Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Question on display of your firearms

Do you display your arms or are they always locked in a safe? Maybe rotate one or two at a time out for display somehow???

I want to look at them and handle them, and find myself frustrated because they are in gun cases and I can't see what's where. Bought some tags, and some cards that I could tape to inserts for the barrels, but half my rifles are upside down, so barrel cards won't work, or as I said, some are in cases. Don't want anything on the stocks as that would ruin the finish.

How to find a certain gun....

mine are/were in every corner of the house and leaning anywhere i could lean one. except for the nice ones that are in a glass front cabinet(16 of them). the wife finally blew a gasket when i jumped her for knocking over my 30-30G while she was vacuuming the living room. thats why i have been selling the last coupe weeks.
i tried to get her to let me build a sheriff's rack along one wall of the living room so i could sit and see them, but you can guess where that went!
the best i have come up with is the display cabinet with glass front. holds 16 rifles and up top behind an ammo shelf i have hooks for handguns. built it out of blue stained ponderosa pine and made one for the wife just like it for her Indian stuff. only way i got away with gun collection was to give her all the family Indian stuff.
i dream of a old time man cave but will never get one.

Standing in corners- bad! That's like standing one against the truck when you climb out. That's a guaranteed tip over. No worries of theft Tom?
I've got a Magnum Research 22 mag standing next to the fridge, not for display but for coyotes that would get my dog. But it's graphite barrel and rubber Hogue stock so no worry.

up here in canuck land locked up in a room or in safes all hand guns trigger locked,, no joy.

norm

Assuming you mean by law. What if you take one out and set it down to go get a drink, and just then the gestapo shows up, gun unattended. Or what about when you've got one out for any reason, like reloading, or cleaning, or setting it out for tomorrows hunt?

is the front door locked.??
we can have a man cave full of guns laying around but you better have a good locking door ,if its open you should be in the house.

Here was my answer to the problem

http://www.pbase.com/loggah/the_vault

The laws in Canada are deliberately vague to give police the opportunity to lay charges and let the judge sort it out. You may well win your case but remain stuck with a $10,000 plus legal bill. One Toronto man was away vacationing and thieves took 3 days to get into his vault and he was charged with improper storage. He had dual Canadian-USA citizenship so simply decided to never return to Canada. Demand a warrant before allowing the law to enter your home to inspect firearm storage.

Mine are stacked like cordwood in several safes. Am in the process of building a vault (inspired by Don's vault). Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to find a particular rifle that I want to show someone or check features or photograph. In the meantime I get them out for collector gun shows so everyone so inclined can enjoy them. Here's a pic of my display at Ogden last weekend. David

Some of you will recognize items I bought from you.

Don, perfect.

Before I got my C&R rifles were laying on e every couch and table down stairs. Now they can inspect my C&R safe, so every thing is locked up.

Yea, that's a mancaves mancave!
Have ya had to put on an addition yet?

That's an amazing series of images. Thanks again for the tour.

I don't do it after a break in and theft a few ears ago. The 99R I sold you survived that crime - thank god. I live on a corner lot and since then built a fence with a locking gate. Everything I own, which isn't much, stays locked up. Experience a break in and you will understand. I don't tolerate theft, thieves or anyone in possession of stolen property, especially firearms.

Iv been to Loggahs Vault, think the best of the Best, its Mind Blowing! and Dons not a bad guy either!

That's a great couple of rifles You got yourself for Christmas David..., I like Your idea of "on display", everyone gets to enjoy them!!

If they can find my house, get past the dogs, get into the house, survive a mag of 45 acp or two, my wife would thank them for helping clean up my junk!
seriously though i am home most of the time and its a long ways to get to my place. i do worry about it and that is why i am selling/trading off the eclectic part of my pile. the savages go in the gunroom.

Fireball2 I have one of these early gun safe for my 99’s which holds 42 rifles and on top quiet a few handguns.
Here is the sight. www.pendletonsafes.com They are not cheap.
George

I don’t know why it says s99 which it’s not me on the last post. I’m 300Savage303.
George

ya a few recievers..smile

Gun safe

Interesting. i built a really fancy oak gun cabinet with a revolving turn-style but it only held 8 rifles. Never thought about one like the Pendleton. Might have to ponder that concept.

I think I might create a single rifle display and just rotate rifles out of the safe so I can at least look at one and feel like it's not standing against the wall ready to fall over.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Safe. Don't like not being able to fondle them, but don't want to have them stolen either. Did turn a China hutch into a beautiful display case, so I can have a bunch out to look at.

This is one of my safes, so don't get it confused with pictures from Loggah's vault -



modified to have removable cross bars -

No safe, unfortunately. I live on the second floor of a 100+ year old house. It is balloon framed which is solid enough but the joists and floor were not built to withstand the weight of a safe or safes sufficient to hold my collection. I got around it somewhat by walling off one end of a 4x20 foot closet with a heavy door, high end locks, and concealed hinges. It won't stop a determined professional house breaker but it'll slow him down. It should stop a doper looking to score for a fix. Besides, my landlord lives downstairs and they have to get past him and the alarms, and he's gunned up as well as I am and home all day every day.

A moot point because I'm going to sell all my guns and related stuff and start collecting Barbie Dolls.

You're still going to have to guard against Display Anxiety.

IMO.

Or Display Performance. I'm not sure which one we are talking about.

Wow, now I know why I can't find any old Savage 22's.....Gene has them all !

I had to buy gun safe my better half did not want her grandkids getting into my guns. I use to have them leaning in corners and up against walls in cases. Now they are secured in the safe

The single biggest problem with collecting is how to display. Myself I try not to own to many collectible rifles , once found I try and put them where they belong (a home that appreciates them) Don has done an amazing job on the vault but that coupled with the insurance would mean another mortgage payment for me. David brings his out for display at shows so many get to see the amazing rifle.

Maybe pictures on the net is the best way?

Don
I still hope to visit your vault someday, I was hoping it could be coupled with a moose hunt but chances of that look pretty slim now.

Simply fantastic work Loggah. I would never want to leave that space. Just Awesome!

Thanks for sharing,

dave

...just a sidenote to this posting.

Do a lot of homework when shopping for safes.. MANY of them are no more than a prettied up steel locker with a bit of fire retardency added.... and nearly no safe on the market is "fireproof".

For the price of a really good gun safe, 3k to $10k range, you could opt to build a vault room, or fire-proof room for the same money or less, and have a lot more storage area. It would likely lack a bit of the security factor of a good safe though..

One part of my daily job, is that I am the locksmith at the College I work at. And we do have a few safes for money, papers, and for our Police department. Over the years I have had to deal with safes off and on and have learned a lot about what really makes a good one, and a cheap one.

Our chief of Police was enraged one day, when I got a call that their safe (I didnt get to pick it out...) wouldnt open. It took about 3 minutes to defeat the lock, and was in...All because it was a cheap safe, all dressed up with pretty paint and shiny chrome handles.

Once I had it open I showed him the actual lock, linkage, etc...and how weak it was built, he said, "that thing is a piece of @#$%^ !

Now, i am not saying all safes are bad. Any safe, or locker sure helps keep kids out and provides some protection. But, if you really want a good strong safe, do your homework and pay the price.

dave

My Old Man was too cheap to buy a safe. He would go around hiding his guns all around the house when leaving for extended periods of time. He died two days after they came home from a month in Maine, and it was up to me to suss out all of his hidey holes. Mom wasn't much help as you can imagine. I found them all but one. I knew he had a Ruger .22 semiauto pistol (I gave it to him) but I was darned if I could find it. Twelve years later Mom sold the house and I helped clean the place out. When I pulled his homemade workbench/cabinet away from the wall I spied a mysterious hole in the drywall- looked like a rat hole. Sure enough, inside the hole was the pistol, wrapped in an oily rag.

That's quite a story. I trust the oily rag kept it well.

U sure them bar b dolls



Don't need air in em?

I had them strewed all over the house also,could never find the gun i wanted ,when i wanted !!! I finally got pizzed and said enough and built the vault . The problem was in building a large vault was then you had to finish filling it !! I had to kill a lot of trees,and dig a lot of gravel to build that vault building,but i had a lot of other logging and historical collectables to store so it was a twofold project. Don

Hey Don, I've been playing with all of my old cross cut's and axes. A friend started a challenge to chop down, buck, and split one cord of wood with an ax. I chose my early 1900's American Beauty double. I got to thinking, I have enough similar stuff to hang on the walls, can I borrow the plans to build my own vault? Mine might be scaled down a little, all of my guns would fit on one turntable, Joe.

Joe, You could borrow them if i ever had any ! Its pretty rustic built by a logger with no plans on paper. Don

I'd love to have that building on my hunting property in WV. I'd live in it.Joe.