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If you’ve been to a health club, high school, or an amusement park in the last 60 years, chances are you’ve used a locker at one point or another to temporarily stow your belongings. Your high school likely didn’t supply students with 2000 lbs Fort Knox safes to store their books – it’s just not practical. Being inexpensive, scalable for growth, and offering a fairly substantial level of secure organization, lockers are a much better fit. Of course, the word ‘secure’ is a relative creature. Compared to the protection of a quality constructed gun safe, metal lockers leave a bit to be desired. That said, they certainly have they’re place. In terms of their mechanics and security, they’re much closer in comparison to metal gun cabinets than gun safes.
Stack – On® 8 – gun Security Cabinet $98.99
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American Furniture Classics 10 Gun Metal Gun Cabinet $169.99
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HOMAK HS30003630 12-Gun Security Cabinet, Silver Vein $249.78
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In terms of dimensions, a typical single tier locker is 65.5″ tall and a foot and a half both deep and wide. When an upper shelving unit comes included, single tier lockers, particularly those with interior padding can serve as decent storage solutions for three or four long guns, ammunition, and any accessories you may want to include. If configured properly, your average high school steel locker makes a pretty decent gun hut, but I wouldn’t keep anything of terrible value in within its walls. Unfortunately, many lockers have “Heavy Duty” in their product description. While I’m sure that lockers boasting the heavy duty moniker display adequate resilience against years of student body wear and tear, they’re not going to hold up terribly well to a burglar’s pry bar or a power drill. The locking system is a far cry from active steel bolts, and the walls and door of your typical locker are only 14 to 16 gauge steel. To put it in proper perspective, 14 gauge steel can be ripped through with the swing of a fire ax. Similar to a gun cabinet, gun lockers serve their purpose beautifully in preventing casual access, but they aren’t constructed with the intention to withstand fire damage or a serious burglary attack.
Not all lockers are plain narrow sheet metal boxes like the ones you use at the gym. Spacesaver sells lockers over on their site with incredibly flexible features. Products like the Freestyle personal storage locker is loaded with organizational bells and whistles. Built-in slide out benches, convertible weapon racks, seamless ventilation and electrical integration…all of these characteristics are perfect for a full time military or law enforcement officer, whose job demands the adaptable storage convenience. However, rigs like the DSM floor mounted locker, or the Freestyle model are typically placed in police station locker rooms and storage closets – not exactly a place affable to break ins…any burglars on site are usually behind bars. I’m guessing your home doesn’t have this inherent level of security.
Premium lockers, built specifically for gun storage like the Spacesaver models, tend to be very expensive in comparison to Homak and Stack On gun cabinets. Lockers built for police gear certainly serve their purpose in the right environment (like police stations), but for your money, your better off purchasing a metal gun cabinet or a cheap set of lockers. You can buy a three group set of single tier Paramount lockers for less than $300 on sites like GlobalIndustrial.com. Cheap lockers can be a great storage solution within already secure rooms – like those guarded by security or vault doors. If you’re just looking for a cheap way to lock your guns away from you children, wander on over to Craigslist or Ebay. School districts and factories are always dumping their extra equipment for an affordable price. Give it a quick spray paint job, staple some foam on the interior, and you can have yourself a perfectly respectable gun cabinet.
