Gun Safe Maintenance: Tips to Keep Your Safe in Top Condition
It goes without saying that firearms should be stored in a gun safe. Depending on their needs, a gun owner may want to buy cheaper storage or a more expensive one. No matter how expensive the safe is, it still requires good maintenance. Otherwise it will quickly lose its properties and will not provide proper security for your guns.
If you want to have a full insight into how to maintain gun safe, feel free to review our tips below.
What is Gun Safe Maintenance?
To start with, let us make it clear what gun safe maintenance means. First and foremost, gun safes should be stored properly in a climate controlled environment. Thus a gun owner should pay special attention to safe installation. Then the storage requires dust cleaning. And ultimately, it is important to inspect your gun safe lock, locking bolts, and other details that can compromise burglary protection.
Tips to Maintain Your Gun Safe
We were assuming that you would be eager to know what exactly should be done to provide your safe with proper maintenance. Therefore we made a list of tips that will help you sort things out. Here they are:
- Choose a dry place with good ventilation to install your gun safe.
- Clean dust monthly.
- Clean your safe interior properly.
- Grease bolts and seals.
- Take control of the humidity level inside your gun safe.
- Use a locksmith service to keep your lock in order.
Choosing safe location
When it comes to a safe location, it has an incredible impact on how long the safe will serve you and how much you will need to spend on its maintenance. If you live in a flood prone area, opt for the second floor placement if possible. We also recommend you avoid installing your safe close to a stove or other things that have exposure to fire as well as places that are not air-controlled or have extra moisture.
Anchoring the Safe to the Floor
After you find a place for installation, be advised to bolt it down. Not only can anchoring a residential safe to the floor help you reinforce its burglary protection but it can also make it safer for you and your family members to use it. A bolted gun safe will not move or tip over and injure you while you are opening its door.
Cleaning
Everything that you have in your home requires regular cleaning. Your gun safe is not an exception. As well as you wipe the dust off your furniture, you need to remove it from your safe. Dust may be harmful for the locking mechanism of your safe which will influence access control. In order to avoid the consequences, vacuum clean your gun safe, wipe bolts with a wet towel and lubricate them.
Dehumidification
As we mentioned before, extra humidity may cause a lot of damage not only to your firearms but also to the safe itself. Therefore, it is of high importance to control the humidity level inside the safe. So that you can be absolutely sure that the level of moisture in your safe is normal, put a desiccant or dehumidifier in it.
Safe interior organization
By the way, not only should the level of humidity be controlled in the safe. It is also important to clean the safe interior at least twice a year as well as check the guns, maintain them, throw out expired ammo, etc.
Care of Bolts and Seals
Checking the interior of the safe, don`t forget to grease its locking bolts. It will reduce the range of friction. It means that a couple of minutes and a little grease will help you save money that otherwise can have been spent on fixing the your safe.
Taking a close look at your safe interior and exterior, make sure that fire seals have no cracks.
Annual Safe Inspections
Regardless of how often you inspect your safe yourself and how careful you are with its maintenance, we would still recommend inviting a professional locksmith to check it. He will have a look with an experienced eye at all the details and will make a safe repair that requires professional touch such as servicing your own safe relocker or slip clutch mechanism.
Conclusion
We hope we managed to describe what gun safe maintenance involves. Follow all the above steps to make your safe serve you as long as you expect it to.
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