, they certainly don't look impressive. You also get to see some interesting things that aren't visable on the outside. Things like inferior welds, boot prints on the fireboard where they kicked it in place because it fit poorly, and bent, incorrect, or completely missing parts.
 
Fella's;

One thing that's easy to check for, and makes a huge protective difference is this: Is the frame that the bolts lock up behind plate steel, or folded sheet metal?

If you've seen the Youtube video "Security On Sale", you've seen a graphic demonstration of how ineffective a sheet metal frame is. If it doesn't immediately and obviously look like plate, it almost certainly isn't. IMHO, what the container then is, is a high-priced locker.

900F
 
Is the Amsec BF frame that the bolts lock up behind plate steel or folded sheet metal? Thanks.
 
Is the Amsec BF frame that the bolts lock up behind plate steel or folded sheet metal? Thanks.

It's folded 10 gauge steel, but it's not the same as most of the other gun safes.

On the AMSEC, the steel folds back into, and is secured into, the body of the safe. The "shape" it makes is filled with the same fill material that is in the rest of the body.

It is very rigid, and much stronger than your typical gun safe configuration.
 
Having worked in several types of industrial environments that did everything from metal fabrication to high-voltage control systems, it seems to be the way to go is layered protection.

While lethal booby traps are generally frowned upon, I wonder what the option to use CS/OC and an extremely high-voltage microamp capacitance system would excite in terms of legal objections?

How about:

1) A good RSC with lockable hold down bolts in heavy and unwieldy supports, say some I-Beams or U-Channel that can fit through a closet door and be turned 90 degrees to slide in place, but cannot be removed without unlocking the bolts from underneath - use Grade 8 bolts, put high-strength padlocks through holes drilled through. Hard to get to, hard to manuever tools around inside a close area.

2) A simple timer and digital keypad would give you off/on control or use IR motion-sensors and pressure mats to start the arming timer.

3) However you activate the arming control, if the door opens - they get a CS/OC grenade or two inside the safe - mess to clean up, but makes the contents hard to handle even if the chemicals don't get to their skin and face. Keep anything valuable in Blue Bags or similar.

4) Put a simple steel mesh net on sliders in front of the door, make sure the grounding to the floor is done correctly

5) Moving the mesh triggers an electrical discharge - anything from a Tesla coil high-energy arc that only frightens to a modulated wave similar to a Taser discharge that disables. Of course, you better have your ammo and flammables in a Faraday box. If you want to be cute, just put a Taser behind a sheet of tissue paper and trigger it when any weapon in the gun rack is pulled out. Just the Taser dart packs with an appropriate trigger and power source connection would offer multiple angles of attack.

6) ALL of this depends on your being very aware of the devices, having some not so obvious way of telling if it is armed (pulse the alarm, blink the lights in the room, LED somewhere you can see it if you look). Test, test and test again your arming circuits! Then test every few months, etc. Use that light/dehumidifier outlet to plug in a rechargeable power source with a surge protector and quick disconnect if pulled or a power surge occurs so no tampering by trying to burn out the system through the power connection will work.

7) Also, this is obviously not for quick access. However, unlocking the safe and punching in a 6-digit code or using a fingerprint pad takes seconds.

Sounds a bit elaborate, but if you have ever worked with digital timers and controls, it shouldn't take more than a few hours to construct. Depending on how elaborate you get, you could spend a couple of hundred or several thousand - smart sensors, thermal detectors, etc. - cheaper to buy a serious safe once you go giddy at the electronics store. Cheap FLIR and a processor/controller is still several thousand bucks. Having a nice shreiking siren in an inhabited neighborhood with multiple triggers may work; if it is a business or not within hearing distance of neighbors - perhaps a standard cell or telephone alarm attached to the motion sensors/pressure mat/window sensors/etc. to call whomever.

Too bad pressure plate triggered AP mines are considered overkill by the legal establishment, but if one must compromise . . .

Then there's always a heavy-duty hysteresis circuit around the door, but your power bills would be astronomical if you ran it full time. Not to mention it would have to put out a serious field to work as the guns were being moved through it. Simpler to just wire an old transformer to the safe itself and spray highly conductive fluid (something like sulfuric acid or potassium hydroxide, maybe) from a fire-suppression nozzle. Again, you'd want to build a Faraday box to isolate the guns. Darn it - I bet there's some silly rule against that, too.
 
I also want to thank you guys for the professionalism and patience in answering all these questions. I feel pretty informed about what I'm about to purchase as a result, Much obliged.
 
Sarj / Justindo.
Any update on the purchase? Curious which one you went with as I am also trying to decide.
 
I know I'm coming a bit late to this thread, but wanted to mention that I bought a Sturdy safe about a month ago and have been completely happy with it. Their website does an excellent job of showing the features, and if you get a quote you can talk with Alyssa or Terry and get any question you could have answered.

FWIW I was not aware of the Amsec BF series mentioned here. I had visited a local safe dealer/repair store and inquired about safes up to TL-30 but they didn't bother to mention the Amsec BF series despite being an Amsec dealer. They pretty much said they didn't recommend any of the gun safes they sold! (It is possible that this dealer wasn't aware of the BF series - in my area most people looking for "gun safes" are looking at cheaply made RSC's.)

My short take on the Sturdy is that it is a simple, well designed and extremely solid safe/RSC that is in a higher league than any "gun safe" I've seen sold in sporting goods or gun stores. It is not a TL15 or higher but I am quite happy with it. Now I would be reasonable and not rely on a Sturdy safe if you have pre-1986 machineguns or other exceptionally valuable items (for which I'd be thinking TL-60 or a dedicated vault), but for 99% of us I think it is an extremely solid storage "safe" and a good value.
 
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