Rob Ryan

Do You Need a Fireproof Safe?

A good thing about moving is that you have a chance to do an inventory of all of the stuff your acquire over the years. If you haven’t moved in over a decade like me, you would be amazed at how much you have. Even more, I was stunned at how old some of the things I had were. It also made me recall old plans that I had put off for no real good reason.

Something that I have been planning for years was to replace my not-so-secure gun cases with a sturdier gun safe. I wanted an actual safe and not just an oversized lock box. While shopping around I saw some gun safes offering, “limited fire resistance” as one of their selling points. To be honest, that is something I had never even thought about.  Curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know what exactly limited fire resistance meant in terms of gun safes.

As it turns out, it means exactly what it says. It keeps the guns inside safe from fire for a limited time. Usually this time is stated as being anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the safe. I don’t know if this is due to the limitations of the materials, or this is just because the peak temperature of most house fires lasts less than 30 minutes on average. I assume it’s a bit of both.

 Something else I learned was that the maximum temperatures that different safes were claiming protection at were also different. Most safes say that they will protect your firearms from temperatures up to around 1400 or even 1700 degrees Fahrenheit. That seems like a super high temperature to me, but I have never been in a house fire. I believe these levels of protection are meant to maintain safety over what the average house fire can produce.

When I first started looking for a new gun safe I found a pretty helpful site. I wasn’t even thinking about going with a fireproof safe, but after reading about them that is exactly the path I took. If I am going to take the time and spend the money on better protection for my guns, I figured I should do it the right way and go all out.  That doesn’t mean I went and spend $5000 on a safe, but it means that I got a safe that was strong, sturdy, and would not only protect my guns from a break in, but also from a fire. I think I made a good decision.