What Are The Types Of Gun Safes?

When it comes to pur­chas­ing a gun safe there are a wide selec­tion of them on the mar­ket world­wide today. One of the very first ques­tions I am asked is,

“What types of gun safes are there that I can buy to store my guns?”

Well the answer to that is pretty sim­ple. There are “Gun Cab­i­nets”, “Gun Lock­ers”, “Gun Stor­age Cases”, &“Fire resis­tant Gun Safes”.

I have listed quickly the names and the major dif­fer­ences of each of them below.

Gun Cab­i­net

Now a gun cab­i­net is usu­ally more of a place to store your guns, usu­ally rifles, but also pis­tols in an area that is open to being viewed by any­one in the home.

They are more often than not used to dis­play for pride and show­ing off the weapons and not so much for the secur­ing of them or keep­ing them from being stolen. The rea­son for this is mainly because they are often made form very attrac­tive woods and sim­i­lar in beauty to that of a grand father clock that would be dis­played in ones home.

They may have a lock on the glass doors but it is only good enough to keep out an hon­est curi­ous mind and only one that is not really deter­mined to get into the cabinet.

Gun Lock­ers

Now gun lock­ers are pretty much exactly what they sound like they are. These are usu­ally made of steel or really a decent thin sheet metal.

They are as durable as the high school lock­ers we had in the 80’s and the locks range in qual­ity from a off the shelf dial combo that was used in paint stor­age cab­i­nets or in some sit­u­a­tions the com­pany may even put on a name brand dial or elec­tronic lock.

The gun locker is usu­ally not fire resis­tant, so first off there is NO pro­tec­tion for your items against fire dam­age. The other thing that I have run into with these units is that they have very weak and eas­ily fatigued metal and that may not seem like much but I have per­son­ally seen and heard of even more gun lock­ers being ripped right from the place.

They were bolted to on the ground and car­ried away by one or more men. The metal is either so thin or of such low qual­ity that they do not stand up against rock­ing back and forth.

Gun Stor­age Case

Now I will get right to the point on this one and end it fast. A gun stor­age case is not even in the same group as gun safes and should not be com­pared. I have seen some really bad stor­age cases and ii see some that are very great.

The prob­lem I have is that they are not meant to guard against fire or theft; they were mostly designed for safe move­ment while trav­el­ing on busi­ness or per­sonal trips.

Fire Resis­tant gun Safe

If you are look­ing for a place to store your weapons and secure them from theft, dam­age, or worst of all, curi­ous lit­tle fin­gers then a fire resis­tant gun safe is what your look­ing for. To be con­sid­ered a true fire resis­tant gun safe you must have fire resis­tant mate­ri­als lin­ing the inside of your safe. Most of these types of safes are a min­i­mum of 12 to 10 gauge steel thick­ness.

All fire resis­tant safes should also have a mem­brane around the door open­ing or on the cir­cum­fer­ence of the door itself, that will acti­vate and swell up to 1000 times it’s orig­i­nal size and seal the door and thus the con­tents of your gun safe both from air seep­age and/or water leaks.

Most fire gun safes have either an elec­tronic or dial com­bi­na­tion lock/entry sys­tem in place that are of the top two man­u­fac­tur­ers and/or are UL rated. The fire resis­tant gun safes usu­ally also have lock­ing bolts on at least both of the long sides of the doors.

Some bet­ter safes will have lock­ing bolts on every side of the door includ­ing the top of the door and the bot­tom of the door. The fire gun safes should also have rein­forced floors and should be pre-drilled for bolt­ing to the floor and they should have adjustable shelves as well.

Well there you have an overview of the answer to the question:

What types of gun safes are there?

As you click thru to our other pages you will be able to find answers to some of your other pre buy ques­tions about gun safes and even some answers you did not even think to ask. That is what GunSafeSpot.com is here for.