The RSC history is like this...

One day in 1998-ish, a new up-start company in the Gunsafe industry decided that the way to make a splash and get attention was to go to UL and "negotiate" a new burglary safe rating. Since the player had a relationship with UL from "previous employment", he found the attention necessary to open a dialog. UL, a "non-profit" organization, employs something like 10,000 employees, so they are always up for a new revenue stream. A new listing brings in clients and money to test in the labs, and busy the expensive follow-up services that keeps the army in the field working. So, they are always open to new listing ideas that may exercise their resources.

The caliber of this listing was thought to be too low to fall into the regular UL687 TL safe family, and they grabbed the only other standard that fit, Theft Deterrent Devices, UL1037. The bar was low, and "calibrated" to the safes of the time with the appropriate test criteria. Hence, a new burglary rating was born. The UL1037 standard was not under the purview of the Burglary Safe's Industry Advisor Council (IAC), so the "safe makers" that were engaged in managing the TL safe ratings under UL687 had no opportunity to shape the new Standard. That was intentional.

Once the Standard was drafted, represented by a single paragraph buried inside a Standard that covered all kinds of unrelated products like car alarms and door locks, it was off to the races. It took a few years for most "players" to engage and go get listings as retail market pressure started to force the issue.

The change to split the RSC Rating was also a result of a closed process where safe companies, safe dealers and distributors, and consumers were left out. The successor to the IAC is the Standards Technical Panels (STP), which is now the organized process where the public has an opportunity to weigh in on Standards development. Again, without a single safe company, related market re-seller or consumer interest was consulted, the UL staff chose to split the levels out for the RSC rating. It's still not clear how this originated, and we found out from a dealer late last year that heard about it and inquired. We were never notified in any way, even though we have an active RSC rating.

The Levels don't all make much sense. Without saying anything bad about the UL organization, the authors didn't do much homework in building the new Levels. The existing RSC safes automatically earn the Level I rating. The Level II rating does fit in that void between the RSC and TL15, although inconsistent because the RSC LevII is a true six-sided rating and the TL15 is not. The Level III is, well... crazy out of place. The Level III Standard allows the TL-30 tool complement, and 6-sided performance for 10 minutes. That basically means the RSC Level III is WAY beyond a TL15X6 rating. The tool complement of the TL30 is robust with an array of badass power tools that can defeat 1" steel in under 3 minutes. Most, if not all TL15 safes would go down under such a test requirement...

So, now we have a Theft Deterrent Standard in direct contradiction, and competition, with the UL687 Burglary Safe Standard. I'm sure the authors never intended that result, but not a single member of the governing STP for UL1037 came from the safe industry, safe marketplace, or safe consumer population. So, it's no surprise there is an overlap and conflict.

Needless to say, this needs to be resolved. Last year I joined the STP for the UL1037 standard, and have made proposals to move the RSC rating into the UL687 Standard, and normalize the RSC levels to fit the existing ratings with continuity. Lot's of positive response within UL, but the wheels turn very slowly. I'll let you all know how this all tuns out.

Oh, and BTW... the RSC ratings will start a regular cyclic "re-test program" in 2019. So, not only will the cheaters get called out, but the physical security bar will rise considerably for Level I.