I'm moving from a more rural area to an apartment in a small city. I have a friend who lives in the same city, his home was recently robbed. The thief took his Taurus (possibly a blessing in disguise) among other things. This naturally got me thinking about my own situation. I have a handful of firearms, a mix of long guns and hand guns, and as much as it would be awful to lose them, it would be even worse to have them fall into the hands of someone who is enough of a low life to break into other people's homes.

As I said in the subject, my apartment is on the third floor, what are some good options to secure my firearms? It feels like a safe will be really difficult to get up there, and I don't have a good place to put it either, with the possible exception of a closet. Another option is a large shed on the property that will be mine to use as a work space. The shed locks, but I'm not sure if I like the idea of them not being in the house with me. I'd love to find a good option under $500. Are there some creative solutions out there? Thanks in advance!

Dan

I lived on the third floor of an apartment and had a 600 pound safe measuring 60 x 30 x 21.  Some thieves tried to steal it and they dropped it on one of them in an attempt to take it down the stairs.  He died.  Not really, but I did have a 600 pound safe on my third floor apartment for years.  I put it in a corner of an exterior wall and never had any issues with it.  The only problem was it cost me $300 to move it up the stairs.

A modular safe.  I have a Dakota Interloc-XP on the third floor of my condo.  There are others, such as SnapSafe and Zanotti.  Mine breaks down into 6 pieces, with the heaviest piece (door) weighing about 175 lbs.  Even better if you can assemble it inside your closet, as the safe might be too wide to drag it through the closet door frame.  Mine cost me about $1000.  I have moved it to five different apartments/houses/condos, so it was worth the money to me.

The shed IMO is going to give you more headaches than it's worth.  It's also going to give you a host of problems including humidity.

I'm thinking that the shed isn't a good option. The top three options that I'm considering right now are a modular safe, possibly a tall and narrow used safe, or a job site box that I could build a wooden shell around to make my wife happy and to disguise the look a little bit.

SnapSafe.  Buy two and get free shipping on both of them (I think).

I am in the same situation. I secured a stack on 16 gun "safe" (it's really just a locker with three lugs and a combo lock) bolted to the wall in a closet. On the adjacent wall facing the closet it resides in I have recently positioned a Dropcam with 30 day record backup. Hopefully that keeps the stooges at bay

There are times when a safe is either too heavy, cannot be maneuvered up several flights of stairs or there simply is no convenient place to put a safe. In addition to the piece together safe's mentioned above, there are a variety of Stack On gun cabinets that while not a real safe are better than nothing (or next to nothing). they will at least slow the thief down a minute or two (or five). There is also the option, if you have a spare closet big enough, of putting a gun cabinet into the closet and then putting a lock on the closet door. Whole point is to slow down the thief if at all possible. Also look into a security system if your apartment is not equipped with one. Unfortunately one may be limited by their lease or rental agreement when it comes to installing a security system or securely mounting a big safe.

one of those cheap $100 stack on lockers kept a buddy in college from getting his guns stolen by some HS kids...   considering his budget and the frequent need to move, it served him pretty well.   better than nothing.

You can get some stack ons that are quite a bit stronger and could still be easily moved by two younger guys up a flight of stairs.

Honestly, 3rd floor is your best defense against any sort of break in.

If you want to be low budget and your collection is small, two eyelets across two studs with a heavy duty bicycle cable through the trigger guards can go a long way.   Assuming the design of your guns can cooperate, ie. AR swing open trigger guard not that great although it will probably still confuse the majority of real world thieves.

Easiest option would be the Stack type of cabinet, and then get an alarm system like Simplisafe that is wireless, can install yourself and take with you when you leave.  The cabinet will slow them down enough, and the alarm will hopefully keep them from taking any time.

Shed idea is terrible, IMO.
I had a 75g aquarium in my old apartment with big rocks and sand in it and had no issues. If I were to get a gun-storage option in an apartment it would be an "assembled in place" option. As others have said, try looking at extra measures of security you can install yourself and take with you when you leave.

I have a Zanotti.  I waited 6 months for it a few years ago.  It is very sturdy, maybe not as sturdy as a monolithic safe, but close enough that I doubt it would make any difference at break-in time.  Definitely better than a Stack-On cabinet and sooo easy to put in tough locations for burglars like a closet.

If you are renting and the landlord won't let you anchor it, just get a big piece of plate steel and mount it to the bottom so that it can't be easily removed from the space that it is in.  And I second the recommendation of a space against an exterior wall to handle the load/prevent floor sag.