Every responsible gun owner should invest in a gun safe to ensure the safety of their loved ones and their community. As the name suggests, a gun safe is a specially designed safe intended for the storage of firearms. Their high security and quality of materials make gun safes an ideal location for storing a weapon. Gun safes come in all shapes and sizes, but laws in some states lay out specific requirements that must be met for a product to be considered a gun safe. In California for example, these include:
- Safe doors must be made from 7-gauge steel or at least two layers of a minimum 12-gauge steel compound construction
- Doors must close with steel locking bolts of at least ½-inch thick
- Walls must be constructed of 12-gauge steel, or the sum of the steel walls must add up to at least 0.100 inches
- Door hinges must be protected
- Combination locks required to have at least three digits or at least 10,000 possible combinations
- Locks must be made of drill-resistant steel
Gun safes offer a higher level of security compared to lockboxes and other traditional safes. Still, a gun safe shares a common weakness with all other safe types: the user. If you lose the key for your gun safe or forget the combination, you could be locking yourself out of access to your firearms.
It is also possible for the internal mechanism of your gun safe to seize, making access impossible. In some ways, a seized gun safe is even more challenging than a lost key. It will be all but impossible for the average safe owner to open a broken gun safe without the proper tools and training. Because they contain firearms and possibly ammunition, it is not recommended that the average person try opening a stuck gun safe on their own. Any attempt to drill into or otherwise damage the safe could pose an extreme risk to personal safety.
Instead of attempting to open your gun safe by force, use these tips to find a solution.
Look for the combination
Many gun safes can be accessed by either a key or with a combination. If you’re used to using a key, it’s possible that you never committed the safe’s combination to memory. Whatever the case, opening a locked gun safe could be as simple as tracking down the combination. Try to remember where you stored the documentation that came with your safe, as the combination could be listed there. Otherwise, consider contacting the safe’s manufacturer for additional assistance.
Locate a Key
Most gun safes come with more than one copy of the key. If you’ve lost the key you usually use to open your gun safe, try tracking down a spare key. Check junk drawers or other places that you may have tossed the spare before moving on to other methods.
Call in the experts
Because of the high security they offer, opening a gun safe without a key or combination will be an extremely difficult task for the average person. If your gun safe is locked and you can’t get in, or if you believe the mechanism may be broken, opening it up will be a job best left to professionasl. Locksmiths have the right tools and expertise to open a locked or broken gun safe safely. The experts at The Locksmith Center have everything residents of Central Ohio need to open a locked or broken gun safe. Contact us today for assistance with all your locksmithing needs.