Every gun owner knows the importance of protecting their firearms with a proper safe. But there are so many different safes out there. How can anyone tell which is the best? There are many different issues to compare, so let’s get into it and find out what works best for you.
Size
Gun safes come in a wide variety of sizes. Huge safes the size of rooms can hold hundreds of weapons, or very small ones can be carried by hand and fit under the seats of cars. But obviously a small desktop safe, designed for one or two pistols, isn’t going to hold your shotgun with a 30-inch barrel—size recommendations here.
Look at yourself and your firearms. How many do you have? Do you expect to buy more? What sizes are the guns you have, and what sizes are the guns you want? Personally, I currently only have a Sig P360, but I’d like to get a shotgun and a revolver. If I bought a gun safe only for the size of the P360, and then I bought a shotgun, my previous investment into storage would be lost.
Make sure, when you’re looking for the right safe for you, to take into account both the firearms you already have and the ones you intend to purchase later on.
Lock
Different safes have different types of locks. Some have number combinations, some have letters, and still others have a dial to spin. Some safes have more pins than others. There are locks that span all the way around the door, keeping thieves from opening the door just by cutting into the hinges.
Some locks even have a special technology, called a glass relocker: https://www.quora.
com/What-is-a-glass-relocker-in-a-safe-and-why-is-it-good-to-have-one. When the safe is attacked with brute force or heat, a pane of glass inside the mechanism shatters, causing the mechanism to forcefully lock itself, no matter how much it might have been open. Even if the lock has been partially unlocked, it will be reset, and even the combination will no longer open the door.
Reason
The biggest factor for choosing a safe is the purpose you want the safe for. You might just want it to keep your children from hurting themselves through curiosity and interest in weapons. You might want to protect your valuables from dangers such as fires and floods. Or, perhaps, you might want to keep criminals from stealing your firearms—not just because they’re valuable, but because every gun owner’s worst nightmare is to have their gun used to do harm.
The different options for safes are good for different purposes. To protect from fire damage, for example, you would obviously need a fireproof safe.
For criminals, the biggest goal is to make it take as long as possible to open—their goal is to get in and out as fast as possible, because the longer they stay, the more likely they are to get caught. Therefore, the more difficult a safe is to open, the less likely they are to even attempt it. This is why some safes are bolted to the ground, to make them difficult to remove, or fireproof, to keep thieves from using cutting torches. Learn more about cutting torches here, if you’re interested.
With children, the problem is a little bit different. They may have repeated blocks of unsupervised time to work on opening the door. Time matters less in this case than overall difficulty. For this situation, every extra number on the combination lock multiplies the amount of time required to open the lock by 10. A three-digit lock would take a person a thousand tries to open; a four-digit lock takes ten thousand.
Cost
A firearm owner’s budget will have a strong influence on what sort of containment system they’re able to buy. A small budget may only buy a small pistol safe, not one large enough for a rifle or shotgun. Lower costs will also mean fewer security features—less complex locks, less protection from a blowtorch or an angle grinder, easier to just pick up and take the entire safe.
Of course, you don’t always get what you pay for, and not everything cheap is rubbish, either. Sometimes, all you get when you pay top dollar is a fancier logo on the metal. Some expensive brands can have little or nothing to offer, and some cheap brands can be great quality and highly reliable.
It’s like how Apple is widely considered a premium brand, even though it hasn’t offered a premium product in years. Not everything expensive is necessarily high quality to match the top dollar price.
Brands
So what are some good brands? Well, I don’t know everything about the best gun safes for 2022, but I can offer a few suggestions.
Fort Knox is a brand with a great reputation for almost 30 years of high-quality safes. They offer products for a commercial environment as well as for home. They can customize their product to your exact specifications, and their safes can be used for other valuables as well as for firearms.
Winchester is one of the oldest manufacturers in the world, and their reputation has been consistently high for their entire life. Their fireproof safes can withstand temperatures of up to 1400 degrees, 200 degrees higher than the 1200 degree standard! They’re all made in America, and all to the highest quality standards.
Steelwater is known for having a high-quality but inexpensive product. They’re easy to install, waterproof, and fireproof.
Stack-On is another affordable but quality brand. They have digital locks instead of mechanical ones, since digital locks are harder to pick, and they are easy to customize and make perfect for your needs!
There are many variables when it comes to gun safes in the world, but there are many great brands that can give you exactly what you are looking for, whether it be fireproofing, challenging locks, or affordability. Take a look at the market, and you’re sure to find the perfect gun safe for your needs.
