Sorry for the loss of life. Fires are devistating events.
Truth of the matter is everyone is happy with their consumer-gun safe until it's actually put to the test. There are plenty of threads where people talk about how many guns they can store inside, how nice the paint is, how many lights and goldenrods they can fit in there, and how good the pinstripes look. There are also plenty of post-fire or post-burglary threads around the Internet where the contents were a total loss. Most consumer-grade gun safes will offer little fire protection and they're no guarantee your firearms will come out in better condition. In reality, they also offer very little burglary protection from someone with some imagination.
There is a reason drywall isn't used in commercial fire-rated safes. If you're purchasing a consumer-grade gun safe, add a fire insurance policy to cover firearms loss and shop based on burglary protection. I would recommend purchasing a used commercial safe and build your own interior, which is a fairly easy task for even the lousiest of handymen. Unfortunately, at the consumer-price level, you're looking at basic variations of the same theme: sheet metal construction with drywall fire liner. Steel is expensive. Security aggregate is expensive. You can only buy so much of it for the typical $300-3000 gun safe price range. Consumer-grade safes will NEVER be good as UL-rated fire safes or commercial burglary safes. There is a reason why no consumer-grade gun safe pays for UL fire testing and instead employ lesser-known third party laboratories. There simply isn't the demand from the consumer market for 4,000lb, $10,000 gun safes.
That's the reality of it and we must adjust accordingly for this weakness. Talk to some safe technicians that are members of SAVTA. They work on million-dollar commercial vaults to high-end safes from wealthy private collectors. They can shed a lot of light on the issue without bias.
On the restoration of weapons, you'd have to get critical steel parts like the barrel or frame hardness tested. A fire will often anneal the steel, reducing it's hardness. That makes it dangerous. You'd have to get in touch with the manufacturer to determine if these parts are safe to put back into service.
“The practical success of an idea, irrespective of its inherent merit, is dependent on the attitude of the contemporaries." Nikola Tesla
Bookmarks