Hey guys!
Robert here, with Liberty Safe.
Bad guys exist, and safes are meant to stop them.
But are home and gun safes really secure?
Let’s find out!
The number one reason people buy a safe is to secure their valuables and firearms.
But just how secure are these hunks of metal?
Today we’re going to take a look at the most common strategies thieves use to get
into your safe, and how a quality safe will defend against them.
With a couple of crowbars, some elbow grease, and an inferior safe design, a thief can easily
pry the door off a safe in just a few minutes.
Due to their simplicity, pry attacks are the most common technique used, exploiting the
weakness of smaller locking bolts, and the rivets that attach them to the steel bar that
moves them in and out of the safe.
To counteract this, effective manufacturers will add Z-bars, anti-pry tabs, thicker locking
bolts, and smaller door gaps.
That stated though, the best safe protects against pry attacks by using locking bars
made from a single piece of steel.
Without rivet points in the bars, the safe becomes instantly more pry resistant, and
takes a ton more force to open.
If a pry attack fails, instead of going for the door, a thief might try to break into
your safe by forcing the handle.
In inferior models, this might cause the locking gears to slip, releasing the bolts and unlocking
the safe.
The countermeasure for this is quite common, and though it’s known under many different
names, we like to call it a “slip-clutch mechanism.”
Similar to the way a ratchet works, this device locks the mechanism in place, keeping the
gears from rotating the opposite direction unless it’s properly unlocked.
When the body of your safe is constructed from multiple pieces of steel, with a sledgehammer
and a little extra effort from your thief, the seams that hold it together are at risk
of getting busted.
And that could result in your safe getting peeled like a banana.
When it comes to preventing this, less is gonna be more.
Safe bodies constructed from only two pieces of metal, where only the back piece is welded
on, are going to be the best option for your home security.
These safes are much more difficult to peel and can’t be peeled from the sides at all.
Now, if a thief is really determined, they might resort to higher technologies.
In this case, using a grinder to cut through the metal body of your safe.
Now, as effective as a tactic as this could be, the chances of this happening are incredibly
rare, due to the simple fact that a ton of work will have to go into this type of attempt.
See, most burglary attempts are smash and grab, and they usually occur within 10 minutes
or less.
But by implementing this tool, the chances of getting caught increases significantly.
For example, if the thief has his own grinder, these tools are clunky, and aren’t exactly
inconspicuous.
Also, taking the time to find a power source, plus the time it will take to actually cut
into the safe only makes their attempts more difficult.
This said, there is still a small possibility of this happening, so exceptional safe manufacturers
will utilize not only a lower gauge of steel, making it more difficult to cut into the safe,
but they may also embed pieces of glass or ceramic into the concrete inside the safe,
producing a significant amount of shrapnel upon contact.
For smaller, easier to move safes, safe bouncing (the act of hitting or dropping a safe to
get the lock to bounce open) is another efficient technique used by thieves.
This works because if you catch it at just the right moment, you can turn the handle
of the safe when the lock bounces.
Good safes are going to have counterweight mechanisms that prevent the movement of the
lock.
But the best safes are going to come with at least one relocker: a device that, once
triggered, secures the safe’s locking bolts into place so that not even a key or combination
can retract them.
At the end of the day, no safe is going to be completely burglar-proof or indestructible.
I mean, with the right tools and enough time, any safe can be opened by any person.
And there are even some tactics that no manufacturer can counteract, such as using a plasma cutter
or a thermic lance to cut open the safe, from using an explosive to blow a safe open, or
using machine power to pry the door open.
These methods can be incredibly effective, but they either require special tools, special
training or a great deal of time to complete.
In other words, this tactic is going to be most commonly used to open bank vaults, not
your home or gun safe.
So, let’s recap.
If you’re looking for the most secure home and gun safe, it’s gonna have these features:
● Anti-pry designs, or one-piece locking bars
● Robust bolt coverage ● A slip-clutch mechanism
● A thick steel, 2-piece body ● One or more internal hardplates
● Counterweight mechanisms ● And one or more relockers
Obviously you can expect to pay more as you add on these features.
But a safe that features all these security measures will be a “safe bet” for protecting
your valuables.
In our opinion, these add-ons are important considerations to think about on your buying
journey, so I’ve attached a link in the captions below that outlines the major points
of what we’ve talked about today.
Thanks for watching!
And if you’ve enjoyed this video, please like, share, and subscribe to our channel.
Catch ya later.