S&W 44 Special

[Jeff H]

Definitely not a NOT-size-fits-all situation.

Reading some of the rationale and logic here makes it somewhat easier to more clearly articulate my own vector on this topic;
I'm trying to make it all more fun than work while I'm alive, and less of a pain in the neck for my spouse once I'm not.

What little I'm keeping has essentially no sentimental value and is not terribly uncommon, collectible and doesn't have any particularly significant monetary value when compared to others' general fare. If someone swoops in to take advantage of my widow, they won't be making any colossal monetary gain by low-balling. No big deal.

The only class III item is already set up to go to a son-in-law whom I think the world of and is on/in my trust.

If I go before she does (and the women always outlive the men on her side and mine) everything becomes hers to do with as she wishes. She can split it up (won't go far) or sell it (won't bring much) and all she has to do is get my best friend, brother or son in law to manage the disposal and I can trust any or all of them, because they all like her way more than they like me.

The biggest pain will be the safe, of which I am now trying to divest myself of anyway. I need a much smaller safe now and have to start shopping.

 

[richhodg66]

Yeah, I keep telling myself that. Seems the last four years or so, old reloading presses have been folowing me home like stray puppies and I have a few interesting ones. At some point, I'd like to set each one up and use it, taking photos and video of it working. There doesn't seem to be much interest in vintage stuff to most handloaders, but a select few of us are fascinated.

Been almost ten years, but I found a Herters Super 9 in a junk box on the floor of a gun shop. Siezed up, I cleaned it up to where it all moves fine, just haven't loaded ammo on it yet. It intrigued me of how unusual it was and I've been a gun show rat my whole life and had never seen one. It hardly cost me anything, mostly elbow grease, so I figure I did OK. Cheap entertainment. That was my first time delving into the old press collecting.

Since then, several others have materialized.

 

[Winelover]

When it comes to safes..............the bigger the better. Harder to cart off. My 2000# Liberty sits in the upstairs master bedroom closet. One loaded 12 gauge short barreled semi auto, Cindy's 642 and few extra loaded mags for my night time house pistol. That's pretty much it and could be assumed to be sacrificial.

Main toy room is 8 x 10 walk in vault, inside the safe room of my ICF constructed (basically reinforced cement) house. Away from prying eyes. Door alone weights 2000 pounds.

 

[Rick]

The bed there is where the security guard sleeps while guarding that walk in safe.

 

[Winelover]

We slept down there, before the house was completely finished. I had the contractor finish the downstairs before the upstairs. Had to get out of the resort rental before the tourist season started and the cash under the table rates skyrocketed. There is a small kitchen area in one corner of the main recreation room. My reloading shop occupies about 1/4 of the remainder of the 2000 square foot floor space, directly under the Master bedroom.

 

[Mowgli Terry]

Another part of being a toy addict is security. Despite gun safe and burglar alarms stuff has been overflowing. As for the old reloading stuff there is a plan here. Use it.

I still have a concern about safety and security. This fear was made worse finding out turds figured several ways to roll gun safes out of a house. That is, if the crow bar does not work. Several years ago our neighborhood clean up day turned up a low end gun safe with door pried off. What remained of the safe was discarded in the woods.

 

[Missionary]

I do think an old refrigerator wrapped with chain would be as good as a "low end safe".

 

[Mowgli Terry]

I'd say the refer with chain is substantially better than Big Box sheet metal gun safes.

 

[waco]

I am happy with my Liberty safe. Problem is I now need another one.

 

[Winelover]

I am happy with my Liberty safe. Problem is I now need another one.

When I lived Michigan, I had the Liberty and a Shaw Walker fire proof file cabinet.............which weighs more than I wanted to move, due to the fireproofing. That file cabinet was my first safe, which I out grew. Was available with dial combination or a key lock. I chose the key because it didn't scream safe. Still have it and it is resides in Cindy's office. A loaded stainless steel Model 60 is stored in there.

 

[Missionary]

My wife is very fond of a SW Ultra-lite Scandium Titanium Cylinder 357 5 shot. Gets fed a 38 Special +p range loaded with a 174 grain cast of range scrap SWC from an old Ideal / Lyman mold. Makes nasty holes traveling through soft skin critters.

 

[Jeff H]

When it comes to safes..............the bigger the better. Harder to cart off.............

Yep, most people will almost always need more room eventually. 27 years ago, when I bough that safe (which weighs less than half yours), I filled it up pretty fast and it became a monumental pain in the butt to get anything out of it, after spending half a day rearranging to get "one more" in there through creative puzzle-craft.

I've always thought the ideal gun safe would be no more than 12 deep and as long (wide) as you want/need. Make it a modular setup and put the starter-unit in a corner and add more modules as you need. Of course, in my case, going the other way, one could sell off modules as they became superfluous.

If I had an 8' x 10' safe, I'd need to build a bathroom in it, or shelves for canned goods. My personal battery would take up a small part of one corner.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

When it comes to the topic of safes, there are some things you can do to really improve your odds.

1. Hide it. The bad guy can't attack a safe he can't find or better yet, doesn't even know that it exists.
2. Limit the room around the safe. Don't give the bad guy a lot of room to work in.
3. NEVER make it easy to get the safe on its back. If they can get it on the floor, they have a much better chance of getting it open.
4. Make it nearly impossible to remove the safe from the building. It doesn't matter how heavy it is, weight will not prevent theft. If you got it into the house, somebody can get it out of the house. If they can leave with the safe, they have all the time in the world to get it open.

 

[Jeff H]

I am happy with my Liberty safe. Problem is I now need another one.

It's a long haul, but I have a Liberty I'm looking to move.

 

[Winelover]

If I had an 8' x 10' safe, I'd need to build a bathroom in it, or shelves for canned goods. My personal battery would take up a small part of one corner.

Bathroom is just feet from the safe room. You have to walk though it, to enter the FEMA certified safe room. There is some emergency rations stored in the saferoom closet. Vault door does have a emergency inside release. You must have a Medico key to access the release. Hard wired landline phone, inside too. Two of the four inside walls have Craft Maid (closet) vinyl coated wire shelfing. Handguns are stored erect, by placing the trigger guard between the protected wires. Long guns are stored on Lazy Susan type gun racks.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

Winelover, the hard wired landline is an excellent idea. Depending on where your house is, a good back-up to that is a 2 meter HAM radio. If you can hit a repeater from inside your safe room, that would give you another option if the phone lines are compromised. While it would be best to get a license, in an emergency it's permissible to use a radio without a license.
I would NOT depend on a cell phone and a cell phone network as a backup.

 

[Jeff H]

Winelover, the hard wired landline is an excellent idea...........

We're still hanging onto ours, but the carrier doesn't care if you get service or not, being such a small part of their revenue. They are more interested in transmission, with fiber running down the road in front of our house that we can't tap into. More money in it for them to carry everyone else's "data" than mess with rural customers who want/ need Internet.

We continue to pay the bill and keep the land-line, but I feel like it's one of those things which will go away eventually, like my party line they kept trying to talk me out of many years ago - "but you'll have a PRIVATE line, they said. But I'm the only person ON that party line, and it's ten bucks cheaper a month," I replied. They eventually changed me over and didn't charge the extra ten bucks. Told me they "really needed to get rid of that last party line in Ohio."

 

[Winelover]

Winelover, the hard wired landline is an excellent idea.

Cell service is spotty in rural Arkansas. Throw in a cement house with a cement room inside of that house and you have zero, zip nada service. I don't even turn my cell phone on at home. Have to be sitting in front of a window to get one bar. I'm gonna hazard to guess the ham radio wouldn't work, either.

 

[KeithB]

If you had an outside antenna it probably would work fine.

 

[oscarflytyer]

my general rules are - if it doesn't get used/is a safe queen, it can go. And fund other things that WILL get used/enjoyed. And my preferences/tastes keepchanging! I sold all my milsurps cause not using them much. Transitioned to lever guns and SA revolvers - which I LOVE more/most these days. And, I am constantly upgrading. Hence the custom Mauser and the Smith revolvers, and Uberti/Cimmaron rifles.

I DO need to move or use some molds. But I want to at LEAST try them first! Inventory was modest til I bought an estate batch from a guy. And found out what I had. Ones a lot of people seem to look for. And all will work for my purposes IF I can just get the casting/reloading time!