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Organizing a Gun Safe for Maximum Space


fuzzysights

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I searched several ways but did not find a thread on this. I would love to see photo's of the inside of your gun safe. Particularly how you are organizing your pistols to take maximum advantage of space. I am about to buy a safe and want to make sure I get on large enough to hold everything (plus a few more in the future of course!) I have seen some safes that have a lot of pouches on the door similar to a shoe rack but I know some of you clever guys have probably come up with some ingenious home methods.

Edited by fuzzysights
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Putting in more shelves can help, as can pistol racks that allow guns to stand up next to other guns. A gunstore I sometimes frequent built wooden, carpeted (or maybe felt-lined) trays deep enough to hold one handgun laying on it's side and long and wide enough to fit the shelves in their safes. At the end of the day, they clear out the display cases, putting the guns on trays, as many as will fit per tray. Then they stack the trays on shelves in the safe....

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I found that modular pistol racks, such as the Hyskore are good - they can be combined to fill any shelf size: http://www.hyskore.com/modular-pistol-rack.htm

For my rifles I removed the notched shelf and use these rods with velcro tips to allow more rifles to be stored in a smaller area: http://www.uniquetek.com/site/696296/product/T1327

Good luck!

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My solution. IIRC it was advertised as a 30 gun safe when I bought it, currently has about 70 in it. Good advice: when buying a safe, buy one that will hold bout 4 times the guns you think you think you will end up with at any given time... My next one will be the size of a commercial fridge... <_<

post-7974-126560664817_thumb.jpg

post-7974-126560666317_thumb.jpg

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My solution. IIRC it was advertised as a 30 gun safe when I bought it, currently has about 70 in it. Good advice: when buying a safe, buy one that will hold bout 4 times the guns you think you think you will end up with at any given time... My next one will be the size of a commercial fridge... <_<

Where did you get or what are you using and where did you get the pistol hangers?

Jim

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I was gonna ask the same question as Jim- what are you using to hold your pistols on the door, Ken?

Our 2 gun safes came with some of the velcro pouches for pistols to hang on the doors. We quickly got rid of those, as they don't seem to want to hold anything larger than a Ruger .380! Would love to know a better alternative that doesn't compromise the integrity of the safe.

Susan

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Only non gun stuff in my vault is the coins and my legal papers.

The hangers are simply stainless steel bathroom hardware that I picked up at Lowes. Coat them in whatever you are comfortable with. I've tried tool dip with so-so results. Heat shrink was okay... To tell you the truth, what you see on there now is just like they came out of the package, no coating. Most of my stuff is hard chromed, but even the stuff that isn't shows no wear marks from the hangers, and I've had this system going for about 6 years now in that safe. No plans to change.

There are more of the hooks on the interior walls, holding some of my more eclectic stuff that I dont get out much. Also all of the revo's and .22 autos are on the top shelf. I'm a little OCD, so all the stuff on the door kinda matches.

I do have an idea to scrap the current rifle rack that is in there and replace with one of my own design, I'm thinking I can get at least 4 more rifles in there if I do. We'll see. :rolleyes:

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I really appreciate all of the info and pics. I knew there would be a lot of great ideas out there and I prefer to borrow ideas rather than come up with my own. One more question which I know will be very subjective since not too many people have more than one gun safe, but is there any brand to really stay away from? I love the pistol hangers on the door so durable metal there would be a big plus.

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I use those old style wooden clothes pins. I run it through the trigger guard of the handguns and it leans at a about a 45 degree angle. I also have those magnet strips that holds tools glued to the inner door. I attach my mags to those.

I live in California and the hi cap mags I have are like gold here. I have nothing but gun stuff in my safe & have run out of room. I'm looking to buy a bigger safe & keep the one I have as well.

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The weight of the safe is typically the best indication of how good the safe is. I'm not in the business but did quite a bit of research before buying one.

You should watch these videos to get some ideas:

(in particular watch the safe break-in starting about halfway through)

I'm not advocating any of the safes show in the videos - just something to think about.

One other area to look at with safes is commercial safes, such as a TL15 or TL30. If you pay attention to your local craigslist, classifieds, ebay, etc., you can often find a commercial safe for the same or lower price than a "gun safe". The commercial safes typically are as fancy (no gloss finish) but are much more secure. They also tend to be much heavier. You will likely have to pay someone to move a commercial safe, but you are likely still ahead on price even with this. You will also have to build your own interior, but it sounds like you are already thinking about that given your initial question.

Best of luck, and remember to always buy bigger than you think you will ever use ;-)

I really appreciate all of the info and pics. I knew there would be a lot of great ideas out there and I prefer to borrow ideas rather than come up with my own. One more question which I know will be very subjective since not too many people have more than one gun safe, but is there any brand to really stay away from? I love the pistol hangers on the door so durable metal there would be a big plus.

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