Here's yet another area of the shooting sports where there are too many freakin' choices!

I bought my safe 2 years ago, when my boys were 10, 7, 4, and 2 years old. Enough said. I found out one could go from a glorified filing cabinet all the way up to a DEFCON 5 level, with a million and a ½ choices in between. It can become incredibly confusing in a real hurry.

I live in a house that's got an alarm, with smoke detectors hard-wired into the system. I live on a not-uncrowded cul de sac that's < 2 miles from the police and fire stations. Given that, I didn't feel I needed something that could endure the fires of Hell for 6 straight days, nor one that could resist a diamond-tipped saw for many hours, nor one that was too heavy to pick up even with a skid steer. I ended up with a lower-tier Heritage safe with the standard dial lock, and it's done what I needed it to do. I gave $1,695 for it (I forget the capacity, but I think it's near 27 or 30 guns), and another $150 for a 3rd party guy to get it from their place into my home office. As I recall, it's right around 900 lbs.

I had looked at the Brownings at Bass Pro Shops, but a little study showed that they've got higher prices while lacking the features of many lower-priced safes. For instance, ask the people selling the Brownings why they have clear plastic tubing over the locking lugs on the floor models. It's because the lugs don't automatically retract as you close the door, so they can slam into the door frame & chip the paint.(Unless they've upgraded them in the pastcouple o' years.) On mine, the lugsdraw back into the door, and you merely turn the handle to lock it onceit's shut. Little stuff like that.

I've been told that if you keep the safe in a place that's visible from the windows, many times a burgaler will skip the whole house & move on to something easier. Even if that's not true, it doesn't make sense to drop that kind of $$$ and then hide it! I don't view my safe as a show piece, (actually, it usually scares the women I date the first time they see it...)but it is visible to anyone who happens to be sauntering through my flower beds.

Another thing to remember is that unless one of your houseguests has spent years & years in the safe business, it's highly unlikely they'll have ANY idea whatsoever what level of safe you bought, so you might as well go with the lower priced one so long as it meets your fire requirements. No one will be snickering behind your back, "oh look, he bought the cheap one...", unless you've got the truck box fromyour pickup standing on its side in the corner ofthe room.

And there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to getthe sales folks to throw in a dehumidifier for free, and maybe some gunsocks too. The dehumidifier is just a cheap curling iron that keeps the safe's interior too warm for condensation to form. If you're spending that kind of money, they should be quite willing to work with you.

Good Luck,

FC