So your firearms collection is growing on the scale of both inventory and value, and you want to protect your investment. Bravo – consider yourself applauded. Before you go diving into a major purchase, however, there are a few key factors you’ll want to consider. Gun safes, see, may appear to be massive, dumb blocks of cavernous steel, but there’s a lot more that goes into them than that, including a whole lot of your money.

As inferred, a quality safe, like many discussed on this site (Fort Knox, Browning, Big Horn…) is the product of mechanical engineering, tested trial and error, hundreds of man and machinery hours, and like any successful selling commodity, the fruit of a well executed business and marketing plan. All that said, you surely can’t be expected to know the ins and out at every unit you come across. But there’s no reason you can’t have someone else point out the well-made safes for you. Premium safe manufacturers typically apply their own signature touches to ensure that their product protects your valuables, but there’s one common goal that they all share, and that’s security.

Level of security is about the closest to a universally measurable characteristic you’re going to find when shopping for a gun safe. The most common unit of measurement used is the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) mark of approval. UL is a world renown product testing company which other companies hire when they want to put their claims to the test. And ‘test’ they do. UL doesn’t fool around. They have a staff of professional safe crackers to try to pry, drill, and punch their way into the safe. Not only do they have free reign over how they break in, but the manufacturers are required to give them the blue prints ahead of time. If UL endorses the safe you’re looking at, you know it’s built to hold up. Underwriters Labs gives very specific ratings on everything from small office safes to commercial bank vaults. In the interest of simplicity, you’ll want to look for a safe with some level of their RSC (Residential Security) burglary rating.

Unfortunately, unlike burglary protection, fire protection isn’t universally measured. As you browse the many gun safes for sale on the market, you’ll encounter any number of fire safe certifications. Whether its a Phoenix seal (Champion), a BTU rating (Liberty), or a third party endorsement like that of Intertek ETL (Cannon and Stack On), make sure you look a little into where you’re putting your money. The fact is, most safe companies make up their own fire ratings, and we’re more or less expected to believe them. Interior dimensions, environmental elements, contents of the safe; a huge number of factors make it difficult to consistently measure the effectiveness of fire resistance claims, but you can keep your eye open for a few key features.

One, a fire safe isn’t going to protect very well without insulation. Regardless of whether it’s sheet rock or fireboard, generally speaking, the thicker the better. Also important is how it’s distributed. One weak point can cause the whole thing to burn up in a hurry. Make sure that whatever material was used to insulate the safe, was applied equally everywhere. On top of that (literally), you want to find a safe with a tight, continuously welded seal. ‘Stitch welding’, a method often employed on cheaper safes give hot gas an opportunity to make its way through the interior, and once it does, it’s over. The general structure of the safe is also important. It’s very common for a safe to cave in during a fire, especially when the ceiling above falls on top of it. To combat this scenario, Liberty constructs the body of their safes out of just two massive pieces of composite steel for unmatched reinforcement. Other manufacturers like Browning and Fort Knox employ very similar methods.

A direct reflection of a safes’ quality, whether it be in regard to fire protection, burglary resistance, or resilience to the wear and tear of time is the accompanying warranty. Call me snooty, but I wouldn’t even consider purchasing a gun safe that didn’t offer some level of lifetime coverage. Of course, there’s a lot of reading of fine print involved. The three or four companies discussed in this article, all cover repairs, replacement, and the freight charges required to win over your customer satisfaction, but it’s not always the case. Some companies will cover anything and everything that goes wrong, whether it be floods, fires, crooks, or manufacturer defects. Others may offer lifetime protection on fires and burglary, but no protection on floods, and five years on wear and tear. One more thing to investigate when shopping for a safe, particularly if you’re looking for used units, is whether or not the warranty transfers to new owners. If you plan on handing this down through your family, and peace of mind is a big concern, make sure they’ll be covered too.

I’ll leave you with that knowledge. If you take a little bit of extra time, read all the fine print, talk to the experts, and find the right product that fits your needs, you’ll wind up with a safe that will keep your valuables protected for generations. Keep reading the Gun Safes Guide for more information on security storage products or make a trip out to Gun Safe Haven.

Homak has been in the business of selling quality home gun safe products for over fifty seven years now. They make everything from the hand gun safe to trigger locks, they’ve got floor safes and wall safes and big gun cabinets too. They make quality safes and they’ve got a great customer support system that can help you replace the keys to your gun safe if you lose them.

The Homak mission is to provide great products to their customers. They put a lot of work into making their safes top of the line in durability and make sure they are as secure as the price allows. The only real drawback to their safes is that they are not aesthetically pleasing at all. Their gun cabinets look like gym lockers and their wall safes look like plain old busted microwaves or something like that.

The Homak gun safes, like Stack on Gun Safes, come really cheap. These are some of the bargain security safes we were talking about in this gun safes guide article but again, you have to think about what you are going to be using the safe for.

If you’re only reason for purchasing a gun safe is to protect your children from accidentally running across your guns, a Homak security gun safe is probably your best bet. You can find a cheap one for like a hundred bucks that will fit a bunch of hand guns or you can buy a little bit more expensive homak gun cabinet that will be large enough to store your rifles. Homak does not make a biometric gun safe so you will have to find your finger print activated locks elsewhere.

Then again, if you’re worried about fire damage or theft, the Homak security safes might not be the right thing for you. Sure they have a really low price tag but come on; these things are a little flimsy. If you don’t bolt down the handgun safe to the floor it can easily be picked up and ran home, they aren’t that heavy.

Their fire proof ratings aren’t that solid either. Unlike the Fort Knox or Browning brands, I couldn’t even find anywhere on the Homak website that discussed fireproofing or fire resistance. I can’t imagine that these safes would burn up like kindling should they be in a house fire but they aren’t going to out last any of the more expensive brands in a furnace test.

I would recommend purchasing a Homak gun safe to be used as an intermediate gun safe. Purchase one of their safes as soon as you buy the gun so that you’ll have a place to store it out of harms reach and then you can start saving up some money to spend on one of the higher end brands.

Don’t get me wrong, these Homak gun safes are not bad safes at all. In fact, they are pretty good for the money you’ll spend on one of them. But these safes aren’t going to outwit a burglar with a crowbar and a strong arm so I wouldn’t put anything really valuable in them.

Over all, use these homak gun safes until you get a bigger and better gun safe of a different brand. They’ll keep your guns out of harms way and out of the hands of your children for a little while but in the end you might want to consider upgrading to a more high class piece of hardware.

That’s just my opinion.

Plus, who wants a safe that looks like a filing cabinet or high school gym locker anyway? You can find Homak gun safes and handgun safes in most stores that have gun safes for sale.