How do you figure out how much money to spend on a good safe? now I know you do not buy a 40 slot safe when you have 10 guns. Just how much is to much for what you need or have? Right now I have about 2k in guns sitting in my 300.00 sentry safe. I do not think anyone will be able to break into it but a fire would trash everything. SO fire rating is a big plus to me. When is a safe to high? How much is to much? Someone told me once you figure 20% of the value of your guns with a min. 500 bucks. So if your have 5k in guns your talking 1000 dollars for a safe is that right? Or should you figure a min of 1,000. From what I have seen to get a decent amount of fire rating and space a 1,000 is about as cheap as you can go. Though cannon has a 1hr fire rating in a 23 gun safe for 899 on sale right.
Also long term my safe will be in the basement we are finishing it this February and I plan on keep all my stuff down there. Would a 1hr fire rating be enough in the basement?

i dont just have guns in mine, so deeds to the houses, birth certs and all the bankng and tax stuff..so it adds up..i got the 1.5 hour 20 sumthin gun safe, and can put shelves on 1 side and hold all my guns on the other.5K in guns needs a good safe..for the price of a safe you could get 100% coverage from your insurance company, but they cant buy your family photo album jmo

Figure you will be able to get about half the amount of guns in a safe as what they claim. Scopes, bolt knobs, etc... take up room. If all you owned was single shot shotguns then you could store the # they claim. If you have 10 guns now then get a safe that will hold a claimed 30 - 40 guns. As HellsAngel stated you will put other things in there besides just guns and you will buy more guns so they will need a spot in the safe as well. It is far cheaper to spend more now for the extra room in one safe than having to buy another entire safe in the future.

Fire ratings depend on where you will keep the safe. A basement would require a higher fire rating than one up stairs on an exterior wall due to the heat building in the center of the house and remaining hot for an extended period of time and the possibility of the house collapsing to the basement and burning.

Keep in mind that the better you go with fire ratings you will automatically get better security. They go hand in hand with higher prices. Buy the best safe you can afford with ample storage for future purchases.

I bought my safe about 30 years ago. It was money well spent.

I figured 90 mins or so and one that would hold 20 guns should do me. The guy at gander said I could fit 10 guns in the sentry I have. Ant going to happen. I have my 10/22 scopes my mossberg 500 and my triumph scoped. I would say two maybe three more

I have a liberty (30 gun i think).1/2 is e-z out,guns on angle , other 1/2 is packed in 5 rows across, off set. Shelf above , handguns, papers,ect.Has a good mix of every thing,shotguns, rifles with scopes, afew of them "bad black rifles". All fit good.Think i paid 1200$ 10 years ago. I love it, good peace of mind from fire and theft.

As you've already learned, it requires a quality made safe to hold good fire ratings. To me,a gun safe is like a garage-you can always put more in it, but you can't easily make it bigger. Just because you only have x# guns now don't mean you'll always have the same # of guns. I also store important papers,etc in my safe the same as hellsangel.

Another thing to consider is larger, heavier safes are much harder to steal. I had a friend that lost his whole safe-and all the guns in it. So if you have a 1,500 pound safe, it's much less likely to get stolen than a model only weighing 200-300 pounds.

IMO, you can't have too much safe. And when it comes to safes, you definitely get what you pay for. I spent $1600 on my Browning safe and I'm confident it would stand up to a fire or theft. My only concern about it currently is that it might be too small.

You spend 1500 on a safe and only put $1000 worth guns in it it sounds like you should go out and buy more guns so your making it earn it's keep! I bought the big one they sell at Academy and it's fine for what I have,it's full of long guns and left enough room to move them around with top space for papers and ammo or misc..Gun safes are money well spent so spend it on a good one if you can swing it!

There are many ratings to consider on what you want to spend on a safe........You only get what you pay for!