safe was in my old house bolted down for 7 years
apparently even though it never moved and I never noticed it
the floor was not level  

new house has a level floor verified by me and the new twin to this safe
old safe now has about 1/4" of movement if your grab the top and rock it back and forth     but the safe door remains plumb and free

do I
A: not worry about it and bolt it down
B: shim it with some sort of shim before bolting it down


so far letting is sit for 2 months empty has NOT done the trick

Safe company name withheld... I do not hold them accountable for something I did

Use a paint stick to level

Paint stick will crush while bolting it down tightly, unless made of something approaching a metal, and I'm not going into material properties discussions here.

But I'd consider a plated flat washer or two from Home Depot/Lowes.
Something in the 1-1/2 inch diameter range ought to do it without going into more specialized stuff or products.

ETA: If the safe is going to have an air gap along the front edge - I'd consider a bead of caulk just to keep that dropped Krugerrand from getting lost under it.

http://www.enewton.com/item/2136040110

This is what I used. Bigrob where are you in Texas? I think I have a few shim kits laying around.

Lowes and Home Depot sell packs of wood shims for $1.09.  Just sayin.  

When my safe was installed the rigging company used what appeared to be a composite shim material. It definitely wasn't wood, and it wasn't metal. It almost looked like Hardboard. They said they get them from the MRI machines in hospitals.


I figure that 1: a rigging company knows what they're doing and 2: if that shim can support a 50k lbs MRI machine, it can support my measly 2 ton safe.


Sadly, I can't tell you exactly what the material was.

Hardwood can support tons of weight. Ever see how a box truck is attached to the frame?

They sell polymer shims, but a couple large washers with a single wrap of duct tape will get you there without going out of your way

Home depot sells laminate/hardwood flooring shim pack for $6

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Roberts-Laminate-and-Wood-Flooring-Wedge-Spacers-30-Pack-10-27/203409273?cm_mmc=Shopping|THD|DigitalDecor|google||_pkw__pmt__product_203409273&mid=sfN3EeOPw|dm_mtid_8903yuu57254_pcrid_142853572254_pkw__pmt__product_203409273_slid_&gclid=CjwKEAjwu4_JBRDpgs2RwsCbt1MSJABOY8anmtKnqJICP_SiDme5X8O_xsCDm8xCF84skYQMMz4muhoClLTw_wcB

Yes, wood.
Notice the dimensions of the wood?
It's a slab, not a thin wedge or spacer of soft pine.
But leveling a safe ought require a sliver, and there's not enough wood there to be stable.


They make sidewalks and streets out of concrete.
The same thing applies to a thin layer of concrete applied as a top layer on a sidewalk - it's not stable as a thin layer.

A safe doesn't weigh a lot compared to the compressive forces supplied by the bolts to the floor, and dogging the attachment bolts down to secure it correctly to the floor could crush the wood shims that are generally available anymore, and mostly used for things like plumbing a window or door frame in a wall.
The wood shims generally for sale at Lowes or Home Depot are cheap softwood pine with no density, unless you find hardwood shims.
Steel washers are generally available everywhere.

Depending on the quality and finish (smooth/level/flat)  of the floor, and the if you work hard enough at bolting an 'inexpensive' safe to an un-even floor, you *could* rack a safe out of square and cause the door to bind.

I even picked the safe back up and checked underneath it because I thought it was sitting on something to cause it to wobble

door and door frame best I can tell is square as it sits
visually a 1/8" gap between the door and door frame should show me if the safe was out of square
as much wobble as it has should be plenty to bind the door up

floor is level/flat can move the safe anywhere and it sits just the same
Im willing to bet long term sitting on a uneven slab and being bolted down at the other house caused this

Most gun safes are bent sheet steel.  The odds of finding one that is perfectly square or flat is slim.  Set a 4 foot level across the top to see what I mean.

Regular soft pine wood shims are fine.  I probably have them under 5,000 gun safes, and haven't had an issue yet.  

How about the plastic shims you use or a toilet?

When the guys delivered my safe, they had a box of 3"x3" sheet metal squares of various thickness.

Two or three under one corner and one under the other leveled my safe so the door swung neutral. Pretty important on a 1,000lb door to keep it from taking fingers off or crashing into something valuable...

The poster above mentioned a bead of caulk along the front end. Prob not a bad idea to keep things from getting kicked under, but just be sure its in a perfectly dry location. Water coming up through the concrete would be a bad day trapped under the safe.