Vault Door Recommendation

[Aegis]

No worries,

As you can tell I'm not on here very much (< 50 posts since 2009).

Sounds like you'll be good to go!

[rsilvers]

I did many hours of research, and these are the doors I would look at:

Amsec - Can do anything, but generally 1/4 or 1/2 inch plate.
Smith - Does 3/16 to 1 inch door thickness.
Sturdy - uses 5/16 plate thickness.

I would not get anything that does not have at least 0.25 outer plate, and that is a very minimum. That means anything that speaks of a "composite" door (aside from obviously higher-end products) is using sheet metal over drywall, and not plate. 3/8 is better. 1/2, 1 inch, or 1.5 inch is better still, but the price goes up fast (including shipping and labor to install).

That $7000 liberty is not as thick plate as a $3000 Smith or a $3500 Amsec.

[rushca01]

I have one of the big sturdy safes, 48x24x72. I have been more than happy with the company. Like r silvers posted above I wouldn't hesitate to use one of their doors.

[Pi3]

House is built on a slab on chainwall. Foundation block underneath the vault goes all the way down to the footing. Imagine the foundation layers as this: undisturbed earth -> footing -> chainwall of 8" filled block -> 4" concrete slab -> 8" filled block vault walls - 4" concrete cap

When they poured the concrete cap, they framed up a spot for a normal ventilation duct along with some conduit for electrion. HVAC man is on tap to put a fire damper on the supply to suppress smoke in the event of a fire.

Thinking about finishing out the inside with tongue and groove pine to make everything look nice but I don't know yet.

I'm now looking for some nice gun racks if anyone can recommend some....

You might want to let everything dry for a couple of months before covering it.

[nova3930]

I did many hours of research, and these are the doors I would look at:

Amsec - Can do anything, but generally 1/4 or 1/2 inch plate.
Smith - Does 3/16 to 1 inch door thickness.
Sturdy - uses 5/16 plate thickness.

I would not get anything that does not have at least 0.25 outer plate, and that is a very minimum. That means anything that speaks of a "composite" door (aside from obviously higher-end products) is using sheet metal over drywall, and not plate. 3/8 is better. 1/2, 1 inch, or 1.5 inch is better still, but the price goes up fast (including shipping and labor to install).

That $7000 liberty is not as thick plate as a $3000 Smith or a $3500 Amsec.

I long ago went with the Smith Security Safe Magnum door. I'm well pleased with it thus far. You can sure tell that it's all steel when you swing the thing open.

You might want to let everything dry for a couple of months before covering it.

Once again, far too late for the advice lol

The thing has been covered for 4 months and we've been in the house for 2. There's an air gap all the way around due to the furring strips so I think it will be fine.

This does remind me I need to post some pictures. I just have cheap plastic shelving in there at the moment because I ran out of money but the safe is functional. Once we recover from the house a little bit, my cabinet man does have a plan for rifle and pistol racks plus file storage and seating since my vault doubles as a tornado room.

[Slab]

Just an opinion, the set up you went with looks good to go. As previously mentioned "nothing is impenetrable", however in order to successfully/efficiently penetrate a safe/something hardened, you have to know it is there and to some extent what you are dealing with, in advance. So, I would argue solid OPSEC is the final component to your safe...

[nova3930]

Just an opinion, the set up you went with looks good to go. As previously mentioned "nothing is impenetrable", however in order to successfully/efficiently penetrate a safe/something hardened, you have to know it is there and to some extent what you are dealing with, in advance. So, I would argue solid OPSEC is the final component to your safe...

Probably right. Maybe I'll leave off the pictures and to the imagination...

[rsilvers]

https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread...t-door-project

[rcoodyar15]

I have thought many times about building a vault. You are right the walls are the weakness if you use a real vault door. .50 cal will make short work of a reinforced concrete wall. Unless it is ballistic steel .50 cal would make short work of that too.

Best thing to do is bury your vault under your house and have the door in a basement wall or something.

[rsilvers]

Brown Safe has an option for armor steel. Their door, in close to the size that I got, the same thickness, but armor steel and stainless-clad, would be about $16,500 delivered.

http://www.brownsafe.com/features_st...ult_model.html