Closet as a gun safe??

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Hate to tell you this guys, but all those $5000 safes are good for about 4 minutes against one of these:

http://www.google.com/products/cata...ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCsQ8wIwAw#ps-sellers


They cut 1/4" mild steel like plywood and generate NO heat, and plug into your regular 15A 120v outlet.

3/4" plate slows it down to a crawl, but a safe door would still only be in the 5-8 minute range for full access (if you could find one with a 300# door that you could afford).

It's not even overly loud either. If I were on the other side of the law, I'd use it.

The liberty ones sold at lowes, and the stack-on crap sold all over - those things are so thin I would have trouble making cutting the entire face off one last more than a minute.

Hiding the guns is your best bet. You only need a lock to keep the kids out. Pro's will defeat your safe if they can find it.

Making them difficult to locate, and a long distance to travel to the escape areas of the house are your best defenses. IMO
 
Strong,secure and hard to break thru - Concrete Board

You can line your closet with (DUROCK) Concrete Backer Board, 5/8" thick (about $9-10.00 a sheet) over the existing drywall.
It will make it very difficult to break thru and it's fire resistant as well.
Then use long lag bolts to bolt the safe to the floor and the wall studs from inside the safe as everybody else has mentioned.
You can even tile your closet, or plaster over it for a cleaner finished look if you choose.
Good luck
 
I got to have lunch this week with my very best good friend who is a police officer here in my town and he was telling me a story that kind of relates to this thread.

There is a local gun store that is in a small store front along the main drag here in town. Busy street, well lit, bars on the windows and over the glass entry door, back door steel reinforced, deadbolts, good alarm system, sprinkler system, etc. Owner thinks this is pretty secure, enough so that he leaves long guns (including several AR-15s and variants) in their display racks behind the counter at night.

One morning around 4:00 a pickup pulls into the parking lot, turns around and just rams into the front of the store with his rear bumper and pickup bed. This smashes bars, windows, everything clean through allowing the thief easy entry. He disregards the alarm system, knowing he'll be long gone before there is a PD response. He walks in, grabs the AR-15s and whatever else looks interesting along with plenty of ammo and tosses it all into the back of the truck and drives off.

The pickup is found close by and turns out it is stolen, nothing left in it naturally. The PD also believes the thief used a scanner. This was a couple of years ago and the case is still open.

I suppose my point is a thief can resort to all kinds of ways to getting his hands on your stuff, whether it is using a saw that cuts through metal or a pickup truck or bolt cutters or something else. You do what you can to make it more difficult, and hate to say it, but give the thief enough of a reason to go try somewhere else.

I have a consumer / residential alarm system (nothing that's gonna stump Jack Bauer) and handguns in a simple quick or sport safe bolted to the floor of the master closet. I hope that the alarm will discourage a common thief to try somewhere else, but if he does come in, it may cause him to hurry enough that he won't find the quick safe, or if he does, won't take the time to pry it up off the floor.
 
I was at homie d's today and noticed they had a nice heavy gauge steel access panel for about $23 that opened with a screwdriver.

If you wanted to hide a back-up gun and some ammo in the back of a closet, that'd be pretty slick.

Rather than having the latch work off the screw driver slot, you could arrange something elsewhere in the wall that was easily disguised.

Best of all, it doesn't look like anything.
 
I would line the inside with some cheap sheet metal and then get some quality hinges and nice solid steel door and if the entrance is big dry wall around the door (but still have metal around the sides next to the door).

The dorm I live in right now we have about 1.5-2 inch thick steel doors (but I think they are hollow) and they can take a beating from the drunks that come in at 2 or 3 am (plus we have 22 inch think walls here :rolleyes: ).
 
It is a really old building that was Nunnery that my college bought from the catholic church so something, it is a nice building and I never have to turn on the heater, I dont want to go into to much detail (public forum and all).
 
safe

I'm for the large floor safe in closet. holds many guns and valuables to boot. fairly well protected against fire also.........................
 
Closet as a Gun Safe

I'm looking at converting my livingroom closet into a gun safe. I am planning on lining the walls with something along the lines of 3/8" sheet steel and getting either a safe door or a steel fire door and dead bolts. I want to gut the sheetrock inside and bolt/screw the steel right to the studs and then build an interior with pine or plywood.

I already have an alleged 28 gun safe in a mudroom closet and it holds nowhere near 28 rifles. It sucks pulling 2 or 3 rifles out to get to the one I want.

For me as with most people money is the main issue. I haven't priced out steel yet. Just casually looking into safe doors they can run from $1500 on up. For me it's worth the wait. A safe or safes in a closet is too confined and come on, most collections quickly outgrow their safes if you're doing it right!

If I ever get to doing this anytime soon I will post pics to help out. Just don't hold you breath immediately. Ideally I wanna do something by next year after all these years of dreaming and planning but who knows.

Until then...keep on shootin'!
 
salemcaptain,

Don't overlook lining the floor and ceiling also. More and more low-level professional thieves seem to be using battery-powered saws in their burglaries, not that tools are needed if all you have is sheetrock overhead.
 
One old house I lived in had a very small closet in the master bedroom. The way the house was designed, there was enough room to extent this closet into a huge walk-in closet which was a must for wifey:rolleyes:. Well she only got half her closet space as the other half was made into a walk-in gun safe for yours-truely;). With the false wall you couldn't tell it was even there.
 
You could get by with just changing out the interior sheet rock with particle board and whatever topping you want, replace the door and run a/c in & out. This would make it stronger, keep the kids and curious out, and depending on finishing (racks, etc), be close to the cost of a large gun safe.

===========================

On the other hand, something that is reasonably doable by the handy homeowner and easy on the pocketbook is to line the closet with 18ga metal sheeting including the ceiling** lagged into the studs followed by concrete wallboard for humidity and and framing to support your interior wall finished with material of choice.

I would add an additional stud each side of the doorway and install a steel security frame with long/strong lags with matching door. The doors are metal and have steel plates that extend into matching slots in the frame and still look pretty nice. You can find the frames and doors on-line and may be available in your town. The door would not be stealthy like a plain closet door (looks more like a front door) but would not give way by kicking.

Finally I strongly recommend running a/c ducting in & out for circulation and installing a couple outlets, lighting and a humidity alarm is a must.

** I recommend filling in between the 2x4 rafters with 2x6's to support the metal, concrete wallboard and material of choice.
 
From a different perspective…

Before you invest a bundle in time and effort constructing an over-kill walk-in vault, consider gun insurance and a conventional gun safe. Of the three shooters I know who've lost upper scale guns, the thefts were from their vehicles. One had NRA gun insurance, and the other two didn't. The value of the uninsured guns (Mr and Mrs Skeet guns) was well above their auto policy limits. Do you want your guns covered 24/7 or just when they are at home?
 
They can't steal what they can't find! There is little need to reinforce the walls of the closet. Just hide it. Put a safe in it if you want.
Gun safes-even fire-rated ones offer little protection from fire or theft.
Whatever you use, a couple of piezo buzzers connected to magnetic switches will hurt any thief's ears so badly they won't be able to stick around.
Fire suppression is useless unless the whole house is protected with it.
 
I used to keep all my guns and ammo in a bedroom closet.

1)I replaced the door knob with an exterior locking knob.

2)I screwed 2x4s into the wall (on the studs) about 2 ft high on the back of the closet and the sides. I then screwed a piece of plywood to this 2x4 to make a shelf for the butts of the rifles to sit on.

3) I screwed another 2x4 to the wall about 30" above the shelf. I cut 2" pieces of rubber tubing and screwed 2 1/2" sheetrock screws through it and 1/2" deep in the 2x4 to make pegs to seperate the rifles. I spaced them 3" apart from each other

4) I stacked my ammo cans under the shelf.

This was when I had my C&R and was buying $40 turk Mausers and Mosins(buy 5 get free shipping) I had about 75 rifles and my safe could only hold 16. I kept my more expensive rifles and all my handguns in the safe and filled the closet with the bolt guns.

Later, I salvaged an exterior solid core door and mounted that in the closet and added a deadbolt ion it. I eventually got a good safe, mostly because I was worried about loss to fire instead of theft. When I divorced, my ex got the house so I don't have any pictures of it.
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check out this thread too:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=377518&highlight=safe+closet
 
insurance info

YOu can purchase stand alone insurance for your guns that will cover them at your home, away from home (i.e. in car) and even if shipping them. Below are some sample rates based on TX with alarm or safe (rates are pretty much the same in all 50 states).

10,000 = $71 year
25,000 = $165 year
50,000 = $305 year

If you want more information on the insurance, send me a message.
 
I think there's a niche somewhere for a hardened closet, say for a renter or apartment dweller who can't afford a safe.

How about 3/4" plywood bolted to the walls, and a piece bolted to the door? A deadbolt and hinge pins finish it off.

It won't withstand much, but would keep out the casual intruder...

When you move, remove the wood, spackle the holes and leave the deadbolt.

Or, I guess, just the deadbolt, y'know, to keep honest people honest.
 
Check this guy

http://www.dryesgunshop.com/featured/drakesafes.html

Met this guy at gun show once, he will make a vault in pieces to fit your room/closet and install. Nice guy. Located in Roxboro, NC.
Drake Safe, 336-597-5059

Pray and Shoot Daily.
Lee Jones(Celtgun)

"Stand your ground. Do not fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, then let it begin here." - Capt. Parker to the Minutemen of the Lexington Militia before the Battle of Lexington April 19, 1775
 
Thread revival :D Hello all, new to the forum.

I just finished building a little secret safe compartment in my closet. This was easy to build and functions great. You can store valuables or small arms in the safe or compartment. Thought some of you might be interested in building one for yourself, it was a fun project. Enjoy:)

http://youtu.be/Cd0Bkju0eWs
 
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