Gun Cabinet Placement

[gonzo]

If your battens beind the plasterboard are very well bonded to the stonework, you may be able to coach bolt to the battons. But I suspect you wil only have one batton behind the cabinet. So could be compromised by levering.
Drilling into the stonework may be a right pain. But if you can, then chemical anchor your studs. Leave the plasterboard in place and place the safe aligned with the stud work, so there isn't a void behind the cabinet, where someone can smash a crowbar through and be able to lever under the cabinet. But as above, you will probably not be lucky enough to have studding that perfectly matched the safe footprint. You may need to pull the plasterboard off to add custom extra battens.

It might be simplest to bolt the cabinet down to the floor. Mount it horizontal and coachbolt it to the joists. Hide it by putting a table or bed over it. Or a set of drawers, with the bottom modified to sit over the cabinet. The police should love this.
Site your ammo/bolt cabinet somewnere else in the house. Being smaller, should be easier to find a home for.

 

[Corvonas]

I live in a new-build. The walls are made from thermalite blocks, which have the physical properties of a hard cheese…

In my case I sank (fixed with a chemical anchor compound) four 12 mm threaded bars for the rear of the cabinet to bolt onto, and drilled an extra hole in the side of the cabinet for a fifth bar. That way it was resistant to prising in two directions. This was located in a corner in an upstairs room.

Using the threaded bars meant I didn’t have to sink the cabinet itself into the wall to get a flush fit against the blockwork, being long enough to go through the plasterboard, void, and then into the blocks themselves. You WILL however need to cut away any skirting board no matter how you do it, so the cabinet fits flush.

FEO came and gave it a tug and was very pleased. Bonus points in terms of security for me having CCTV, a monitored alarm system, and an alarm sensor fixed to the interior of the door itself.

Having granite walls you shouldn’t have the challenge I have with finding somewhere secure, I guess the pain will be the actual drilling of the granite! A new drill bit and lots of patience may be needed!

 

[Sonicdmb73]

Hi All, I have emailed my FEO but not heard back for a while, so thought I'd try and get ahead of the curve and ask in here!

I'm applying for my first FAC, and with that means getting my very first gun cabinet. I have been reading up about the placement of these, and approiate fixing methods. My house is an old granite wall bugalow, but the inside is stud framed and insulated and the floor is suspended so wooden, this is probably a stupid question but where and how am I best attaching the cabinet?

It says to attach to solid walls, I orginally was thinking of finding the stud on an external wall and pumping two 3 inch coach bolts into that and then using some heavy drywall fixings for the other mounting points. I was assured that would fail a visit from the FEO. Given the wall studs are 4x2s not sure about going directly into the stone wall behind that, and can't be removing plasterboard (partner isn't happy with the "ugly" cabinet in her spare bedroom as it is)

Almost 100% sure I'm not the only person in this situation, and probably just overthinking it! Any suggestions from people that have the same sort of set up?

Cheers

So am I reading this right, you are in a timber framed bungalow with stud walls making up all the internal walls?
If so you can do the same as I did I fixed into the stud with suitably sized screws and used the plasterboard fixings that you take out a 25mm hole for and have a M6 bolt in them. They hold 180kg apparently, quite possibly more than some raw bolts are doing in other houses.
if you have solid walls or a chimney breast you can use them anchors they are the best in my experience.
An alterative to the first method is to get some top hat thread inserts. Fit these to a decent piece of 18mm ply and get bolts just long enough to go though the cabinet and not stick out of the board. The board needs to span at least two studs ( 400mm or possibly 600mm) so you can fix it to the stud/s. If you make sure some of you fixings are behind the cabinet and possibly use security screws it will be solid enough and stop opportunistic theft.
My security starts outside, lights, cameras, then the doors and windows, the dogs etc. It all goes towards your overall security. A safe elsewhere in the house for the cabinet keys helps too, it's another layer to get in. However in reality we can only do so much, you're not building Fort Knox.

 

[VSS]

. Hide it by putting a table or bed over it. Or a set of drawers, with the bottom modified to sit over the cabinet. The police should love this.

The police won't love this ^^^ because access to the cabinet would be such a faff, having to move furniture every time you want to get at it. They know that you would be inclined not to lock your guns away, for example if you were stalking on two consecutive days, because it would be so much hassle to do so.
The location of the cabinet has to be practical for regular use.

 

[Pedro]

The ideal thing is to have it where casual visitors to the house can't see it. An upstairs room, maybe surrounded by a wardrobe and then affixed behind that to the wall. So even someone blundering into that room isn't aware. Blinds on any windows angled away from it (if not closed) to foil the likes of window cleaners or roofers. Yet easy enough to walk into, open the wardrobe doors and access the cabinet(s).

 

[Ratsbadboy]

Hi All, I have emailed my FEO but not heard back for a while, so thought I'd try and get ahead of the curve and ask in here!

I'm applying for my first FAC, and with that means getting my very first gun cabinet. I have been reading up about the placement of these, and approiate fixing methods. My house is an old granite wall bugalow, but the inside is stud framed and insulated and the floor is suspended so wooden, this is probably a stupid question but where and how am I best attaching the cabinet?

It says to attach to solid walls, I orginally was thinking of finding the stud on an external wall and pumping two 3 inch coach bolts into that and then using some heavy drywall fixings for the other mounting points. I was assured that would fail a visit from the FEO. Given the wall studs are 4x2s not sure about going directly into the stone wall behind that, and can't be removing plasterboard (partner isn't happy with the "ugly" cabinet in her spare bedroom as it is)

Almost 100% sure I'm not the only person in this situation, and probably just overthinking it! Any suggestions from people that have the same sort of set up?

Cheers

If I'm reading this right, you've not actually had your first FAC application approved yet? I know it's a while ago, but when I applied for my first FAC I resisted to impulse to install a cabinets until the FEO had visited and I could be sure my application was going to be approved. There was no way I was going to the expense of a cabinet and possible ruination of any decor before I knew that. Once the FEO had visited and confirmed he was going to recommend approval of my application I asked him the relevant questions about cabinet location and fixing. It was then a simple matter of the FEO popping in and checked the installation was up to standard.