So, you’ve got your hands on a shiny new pistol safe and you’re excited to start storing all of your valuables, including your firearms, safely in your house. But now comes the problem of figuring out where exactly to mount your safe.
If you’re facing this dilemma, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we will take a look at some of the best places to mount your new pistol safe that will provide you with as much protection as possible.
Read on for more information about where to mount pistol safe units in your home or office to ensure that they are in the safest (no pun intended) possible position. Let’s get right to it!
What Makes a Good Safe Spot
There are a few key elements that you should keep in mind when choosing where you mount your gun safe. Here are the important things you should consider when you are selecting a suitable safe mounting position.
Ease of Access
Making sure that your safe is well-concealed is all well and good, but if you want to be able to get into its contents quickly and reliably, you are going to need to mount the safe somewhere where you can access it easily. If you’ve got it tucked away at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen, when you need it in your bedroom, then hiding it in the kitchen is the wrong choice.
The bedroom is generally the best place to keep your safe. If an intruder tries to break into your home in the middle of the night, you’ll be able to access your firearm the moment you wake up, rather than going to another room to get it.
Concealment
Walk into the room where you plan on putting your safe. Can you see the safe when you walk into that room and have a quick look around? If not, then you’ve concealed the safe well. By hiding your safe well, you will significantly reduce the chances of it being found by an intruder.
The best places to conceal your pistol safe include your bedroom drawer, a nightstand, cupboards, and a wardrobe.
Storing Multiple Firearms
The kind of firearms you want to store in your home will influence where you decide to place your safe. If you have invested in separate safes for your rifles and pistols, then your smaller pistol safe will generally be best placed inside a compact space, such as a nightstand.
When it comes to rifle safes, you’re going to be reasonably limited on space, but they will usually fit within a wardrobe. If you’ve got a walk-in closet, then hiding it behind a row of coats or dresses works really well for both concealment and ease of access – it’ll be difficult for intruders to spot but easy for you to access.
Mounting Your Pistol Safe
If you are using a small gun safe to store your pistols and rifles, the best practice is always to mount it to some kind of surface, whether you bolt it or screw it down. The average man can carry a 40-pound safe out of your house and into a car, so if you haven’t secured your safe down in some way, then it is far more likely to get stolen.
It’s also fairly common for thieves to just take the whole unit with the valuables inside so that they can work on breaking into the safe when they aren’t in your home. Most safes come with pre-drilled holes, and if your pistol safe is going to be a permanent fixture in your home, these holes are essential.
You’ll usually find them at the bottom of the safe, but some units have them drilled into the side for attachment to walls. When preparing to bolt your unit down, the best practice is to put the safe in the position that you plan to keep it, then mark the holes on the wall. That way, when you drill the holes, they will align perfectly when you put screws or bolts in while also mitigating any potential human error.
You can use either screws or bolts for this process, depending on what you’re attaching the safe to. Your safe might come with a set of tools, but these are generally quite sub-par, so we recommend getting your hands on another robust set.
What’s the Ideal Location for a Pistol Safe?
When it comes to pistol safes or any safes for that matter, there are a number of things that you need to keep in mind, including fire risk, solid securing surfaces, and ease of removal. The best place for some of your larger home safes includes a room with at least a step-down access and that has concrete floors to provide total protection against removal.
When you store your safe in a room with at least one step, removing a larger safe model becomes significantly more challenging. Rolling a safe is relatively easy once the unit has been tipped on its side, and a motivated intruder can remove even a 1000-pound safe from your home if the thieves can get it onto a set of rolling wheels.
However, this is nearly impossible when you’ve got your safe in a room with at least one step in it. As for smaller pistol safes, there’s no safer place to store them than inside your room. Your nightstand is probably the best place since you’ll have easy access and also an element of concealment if you mount it below the stand. Otherwise, underneath your bed is a good option.
Wrapping Up
You’ve got a lot of options when it comes to mounting your pistol safe in your home. For us, the best place is always in or underneath your nightstand, but mounting your pistol safe anywhere in your bedroom will ensure that you’ve got easy access and that you’ll always know exactly where it is. Stay safe!