Fella's;
I'm a locksmith & I sell safes, true safes, for a living. Most of the 'gunsafes' on the market today will not meet the U.L. standards for them to rate the container as a safe. If the sides of the unit, other than the door, are not at least 1/4" thick plate steel, the container, if rated at all, will be designated "Residential Security Container". Which is U.L.'s very polite way of saying 'tin box'. The door must also be at least 1/4" thick plate. Typical construction of an RSC is to make the 5 sides other than the door out of 10 to 16 guage sheet metal. Some actually have good doors, & that's what the salesman will try to sell you. He won't get too specific about the other 5 sides.
The idea that the floor of a container is thinner than the rest of the sides, is for the most part, simply not the case these days. Nobody with any good reputation has been making containers like that for decades. Not that I know every maker in the business however.
The burglary standard for an RSC is; (and as I'm at home I'm not quoting) must withstand a 5 minute attack using common household tools with no lever or implement longer than 18". Electrical motors are not allowed. See the comment on tin box.
I won't tell anybody how to enter an RSC, but I will say that juvenile males above the age of 12 have been known to do so without much trouble.
A typical RSC fire rating is 1200 degrees f, for 30 minutes. That is totally inadequate to protect against a fully involved housefire such as told of above. The salesman will usually tell the prospective customer that 1200/30 is great because the average home fire is 1200 f. ie, "Your protected"! Not so. Because average includes the rag in the garage, the wastebasket fire, & the popcorn oil in the kitchen fire. All of which the homeowner will typically put out in seconds. When the frame of the house burns, the fire is known as fully involved. That kind of fire can & will produce 1600 to 2000 degree f or more temperatures. Don't believe me, go check with your own fire dept.
RSC will typically use a testing procedure that places the container in the test furnace at ambient lab temp. As soon as the heat cycle begins, so does the 30 minute timer. The temperature is brought up to 1200 f & held there till the end of the 30 minute period. A transponder in the container is monitored during the entire heat cycle. At no time can the internal temperature of the safe exceed 350 f for the test period. At the end of the test period, the gas is shut off & a hot box is hauled out of the furnace on it's dolly.
Let's take a look at that kind of test procedure. There is no national standard set by law that governs how this is done. So, games can be played with the rise time to temp. The container being tested may not be upright in the furnace, etc. I don't know of any containers advertising 1200/30 that aren't at least 340 f internal temp at the the end of the 30 minute cycle. But hey, if it goes 30 minutes & 2 seconds before it breaks 350 f, it's a pass.
Almost all of these cans use gypsum wall board as their insulating material. Take the paper off it & call it 'fire rock', it's common wallboard sheet rock by any name. The stuff is a good flame barrier, but simply does not have the mass to be a good heat sink.
The U.L. test procedure is a totally different story. The safe goes into the furnace at lab ambient & the temp is brought up to 1750 f, before the 1 hour test cycle starts. At the end of the hour, every second spent at 1750 f, the internal temp of a safe meeting the U.L. standard will usually be in the 270 to 280 f range. Then the gas is shut off, but the safe remains in the furnace & cools back down to laboratory ambient continuing to be monitored for internal temp., which still cannot exceed 350 f, in order to pass. This is about a 500% tougher test to pass than 1200/30.
Or, if you open an RSC after a home fire & the wood of your stocks is charred & the aluminum scope tubes are warped, what did you save?
Yes, good protection costs more money, about the same cost as two quality long guns, or $3,000.00 for a 60" tall, 12 slot capacity safe. If you're planning on storing 20 firearms in a $600.00 container do a gut check with yourself. Average cost of gun, $500.00 X 20 = $10,000.00. Check with insurance agent as to how much is covered under your basic policy. Do you want to give out all S/N's of your guns? Do you want to pay a sizeable extra premium for the firearms rider - every 6 months? How much can you affored to pay over the long term for insurance, or how much can you afford to lose?
And I would wish a Liberty on my worst enemy, because I REALLY don't like the S.O.B.
900F
