Quality Safes have high temp rubber seals and if you can open a safe with a circular saw can we really call it a safe?
Interesting that only the 7-magnum cooked off... I wonder why? Does tell me I need to do something more to try and protect the documents from water and fire. I guess I will try a couple of those fireproof document bags... Any ideas?
Lots of "fire resistant" safes use gypsum as the insulator and I have been told that when heated it gives off water. This cools as well as retards the heat of the fire. The one fire I observed in which a gun safe was involved resulted in the total destruction of everything in the safe. While the safe may have had a 1 hour rating, I am sure that falling thru the floor, being covered with coals for an hour, then being surrounded by a charcoal fire for another few hours, even if the exterior of the fire was out, did not help. The safe has a fireproof rating, usually around an hour or so, and heating gypsum gives off water that will condense in the safe. .Protecting Your Firearms: How to Fireproof Your Gun Safe? - Gun Safe Security The only way I know to really protect your fire arms from fire is to use the old school system of having the safe in a fireproof room that will keep water, flame, and debris out. Look at how the banks and town offices ect do it. Course, I would want a 10 by 20 room, 12 in walls and ceilings, filtered air supply, buried about 4 feet down and outside of the footprint of the building. NO, it is not a fall out shelter, I just need it to protect my firearms investment.
Most gun safes use cheap seals made of rubber or slightly better silicon, Nether will hold up very long to fire, let alone any real heat, not will they protect from water or even long term moisture exposure in high humidity conditions! A good fix is to visit your local fireplace/wood stove store and get "Fire Welt" they sell it in rolls,, and replace your safes seals with fire welting, THAT will protect FAR more for Far longer. Having spent several years as a "Professional" fire fighter, I got to see first hand just how well most brands held up, ( as well as other things that were supposed to be fire proof and were not) and the highest number of failures were the seals failing in the heat. The other biggest failure I saw constantly was long term heat exposure, the safe it's self retained it's seal integrity, BUT it cooked out the insides anyway, most of the contents immolated with out the aid of O2! The third most common failures were water immersion, ether direct spray down, or long term exposure during the fire fight! Nomex wrap/blankets can help, a quick visit to your local welding shop should have you covered, you tear out the safes inner lining and replace with the Nomex blankets, and your stuff should survive much longer!
The rubber seals I am referring to are the 1200 degree composite rubber/silicon. But as you say even the best safes will eventually become a super oven given enough heat and time. Safe LOCATION then becomes a primary factor. Placing the safe on a outer wall for example vs placing it in a center of structure location. Ground floor VS Upstairs or basement. Location, Location, Location LOL. Personally and I hope no one ever finds out how well it performs in a fire.... I build a 4x8 cinder block room and insulated with 6" 2100degree F Mineral wool outside and another 6" inside and filled the block holes with coarse sand sides and top. Entry door has formed mineral wool outer seals with 1200degree silicon composit inner seals. And finished up with a 4" One way exhaust vent to the outside at the top center of the exterior wall side to vent heat build up out.. A pressure cooker regulator in a sense. And then my mid tier fire proof safe is inside of that room. Floor is the same 6" fiber concrete as the rest of he house. In theory that closet/room should not have much heat build up Between the insulation. block/sand walls and the vent venting out excess heat to the outside and its location on a outer wall with prevailing winds blowing the heat/fire away from it. Or it may all go up in smoke and cook everything off inside with a couple of big booms to accent it. And building the room VS buying a top tier safe was a lot cheaper
When I bought my safe (which is located in the basement), they suggested building a pedestal to get it 4-6" off the floor. They said they see far more cases where flooding ruins the contents than fire.
Good thread. Topic of great interest. Would love to hear from members or visitors who have had actual experience, good or bad, with what works or didn't. With pictures if possible, cringed when I saw the rust even if firearm was still good. Kamp Krap comments about cost of fire proof room vs cost of high end safe is very interesting. Thank you for the post chelloveck. Its an interesting topic and it doesn't help if your major preps are destroyed in the event you are prepping for. We all try our best to protect our firearms, , but what happens to your food, bug out supplies, etc, if the basement is either full of hot coals from the fire, no fire department to put it out, or full of water and debris, if fire department did put it out? Lots of food for thought for cache or off site backups as well. New electric circle saws built for steel are very interesting. I have used them to cut the road cover repair plates and have seen them used to cut 1/2 in plate for steel purchased for a lathe project. Blade is whole secret and rpm for blade. Several times quicker than sawsall, cleaner cut than abrasive wheel, and not limited throat area of band saw. Have to let saw do work, don't push it.
Spread those preps around. IF the Cabin were to burn, there would still be the big food shipping container, if the Cabin and Big Food Container burned .....there would still be the Bunker stock pile as Dee called it. If those 3 all got wiped out then there would be the Chuck Wagon with a modest food and weapons hoard. If All 4 get wiped out then I start chasing the cattle around the pasture with a fork and knife If you don't have the land or space for multiple stockpiles..... Rent a small storage unit and keep a supply set up in it. Storage Facilities are actually very safe as people tend to fill them up with a bunch of worthless junk. From a thief or scavenger perspective a lot of hassle for someone bags of old clothes and dirty underwear collections. Don't Put all of your eggs in one basket should be in every prepper types vocabulary.
My Grand Parents used to make a few bucks fixing damaged firearms, mostly long guns that had ether had their stocks burned or suffered flooding. One of their neighbors was a very wealthy business owner who had a stunning collection of long guns, one year the dog knocked over a storm lamp and burned half the house down, the fire department was just down the street, so they were there lickidy split, and a 2 hour fight saved about half the house. sadly, the gun safes ( super high end) didn't fare so well. keep in mind, this was in the late 60's, they were bolted to a concrete floor ( Ranch Style house) just above river flood stage, and the time and amount of water and steam exposure caused them to fail. It was heart breaking to say the least, several one of a kind pieces of art were lost, and several irreplaceable antiques were damaged. Grand Dad made him a deal, fix up the few he thought he could save, in trade for a few that were of lesser value that he and Gramma could restore. That's how I got my Commercial Mauser .375 and my first 1855 Colt Revolving Rifle! The Grand Parents fixed up a absolutely Beautiful A.H. Fox Side by Side .12 gauge as part of the deal, which the owner left to me in his will. The point is, those safes didn't protect things for very long.
