ORIGINAL: retrieverman
ORIGINAL: cascadedad
In my opinion, much about the Fort Knox safes is nothing more than marketing.
I am curious about the basis for this statement. I looked at alot of safes before I bought my Heritage, and I didn't see anything wrong with Ft Knox safes. I almost bought one, but I found a deal on a Heritage "demo".
Again, this is my opinion. I am definitely no expert. Probably should have used the term "some" instead of "much".
I did quite a bit of looking at safes and"some" researchwhen I was in the market several years ago. I don't doubt that the Ft. Knox is a good safe.
But, in my mind, Rack and Pinion is more of a marketing issue than it is a real benefit over other designs. 20-28locking bolts is not necessary. Again, it just makes sense to me looking at them that 12-14 or some number far less than 20 is necessary. More means more cost. That's ok if it is actually providing more safety, but it is a waste if it is just to "look good".
Look at the front page of the Ft. Knox website. It shows the insides of the door. Is 28 locking bolts really necessary? Are the corner locking bolts really necessary, or are they there to impress the buyer?
Again, this is the way I have felt about it. I could be ALL WRONG.
A couple questions for Rebel Hog, it is obvious you are an expert on the subject and I am always happy to learn.
1) Does the Ft. Knox safe (entire safe, not just parts) have a UL listing? It is my understanding that for a safe to have a UL listing, all the locking mechanism has to be the same from safe to safe. Thus a person wanting to break into a safe would have a blueprint of the internals of the safe and know where to attack. Some sort of randomizing would be better.
2) Regarding fire protection. Isn't fire protection and heat protection two different things? Sheet rock is used in many safes (don't know offhand what Ft. Knox uses). Sheet rock is good at keeping the fire away from the contents, but does very little to control the heat. The heat alone from the fire is enough to destroy the contents even if the fire never reaches it. It is my understanding that the protection needs to contain moisture to be an effective heat barrier. Water has a high heat index, meaning it takes a lot of heat to raise the temperature of water.
I am not wanting to start an arguement. Just trying to see if my logic is all messed up.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.