Many people acquire weapons for various purposes. Someone for self-defense, and someone for hunting. But in addition to weapons permits and other papers, it is necessary to have safes for storing hunting weapons at home. At this stage, many are puzzled by the problem of buying a product. Or by making such a thing as a safe for a gun with your own hands. Below we will look at how to do this at home.
Do-it-yourself safe under the gun
A large number of people will not even bother with the problem of manufacture, but simply purchase a safe for any desired amount, no matter how much it costs. Prices are different, depending on the size and materials of which it is made.
But since there is a crisis in the country, and not everyone can afford such a luxury, there is an option to make a safe for a gun with your own hands. After all, many hunters are not quite rich people, and a safe should be purchased exclusively in large sizes, so the price for it will be equal to the cost of a pretty good domestic assembly gun. Buying a small cabinet is impractical. Over the years, the arsenal of weapons only increases, and you will certainly have to buy a new cabinet.
Easy to manufacture
You can make a safe for a gun with your own hands in just a couple of days, allocating a couple of hours of free time for it. You will not only save a substantial amount of money, but also make what is necessary in design for your individual goals. Also, a made weapon safe with your own hands will be a great subject of pride.
The process of creating a safe
The first step is to determine the exact dimensions. You should think over and calculate everything in advance. The main dimension will be the height. It will depend on which weapon you can put at the moment and in the future, expanding your arsenal. Some types of weapons can be disassembled for compact storage, but there are also non-separable models, and in the future some technological innovations are possible.
So it’s best to make a high-quality do-it-yourself safe in advance.
For an example of the maximum height, we take a sample of the Russian Tiger carbine. This model is the longest of all available. We get a height of 1250 millimeters, add another 50 to it for convenience, and a safe with a height of 1300 millimeters comes out.
Additional dimensions
Next, determine what the width and depth of our safe for storing a hunting rifle will be. The depth of the safe is the distance from the end wall to the safe door itself. It should provide convenient and comfortable storage of weapons with various modifications, as well as optical and collimator sights, which have high brackets. The approximate depth for this should be at least 300 millimeters. In the case of storing shotguns to which the store joins, it is necessary to increase the depth to 500 millimeters.
The width of the safe will directly depend on the amount of weapons that you plan to store now and purchase in the future. For example, one unit of military firearms takes about 100 millimeters.
Materials for the manufacture
After determining the dimensions, you should decide on the material, which is also important when you make a weapon safe with your own hands. First, let's turn to the legislation. The weapons law explicitly states that the thickness of the metal sheathing of a firearm storage safe should not be less than 3 millimeters. Additional shelves and drawers inside the safe can be made of various materials, which will be high strength and reliable. But this is an extra waste of time, effort and money. The easiest way, why quality does not suffer, is to make a safe with your own hands from ordinary sheet steel. This will not require special skills, which makes it possible to make it even for a person who does not have any experience.
Other items to create a safe
• Metal corner with a shelf for creating stiffening ribs.
• Three castles.
• 2 liters of light paint.
• 5-6 metal canopies.
Working process
First of all, we start cutting out the blanks that will be used for the walls, bottom, floor and doors. There are two ways to cut: using a grinder or a guillotine, which is designed for cutting metal. Use the option that is more accessible or convenient for you. Do not try to cut metal workpieces with a gas cutter. From thermal overloads, the metal warps and becomes uneven. The cut grinder is available anywhere, with this there will be no problems. The guillotine can significantly reduce the cutting process, and the workpiece is more even and pleasant to look at.
If you purchase sheet metal at any private metal-working enterprise, then ask immediately for an additional fee to cut it into the dimensions you need.
Assembly
It is carried out using electric welding. The main condition for successful welding and reliable design in the future is to set the minimum current before welding. A sheet of thin metal burns through very quickly, it is only necessary to increase the current strength or, conversely, overexposure it in one place.
The current strength during welding is determined by selecting the electrodes of the required thickness. You can get acquainted with the necessary dimensions, as well as with additional parameters, on the pack with the electrodes themselves. There is always a correspondence table that will help you.
But you can use another method. Take the thinnest electrode you have available. Ideally, you need to use 2 mm. Then gradually add the current level until the arc ceases to go out and the electrode sticks to the surface walls. It is best to experiment in advance on unnecessary pieces of metal so as not to damage the safe in the process.
Assembly should begin from the back wall:
• Put it on a flat surface.
• We begin to slowly put down the bottom of the safe.
• Then the side wall.
• After we attach the top.
• And attach the second side wall.
It is very important that the weld points are inside the safe. If you are just a beginner welder and do not have much experience in even welding, then the internal elements will help to hide all the flaws and uneven seams. Do not cook safe walls with continuous
welds.Quite often, this leads to thermal deformation of the thin metal. A continuous seam should also not be used in this case due to the fact that the safe does not need to be tightly clogged, such as a water tank. It is best to use this method for welding: in the process, make point tacks of the metal at a distance of about 100 millimeters from each other.
Structural rigidity
After welding the entire main structure, it should be strengthened. To do this, we frame the front of the safe, where the door will be located in the future, with a metal corner. First you need to weld a metal corner to the side walls of the safe. All this should be done only inside the safe. No welding elements should be outside. After that, you can proceed to the very manufacture of the door for the safe.
Making the front door of the safe
We take a door already cut from a sheet of metal and reinforce the door structure using a metal corner. First of all, the corner frame should be welded to the door itself. But in addition to the function of strengthening, the corner also plays an important role in terms of security, namely: it blocks the door if attackers want to remove it from the canopies in the closed position.
After installing the corner frame, we proceed to the installation of the locks. To do this, we make holes for two
keyholes.Now that the door is completely ready, you can proceed with its immediate installation. Door canopies should be welded first to the corners on the door, and then to the wall of the safe itself. It is best to use the electric rivet method. Its essence is as follows. Welding passes through the holes in the canopy for screws, thereby not creating extra holes and unnecessary weldings. After that, we weld the finished door to the canopies themselves.
Create Cartridge Box
How to make a weapon safe, we figured out, now we need to make a box for storing ammunition, as required by law. To do this, we just cook a small cartridge box, which will be separate from the weapon, and simply weld it.
Finally, we paint the safe of the weapon. If desired, you can sheathe the inside with faux leather, and glue a rubber seal on the door. You should also draw drawings of the safe for the gun, thanks to which you can make a part of any design and dimensions.