When we bought this house, it came with a couple of things that the prior owner thought were too big to move.
One was the pool table. We gave it away. And let me tell you, trying to find someone to take a free pool table is no easy thing. We had more luck giving away the piano that came with our previous house.
In the same room, which was the prior owner’s man cave, was a built-in bar. Thanks, but I’m pickled enough. We ripped it out.
The third thing was a large, old gun safe. Well, that’s right down my alley, so we kept it. It also allowed us to leave my prior gun safe, which was anchored to the floor in the garage, at my prior house. Sadly the only thing inside the safe I “inherited” were two bottle caps and a bottle of CLP. Let’s just say it is no longer empty.
I don’t blame the seller for leaving the safe. Not only is it bolted to the floor, it must have been installed before they built the interior walls, because there is no way to get it out unless you do some demolition. My realtor joking said they must have lowered it into place with a crane during construction.
The former owner used his date of birth as the combination. Don’t do this and don’t use your kid’s or spouse’s birthday either. It’s too obvious. One of the first things I did after buying the house was to watch a few instructional videos, buy a change key on eBay, and change the combination.
Upgrading the Safe
While it is nice to have a large safe, it is showing its age. How old is it? I don’t know because the manufacturer no longer exists and the sticker with the serial number faded away long ago. The wood stove, which also came with the house, was built in 1976, but I don’t think the safe is that old.
Despite its age—or maybe because of it, after all, they built things better back then—the safe is solid. Its thick walls are reinforced with quarter-inch steel plates welded into place in key areas, with even thicker plates in strategic areas. It also has two different relockers and bolts on all four sides.
So what is wrong with it? Well, the easy fix is the interior is showing its age. The harder fix is the combination lock. It looks like some whacked it with a wrench and it feels like a car that needs transmission work.
In the interior, the shelves are sagging. I considered replacing them with three-quarter-inch plywood, but for now, I did some measuring and wedged pieces of 2×4 into place in the middle of the shelves. This pushed the shelves up a bit and will act as additional support to ensure they do not droop further. Because I store quite a bit of ammo in the safe, I added an additional support piece along the back wall. Luckily, I’m not trying to win any beauty contests. This repair is functional, but far from beautiful.
I also took the time to remove the big can of desiccant from the safe and dry it out on the wood stove in front of the fan. It took six hours, but it worked.
Replacing the Lock
The combination lock no longer turned easily and felt gritty. My guess is that it had never been serviced. The exterior also was showing some wear. I decided to replace it with a higher grade lock. I did some research and picked up one of the (supposedly) “manipulation proof” or “manipulation resistant” combination locks.
Why an upgraded lock? In part because I hope to buy about $5,000 in silver this year. Another reason is because there are many how-to videos out there on how to open a standard combination lock, like the S&G 6730. There is also an entire Reddit (r/safecracking) about how to open them. I watched videos of people opening safes with combination locks, and while manipulating the lock is boring, it can be done in less than half an hour. Less than 15 minutes if you they lucky. Because we live in the middle of nowhere, if someone were to break into my house, they would have some time to manipulate the lock. Yes, we have an alarm system, but the nearest sheriff’s deputy is likely to be 20 minutes away.
To prevent criminals from getting lucky and hacking your combination lock, don’t use an obvious combination like 40, 60, 50, or 25, 30, 35. Like picking a password, you should mix up the numbers and order. As stated above, don’t use birthdays and avoid patterns. Also, if you have gotten divorced, or had a roommate or someone else who knows your combination and no longer lives with you, change it. I did it for $12 back in 2020, but the keys are now selling for twice that. Still, it’s cheaper and easier to do it yourself than calling a vault technician.
Installing the New Lock
For practice, I “installed” the new lock up on a piece of 2×4 with a half-inch hole drilled through the center. I worked out the bugs of the install and set the combination. Then I tested the lock multiple times. Good thing, too, because I got inconsistent results. Sometimes it would open, sometimes it would not. It took some time, but I determined I had not selected a whole number when setting the combination, but mistakenly selected a half number by not lining the dial up perfectly. For example, I wanted the number to be 24, but I had been careless and set it to 23-1/2. If I used 24 or 23, I could not open the lock, but if I used the space between 23 and 24, I could.
Wow, glad I learned that while I could look at the internals of the lock with the cover off and see what was going on. It taught me that this lock has a much narrower margin of error than my prior combination lock. You have to be exactly on the number.
A little frustrated, I quit for the day. The next morning, I reset the lock correctly and gave myself plenty of time to test and install it. First, however, I removed my long guns, most of my pistols, my cash, and a few other things from the safe, just in case I screwed it up. Then I folded up a towel and tossed it over the doorway of the safe to prevent it from closing by mistake. I wanted to be 100 percent certain this lock worked and I could consistently unlock the door before I closed the safe and locked it.
Testing, One, Two, Three
The practice round helped. I quickly removed the old lock and installed the new one. I tested it, making sure the internal and external parts were lined up perfectly, so the dial spun smoothly. (Getting this fit right is critical.) Then I locked and unlocked it three times. It worked, so I installed the back of the lock and the relockers and tested it again. It still worked. Then I re-installed the door backer, returning my safe to its original, if slightly shabby, status. The locked still worked.
Only when I was certain the combination lock was working did I shut the safe door, lock it, spin the dial a few times in each direction, walk away, and come back five minutes later. Yes! It opened again. I felt confident enough to put some guns back inside. The next day, the combination still worked. I decided all was well and put everything back inside.
This repeated checking to ensure the lock works may seem paranoid, but I’m a survivalist; some degree of paranoia goes with the territory. When I changed the combination back in 2020, I wasn’t that paranoid, but this was a different l different brand and model of lock, which added an element where something new could go wrong. Plus, when that half-number problem occurred, it had me worried. I didn’t want to pay the price and suffer the embarrassment of having to call someone to come and drill my ancient, anchored-into-place, safe.
If you don’t have a safe or are thinking of buying one, check out the post below.
