The ideal way to display them and be safe is a fireproof gun room, which has a either a gun safe door or a very solid fireproof door with a secure locking system. If you can’t do that then the next best way is a gun safe bolted to a cement wall in the basement. The thing to remember in displaying your guns and showing your friends is your trusting them not to tell their drinking partner at the local pub who passes it on to someone that will act on the information.

Bob

If your putting in a gun safe put it in the basement in case of fire. Its the coolest place since heat rises. You bolt the safe in a corner of the basement since that gives you 2 cold sides and if you put it in corner with the door hinge away from the corner you now made it very difficult to pry a cheap safe open like they did in the video. From there you can block in the remaining side and top to give it additional heat protection. Any thief can break into any safe if he comes prepared with the right tools and has time. You just wan to stack the odds in your favor. You want to make it has hard as possible to find the safe in the first place so concealment is very effective. Another strategy is to put a cheap tin gun safe in a ground floor closet with your cheap hunting guns in it as a sacrifice. Hope that they find it first and carry it off thinking they hit the mother load. Alarms and video security is another big deterrent even if the cameras are fake and you just put alarm stickers in the windows. They will pick another house that looks easier. All this is wasted if you invite the wrong person in to see your guns and where you keep them. Now they know what you have,  where there are and what they need to bring to get them out. I would suggest if you are bring someone over to see the guns is to bring them out and display them on a table or if you have a free room, hang them on the walls, then when their gone you put them back in the safe.

Bob

Another Tid Bit most people don’t know. Any safe you buy from any manufacturer, the manufacturer keeps a record of the combination to the safe per its serial number when it was manufactured at the plant. So that in itself is another “false sense of security”. Plenty of scenarios were this could be potentially bad. If their records are ever compromised and so forth. Also law enforcement can call the manufacturer and request the combination. Officially and through the proper channels this is done with a Warrant. But I’ve seen agents make a quick phone call, and within a matter of seconds the manufacturer relayed the combination over the phone to a officer in the field. I’ve been told of similar scenarios happen with phone records and phone tapping all the time. I also imagine it wouldn’t take much for someone to claim to a law officer and get such information. If someone is willing to break into your home, there is no telling what else they are willing to do. Also law enforcement themselves do on occasion have a few bad apples.

Anyway you look at it, a added level of security is to have your own locksmith make a new combination to your safe, and not merely stick with what was sold to you by the manufacturer. The video mentioned safes being passed down through generations. I don’t know about how good older safes are against “lock-picking” or the locking system being compromised. But as far as “Fireproofing” or fire protection goes, the older the better. If it is an older safe that is insulated with Asbestos, it can’t be beat. Most newer manufactured safes are lined with Gypsum Board or a Gypsum compound mixture, which is flammable believe it or not. Granddads old asbestos safe from the 1920s won’t burn. 

I also much favor a Gun Room over a Gun Safe. It nice to be able to walk around inside your safe.

Sincerely,

Maverick 

AT one point about 6 years ago I had app. 1400 firearms and displayed about 600 of them in My gun room. I live in a small community where the neighbours know more about what’s going on at My house than I do so they keep an eye out. Instead of concrete bunkers, vault doors etc. I installed a motion sensitive security system with cameras alarms etc.I also made it very well known locally I would shoot perpetrators. I’ve had no problems. I have a lot less firearms now but still use the same system and so far it works well. I probably wouldn’t bother owning them if I had to hide them away in a vault where I couldn’t enjoy being intimate with My babies.