There was a guy here a month or so ago who built a concrete vault in his basement.  It was WAY COOL!!

I've done a LITTLE research into this as I have toyed with this idea myself.  What I found is that a lot of the name brand safe companies do indeed sell vault doors.  From what I saw, they  are pricey...  Visit some of the websites and you should see them no problem.

I would love to do that same thing.  Are you building it into a existing house or is the house going to built on top of it?  Problem I see with doing it in a existing house is the roof of the vault.  How do you prevent people from cutting the floor above it to get in?  If someone has pictures I would love to see them.  I found that the Vault doors werent all that expensive considering what most large safes cost.

I found the thread [url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=99471[/url]

That's it!!!!!!!!!!

It looks really nice.  BUT...
WAY TOO SMALL!

Build a large room so that you can use it as a shelter in addition to security storage.

Shelter = safe room / fallout shelter / place to hide from the wife / etc..

[url]http://shop.store.yahoo.com/citywidesecurity/amsecvaultdoor.html[/url]

[img]http://store3.yimg.com/I/citywidesecurity_1696_7040867[/img]

[url]http://www.gunsandammomag.com/dynamic.asp?intSectionID=198&intArticleID=1100[/url]

Check out www.fema.gov for building a storm shelter as this is basically for what you are looking. Solid concrete walls, floor and ceiling.
The best door would be an "in swing" which is available via Fort Knox.
If you incorporate this room into the plans when building a new house, you may find the door will be more expensive then the cost of building the room itself.

Thats nice but I think I would rather have solid concrete walls.

From the other thread.

[img]http://www.ar15.com/members/albums/brouhaha%2FMvc%2D473s%5B1%5D%2Ejpg[/img]
[img]http://www.ar15.com/members/albums/brouhaha%2FMvc%2D472s%5B1%5D%2Ejpg[/img]
[img]http://www.ar15.com/members/albums/brouhaha%2FMvc%2D474s%5B1%5D%2Ejpg[/img]
[img]http://www.ar15.com/members/albums/brouhaha%2FMvc%2D475s%5B1%5D%2Ejpg[/img]
[img]http://www.ar15.com/members/albums/brouhaha%2FMvc%2D476s%5B1%5D%2Ejpg[/img]

I could probably find it if interested.   There is a guy here in SC that is a distributor for gun safes.     He buys up old safes out of jewelry stores and court houses and such.    He also buys Doors from bank vaults that are being torn down.     I have seen a few of his safes in pawn shops.      7' tall and 3' deep and 3' wide and weigh anywhere from 1500 to 5000 pounds.     They are sometimes old stuff but nobody is going to walk off with one or crack it open with a crow bar.
      Get a bank vault door.    

Please do!! and email info, I've been working on this for a while now.. Thanks!

Tall Shadow

Brouhaha

You have mail at yer AR15.com addy.

Hey schapman43, take a look at tthat fourth picture, he has a plywood ceiling in there?

Was it Garandman's buddy, Wobblin-Goblin?  The pics I saw were pretty nice.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Its the most cost effective way to pour a concrete roof.

I've seen it - its not a problem.

One and the same. Pics of Wobbly's vault are shown above (schapmans post)

Had me worried there .

I have said in the past I am not the handiest guy around the house...

If you are building your house now, and your foundation is block, well, I guess block may be the way to go. You better fill in the holes with crete and put rerods in too. It still isn't nearly as good as concrete, but oh well.

However, if you are building your house now and the foundation is going to be concrete OR if your house is already built, choose concrete for your vault. You won't be sorry.

My inside dimensions are something like 3'6" by 6'4" which is perfectly fine but the next time I do this I will go about 5' by 7 or 8 feet.

Is anyone familiar with the fibered concrete mix?  A guy at the lumberyard was telling me the fibers provide extra strength, toughness, and resistance to physical damage.

Another guy mentioned using steel plate sections for the ceiling with 4 in. concrete sections resting on wall brackets on top of the steel.

A concrete or block wall could be equipped with vibration or sound sensors to set off an alarm.  In addition to a regular security alarm system, it shouldn't be too difficult to design a system inside the room with sound ports to the outside of the room.  You'd want some way to saveguard somebody putting a bullet or something else through them and taking the speakers out.  Maybe an angled or curved pathway with grill work welded inside.  

Forget the regular alarm sirens, get a 200 watt unit as used on squads & firetrucks.  12volt power supply and a back up tractor or truck battery.  Put unit on a relay with the alarm activation circuits.  Unless they're deaf, no body'll want to stay around long enouth to bust a concrete wall or drill a safe door.

Seems I saw an article describing converting a closet or building a small safe with rerod run thru the studs to discourage sawing, and a steel roll up door inside the regular door to the closet.

Brou, trust me when I say concrete is the way to go. If I built my vault out of blocks, I'd always have a nagging feeling that somebody could just bash his way through the walls. As I am in the trade, I've knocked down block walls (reinforced, no less, and with just an 8lb. sledgehammer) before and would be paranoid that someone would do the same in my basement.

Good luck and keep us informed.

i had one built. 3' wide x 7' deep. not fire proof but has reinforced sides. (was formally a closet). also had commercial steel frame & custom steel door fitted to it with dead bolt only. the door is flush with the wall. the cool thing about it is that it's totally walk-in, it's part of the house. had many folks over, and after a while they'll ask "what's that door lead to?" hence you'd walk buy it 5 times and not even know it was there.

had a captenter do it for $800, including custom shelves, frame & door, and dead bolt. gives me a piece of mind when i go to work during the day ya know.