doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: Gun storage climate control

Thanks guys. I don't live in Denver anymore. I moved to the foothills (Kitteridge area) a couple years ago. I love it. I'm 3 minutes from fishing in Bear creek and the locals let me access private spots. I'm surprised this little creek can hold some decent fish. But at 7400 ft. it sure does snow a lot more and I need to worry more about bears than junkies. The lady who moved into my old house in Denver recently had her car stolen out of the driveway, so I get the security concerns. That is a good point.

Right now. this is not a very bad place to rob or trespass. My next-door neighbor breeds, trains, and competes German Shepard police dogs. They are mean! Well, they're nice to us but, I feel bad for the UPS and FedEx drivers. I'm not sure a door and deadbolt on a ADU are any less secure than the door and deadbolt on the main house but I need to think about this and an overall security plan. Every time I lock up my steel barn I always kind of do a head shake because all it would take to break into it is a screw gun. One could remove a wall panel in 2 minutes.

LOL, just what I did. A big old Mosler safe. I did it about 14 years ago. I can't stand the electronic locks. Had one fail on me with a Cabelas safe I bought about 23 years ago.

I had a buddy I worked with for several years. He was always going to auctions. He went to an auction once where they were going to tear down a jail. They had the jail cells up for sale- all the bars and the door to the cell. So he bought one of the cells. He took it all home and mounted it in his house and put all of his guns inside. You could look inside and see all the guns, but with the door locked there was no way to get in through the bars. It was about a 50-75 year old jail cell. It was really neat.

During World War II all manufacturing businesses had to lock up the drawings for government contracts in a safe every night. Pretty much every old building in my town has got a walk-in safe left over from the world war.

Often times you can buy the door pretty inexpensively, or even free, but moving it is the hard part.

And then of course, you have to have the walls in your house stronger than the safe door otherwise a thief will just bust through the drywall.

I've seen, what I was told, was an antique wood/iron vault. Once upon a time a train station, now a house. I think it was white oak. Wood planks, they were about 6x6's, laminated with flat bars of iron. Kind of like plywood. Oak/iron/oak/iron/etc. Imagine a log cabin with iron chinking. Presumably it was all spiked together. That would be a bugger to break into because for the most part what cuts wood doesn't cut metal very well and vice versa. It would also be reasonably fire resistant. I think old west prison doors used a similar concept. I've thought about recreating something like that just because it would look so cool.

Climate control is essential for keeping guns free of rust. As noted, guns can be stored safely at a wide range of temperatures, so long as the humidity is controlled. Not too dry or too moist, and never permit the temperature to drop below the dew point. Things like Goldenrods or low wattage incandescent light bulbs put off just enough heat to keep gun safe relative humidity low enough that moisture can't ever condense onto the metal. I have never heard of a Goldenrod melting, but any electrical device can fail.


Dessicants can work very well, but naturally, once saturated to their limits, they absorb no more moisture. Things like silica gel or bentonite/clay dessicants don't ever wear out, and can be reactivated by baking them in an oven to drive out the accumulated moisture. The trick is remembering to do so. Calcium chloride is a very effective dessicant, but becomes liquid as it absorbs humidity, and is very corrosive to steel. There is also the risk of getting the atmosphere too dry, to the point that wood may shrink or even crack.

A large bubbling aquarium is not compatible in the vicinity of guns, unless humidity is monitored and controlled. I have had great luck in recent years with wrapping guns with VPCI plastic. I even put VPCI paper in my metal roll around tool boxes to protect the tools in my shop from rusting.

"Thank you for your cashier's cheque. Here's your jail cell."

"Mercy buckets. Umm... What about the guy sleeping in the bunk?"

"Did you thoroughly read the auction catalogue listing for Lot 43?"

"Apparently I did not."

I had another buddy who had a large door from a gun safe. He made a safe in his basement that was big enough to be a walk-in closet out of concrete. He mounted that safe door on the concrete room and turn it into a gun safe. I believe it was about 6x6. It was pretty neat. He had a big enough gun collection to just about fill it, too.

This is something I have utilized in certain locations for at least 10 years. They are very effective. Don't ask me how I know.

https://www.burglarbomb.com

I'd rather have my ADT. They won't get into my house undetected. I'd be afraid of those things going off accidentally. But they might work in some circumstances. Like an out building. And what if you have a fire and the firemen have to get in?