Top Gun Safes

Whether you’re a casual hunter who has a family or an avid shooter who spends as much time calculating and testing hand-loaded ammunition as you do on personal grooming; the security provided by a quality gun safe is the best way to protect your investment.

The holiday season is a great time to replace a safe you’ve outgrown or to bring another style of the safe into your growing arsenal.

Hunters who have collected an amassment of heirloom, or other ornate pieces may opt for a traditional cabinet style of weapon storage; folks looking to store more than just hunting rifles may seek out a fireproof option to protect documents and other items, and gun owners who have families may wish to even get a small option to stow an everyday carry (EDC) pistol in a convenient place that’s safely out of the kids’ reach.

Whatever your reasons for shopping for the best gun safe, make sure you buy the right safe for the right reasons.

The Gun Safes you need to consider when buying:

What to look for in a gun safe

There are so many options in the weapon storage market, it can make your head swim. Let’s start by breaking down some of the key features in a quality gun safe so you can easily decide which suits your needs (and your collection) best.

Cost

The most obvious, and usually the most important, factor in shopping for any item is simple: how much does it cost? A great gun safe will not only protect your weapons from theft or unintended handling, but it may also protect other valuables.

When making your decision on just how much to spend, try to keep in mind what other items you may be protected inside your safe. You may think that spending a few hundred bucks on a safe doesn’t sit quite right with you, but when you calculate the added protection for other precious items, you may feel better about increasing the ticket value.

Overall Quality

Here’s a riddle: when is a gun safe not a gun safe? When it’s not safe. Ok, I’ll stop being clever; my point is that a tiny lightweight gun case, or a glass-fronted gun cabinet, is not equal to a gun safe in terms of actual safety.

If your goal is safety—skip the thin-walled gun cases that can be easily breached or simply carried off. Quality construction and decent lock are mandatory.

Lock

With the availability of a handful of different locks, be sure you choose the right one for your application.

Your home defense weapons probably shouldn’t live behind a combination lock that you’re unlikely to be able to see in a low-light scenario, and that unfired Colt Gold Cup pistol your Grandfather left you in his will shouldn’t be stored in a cheap case that won’t protect it from the environment, let alone theft.

Capacity

If you’re like me, you’re not just a hunter, but also a collector. Great pieces that are family hand-me-downs take up space just as that hot new rifle you just had to buy three seasons ago, don’t get us started on that growing pistol collection…right?

Whether you’re expanding, upgrading, or buying your first gun safe, I always urge people to leave some room to grow—you’ll use it. Even if you think you won’t add to your collection, you may find that storing your ammunition or other valuables in the safe makes the extra space worth having.

Size and Weight

This may be as limiting a factor as cost. There’s a Zen-like line that a gun owner needs to walk; a line between having secure storage for their collection, and having to modify their home in order to fit a safe the size of a Volkswagen.

How much is too much? That may depend more on your home than your wallet, and woe is the man who buys a safe he can’t fit into his domicile.

Options and Accessories

Hey, nothing comes without a little room to upgrade right? There’s a host of killer upgrades, add-ons, and accessories in the gun safe market, and depending which new safe you get your hands one, you could go as far as setting up a secure network connection inside your safe to store your data.

Seriously. It sounds like overkill, but the amount of digital data we accumulate these days is so great that many manufacturers are starting to offer network jacks as factory options. Other options are much more practical, you know, things like lights. It’s nice to actually see your collection once it’s securely stored, isn’t it?

Top 5 Gun Safes Recommendations

With a moderate price of just under $750 as of this article, the Mesa 14 rifle safe is certainly not the cheapest safe on the market; however, this safe will ship free for Amazon Prime members, and it offers features typically included in safes that cost an arm and a leg. The only limiting factor here would be the size of your gun collection.

Relying on electronics can make life convenient—for as long as the electronics work. Being able to access your pistols quickly by key or an electronic lock makes for peace of mind. There is a shelf inside this safe, so you could store a pistol or two inside the safe as well as a flashlight, small medical kit, or really anything else that you’d like to keep secure.

For a secure pistol storage option that is under $200, we think this one of the best possible options. Keep in mind the dual power sources (battery and AC power) and the dual locking mechanisms (electronic and keyed). This is a great buy.

Just think how great it would be to crack open your safe and be able to quickly inventory all of your rifles, pistols, and ammunition. No more opening one small cabinet, then going to the bedroom closet to fish out that gun you forgot to store after hunting season, then sorting through cans of ammo in various places in the basement.

The Second Amendment safe has room enough to keep all of your loot in one place. In terms of security, this safe is loaded with features ranging from a drill-resistant plate, to chromed steel deadbolts, right down to its 12GA steel construction and powder-coating, so it’s completely utilitarian, but stylish as well.

There are holes for bolting this down, just in case you think someone could actually lift this beast—and the interior is nicely decorated with a plush grey lining.

We think a safe like this may fit nicely into the home of someone who wants to keep some home defense weapons nearby, but doesn’t want to try and fiddle with a key in the dark—or type in an electronic code in a hurry.

There is a loud audible beep when using the electronic lock, which can be disabled, but is cool because it lets you know if someone is trying to access your safe—again great for home defense or keeping weapons out of unauthorized hands.

As with all gun safes, you’re paying for peace of mind as much as you are security, so having enough space to put your weapons and other valuables with the added water and fire protection really adds value.

Final thoughts

So you’ve seen our highly recommended safe options. As a collector myself, I understand just how hard it can be to find a perfect option that will provide the security you want, fit in your home, and also fit into your budget.

My absolute recommendation is to get the biggest and best safe you can afford, even if it requires you to save up for longer than you’d like. Saving a few hundred bucks upfront, just to end up needing a bigger (or better) safe a few years down the road really isn’t saving in the long run.

Of course, buying the best safe you can afford doesn’t mean you need to siphon funds from your annual vacation fund. Dropping a few thousand dollars on a safe that needs to be lowered into your home at the hands of a skilled crane operator is a cool daydream for some of us, but unless you’re a lottery winner that may not be feasible.

We chose the Blue Dot Second Amendment safe as our favorite here at Outdoorhill. The price tag is heavy, no doubt about that, but the 51 rifle capacity and excellent internal storage options will come in handy for almost any collector out there.

The door organizer can hold a small armory itself, and the excellent fireproof rating should offer peace of mind to anyone who wishes to protect their investment.

As an added bonus, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, this safe is available with free Prime shipping. Our last recommendation goes a bit beyond gun safety, and more into operational security. If you live in an area where trash and recycling is picked up at your curbside—you may wish to break down the packaging from your safe and dispose of it more discretely.

Call it security by obscurity if you’d like, but keeping your gun collection to yourself is the goal of a gun safe—and we think the idea of leaving a large box that says “gun safe” on the side of the road by your home may be a form of advertising that could have some negative impacts, to say the least.