I'm not talking about a stack-on cabinet, I mean a legitimate safe, I figure it wont be the best of quality but is there something out there that's at least usable?

I doubt there is a gun safe out there that a reasonably industrious fellow couldn't get into in a matter of minuets with a disc grinder. Fire protection is another matter but I'm sure we have all seen videos of of ruined guns if fire resistant safes.

Check out Costco.com or visit one near you.

I haven't been shopping safes (i don't own guns), but it seems like Tractor Supply and Rural King has some pretty good prices. Especially around Christmas.

I am not a top tier security expert, but 99.7% of the break-ins aren't bringing specialty tools and knowledge into your home. I think it is usually low-lifes looking to score a couple hundred bucks to feed a drug habit or some such. So they take your T.Vs, and microwaves and such. Any decent safe is going to keep you guns safe. Especially if it is bolted down, or at least have a couple thousand rounds in it to make it seem like it is. A decent alarm that blares 250 decibels is also going to create enough panic to encourage them to move along. I know I freak out just setting mine off by accident.

YMMV.

go buy some old gym lockers.  they are as theft resistant as a $300 safe.

That little stack on safe is usually around $300. Not the cheap ass locker , but the smaller regular safe.

Kind of like this one.

Attached File

The biggest problem with inexpensive gun safes isn't somebody breaking into your home and stealing your guns.  It is trying to get into your safe at some point in the future, and you being locked out of it because it was junk.