Looking to possibly pick this up and convert it to a gun safe.  

How difficult is it gonna be to remove the interior divider sections?  Are these interior compartments built to be break in resistant and hardened or are they just light duty?  Am I going to be able to do it in a day with a wheel on an angle grinder, or is this torch territory?



Edit-I’m dumb, interior pic on the way
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Are you a welder and sheet metal guy, or are you a guy that doesn't know which end of a screw driver works?

For me?  Easy.  For others, maybe not so easy.

Do you own a plasma cutter?

If you haven't purchased it yet, is the juice worth the squeeze?  There may be more cost effective options.

I’m somewhere in between, lol.  Generally handy, and I own an angle grinder, but that’s about the the extent of my metalworking skills.

As far as cost effectiveness, there’s definitely easier options, but as far as I can tell, a new version of this safe is somewhere in the $20k range, not including the interior buildout, and my price is going to be around $3k delivered to my garage.   Weight is around 4k, but thankfully I have no steps from the garage to where it would go.  Size is actually larger/deeper than I wanted for the space it’s going in, but the price is basically what my budget is and TL30 rating is appealing.

Not saying what I would do, but what I did:

Brown Safe Company

As far as budget, it was never in my budget.  I just stopped buying guns and put my money in the piggy bank until I had enough to make the phone call. I had actually considered building my own safe, before I stopped by their factory.

Appreciate the input, but way out of my budget.  Their $11,500 one seems to have only about 2/3 of the space of this for 4x the price and not including delivery.  Just can’t get there on budget.

I did it when I was poor, had a mortgage, a car payment, an RV payment, and was remodeling. (You can buy them with custom dimensions and no interior)

It will take a little time, but it will be worth it depending on the price. The one thing I would definitely recommend is changing that electronic lock to a mechanical. I  bought racks of Amazon for my safe, have one set bolted to the safe and another on the door plate.

That's probably an hour or two of torching and grinding to get it out and relatively presentable on the inside.

A fraction of the cost of a Brown, likely better from a burglary standpoint, and maybe equal in fit/finish not counting a glossy paint job.

@a1abdj thanks for chiming in.  Was hoping to get some expert input.

This is a Hamilton brand, and is 75”x40”x34”.  Seller has a couple of them and says they are 4k lbs

Am I correct in estimating that this would be a $15-20,000 safe in 2022 dollars?  

It’s way bigger than I want to go, frankly way, way more security than I need, as I have a fairly well layered security setup.  That said, I’m obviously not against having the best theft prevention money can buy at bargain basement price.

I’m trying to debate whether this is worth taking out door frames in order to get into my basement, rearranging a room, and putting the work into the interior to have setup as a gun safe.  

Is there any way to guess what the fire rating is on this, compared to standard residential safes?

The thought of taking out that interior would not scare me at all.

After your modifications and prior to filling it up I'd suggest letting a pro give it a once over and make sure its in proper mechanical order.  It might also have a time clock



Can I ask what the seller is asking for them?

$2500, possibly a little more delivered to my garage.

I did consider having it inspected by a locksmith.  I don’t know if there’s anything they can really do to verify that it’s mechanically sound, but my though was that if something did break, it might be expensive as hell to have it opened.

It will be expensive to open should it fail, so not a bad idea to have a safe tech look it over.

I am not a Hamilton dealer, but Hamilton makes a lot of bank equipment.  In something that I would sell, $9K or so would cover the safe itself.  That interior would likely add a couple of thousand.  It would not surprise me if the Hamilton was a little higher price wise.

There's a reason you typically don't see these composite safes with both a fire and burglary rating at the same time, but the rough rule of thumb on these composite safes from a fire standpoint is 2 hours.