Gun Safe Reviews - Five of the Best Picks [UPDATED 2020]

When considering gun safes the term ‘best’ can easily be replaced with ‘safest’ or ‘most secure’, as, simply put, a safe that is the ‘safest’ is the best. There are various elements that help increase a safe’s security and this article will intend to address the most common ones.

When considering gun safes the term ‘best’ can easily be replaced with ‘safest’ or ‘most secure’, as, simply put, a safe that is the ‘safest’ is the best. There are various elements that help increase a safe’s security and this article will intend to address the most common ones.

The best safes will be of a solid steel construction, with additional composite clad lining if fireproofing is needed. Cheaper safes will use a lower density (higher gauge) steel to save on cost and will often use fireboard or drywall instead of composite cladding, as these are cheaper materials but offer less protection from fire.

The thicker the density of the steel and the thicker the walls and doors of the safe, the harder it is for a burglar to drill into it. Also steel of a greater density and thickness will offer more protection from fire.

Standards of fireproofing are constantly rising and now the best safes available on the market can stand temperatures of up to eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit for an incredible two and a half hours. A quality safe will have its fireproofing verified by Underwriters Laboratories (U.L.); the most highly respected testing laboratory in the United States.

U.L. are also the industry standard when it comes to security testing for safes. There are a variety of labels that U.L. can apply to a safe to demonstrate how safe it is, but the best safes will have a U.L label Class TXTL-60, meaning that the safe is able to withstand an attack from burglars for at least sixty minutes on all of its sides with a range of tools and explosives.

It is rare to find a gun safe with a rating of this class, unless custom built. The highest U.L. label currently giving to a production model safe is a Class TL-30 granted to AMSEC’s RF6528 high-security safe, which means that the safe is able to withstand an attack from burglars for at least thirty minutes with a range of tools.

The best lock for a safe is currently a biometric lock. The advantages it has over other locks are that only the registered users can gain access to the safe, as well as the fact that because it only requires the user to place their fingerprint onto the scanner to unlock it, the speed with which the safe can be opened is significantly increased as well as the chance of human error being reduced.

Overall, the best gun safe is one that suits your needs. A safe is an investment and you should remember that saving money in the short term may cost you in the long term; however it would be pointless to spend thousands of dollars on a safe that will only ever store a few cheap guns.

The gun safe market is heavily saturated with a variety of models from a cornucopia of manufacturers. Finding your way through this morass of models can be confusing and time-consuming. This article will demonstrate to you the most suitable gun safe currently on offer, regardless of size and price, these models are the crème-de-la-crème of the gun safe industry.

The premier model from Cannon, the Commander Series 54 has a whole host of features which make it one of the best safes in the business. An incredible five and three quarter inch, double-steel, composite-lined door will protect your valuables from fire and theft.

The safe has been verified by Intertek-ETL to be fireproof for as long as ninety minutes in temperatures of up to twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The best feature of this safe (and all high-end Cannon safes) is the warranty though, which covers complementary repair and replacement in almost all situations, including fire, theft and even flood.

Liberty is the most well-known safe manufacturer in the business and in the past has been guilty of using their notoriety to produce low-quality safes. This, however, is not the case with the National Security Magnum 50 which is an impeccable safe.

Using seven-gauge, six-inch thick composite-lined steel for its door and coming with two and a half hours of fire protection at temperatures of up to twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit, demonstrates how Liberty have strived to produce one of the best gun safes in the business.

The Winchester Legacy Premier 53 lives up to the premier in its name by being one of the safest and most fireproof gun safes money can buy. Although it only uses ten-gauge steel in its construction, which is not as dense as some other high-end models, it is fireproof for two and a half hours at temperatures of up to an incredible fourteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

It is further secured with twenty; two-inch, locking-bolts which ensure that once closed it will not be easily opened by any unauthorized person.

From AMSEC, the most highly-regarded safe manufacturer in the industry, comes the astounding AMSEC RF6528.

Critically lauded as the ‘most secure gun safe in the business’, this is the only gun safe currently in production, from any company, that has been granted a U.L. TL-30 burglary rating, by Underwriters Laboratories, the most highly-respected testing laboratory in the business. This means that it is the only safe on the market that is guaranteed to resist an experienced burglar for at least thirty minutes.

Not only is it incredibly secure, but it can also withstand fire for as long as two hours, in heats of up to eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. This is one of, if not the, greatest gun-safe around.

Brown are not as well-known a company as any other safe manufacturer mentioned in this article, however for a number of years they have been producing technically-flawless consumer safes. Brown specializes in custom safe building but their production-model safes are of an equally exquisite quality as they can be upgraded to have incredible levels of protection.

The Brown Estate 6018 can be equipped with military-grade ballistic armor which although much thinner than standard solid-steel, which is used in the construction of the majority of safes, is much stronger and near impenetrable. A fully-upgraded Brown Estate 6018, although incredibly expensive, is the best safe in the business.

The safes mentioned in this article are very expensive. A gun safe is an investment and you should buy a high-quality safe, however adjust the quality of the safe to your needs. It is no use purchasing a safe for thousands of dollars if it is only ever going to hold a few hundred dollars worth of guns. Always research any safe thoroughly before you make a purchase.