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Gun room

Pilgrim

Pilgrim

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I hope to start building my gun room during the winter months. I've been thinking about hanging each of my collection on the wall but have been having problems trying to figure out an attractive/practical way to do it.

Can anyone suggest a way to hang them on a wall so they'll be viewable, handy to remove and easy to arrange without punching new holes everytime I need to rearrange?

I might just have to try this option. It's not what I really want but it looks pretty good.

http://milsurpafterhours.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5363
 
the question is how do you do a gun room and meet the Mass storage requirements? Unless you build the room like a big safe.
 
Check with Ray, that is if he doesn't read this thread. He built something like this a year or so ago.

Oh, I think he's already filled it, so plan big! [smile]
 
Colored burlap over pegboard.

If you have to rearrange/move the hooks around it's not that difficult to pick at the fabric where the original hole was so that it's barely visable.

Glockaholic said:
the question is how do you do a gun room and meet the Mass storage requirements? Unless you build the room like a big safe.
Click to expand...

Uhhh... trigger locks.
 
Mine wasn't built so much for looks as it was function. I went with the 2 level style.

rack1.jpg


Your only other option is heavy duty peg board. I've seen a few collections on peg board so there must be a way to reinforce a sheet enough to hold a wall of rifles.
 
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that's an awful lot of trigger locks.

IMHO a cinder block room in the basement with a steel door or two and climate control that will keep the humidity at bay might suffice.
 
Glockaholic said:
that's an awful lot of trigger locks.

IMHO a cinder block room in the basement with a steel door or two and climate control that will keep the humidity at bay might suffice.
Click to expand...

Poured forms are better, cheaper too. Steel frame and solid core door.
Steel plate ceiling, and you're good to go! If you are able, go this way for a door:http://www.vaultdoors.net/
 
You need the level of security that you have the capability and resources to achieve.

If you can afford poured, reinforced walls and a recycled bank vault door, great.

If you can only afford to make the walls (and ceiling) of sheet metal sandwiched with plywood and a heavy steel firedoor with a good lock, that still meets tha law and will probably delay your visitors long enough for the alarm to summon the local law.

If you can't afford THAT, poke c-pher and see if they ever sent pricing for the group buy on safes.

We can all dream, but what we can afford or build may not rise to that ideal...
 
With regards to proper security:

My cellar is set up so there is already an unfinished room about 10x12 feet with concrete on 3 sides. The 4th wall won't be a problem.

I want to set it up so the firearms can all be hung on the walls, with a loading bench, ammo storage, workspace, desk, chair, TV, etc.

I have all of the wood I need for framing the walls and /floor, etc.

It's just a matter of trying to stop buying guns long enough to get the drywall, plywood, door, wiring and lighting I'll need.

It would seem that peg board would be the easiest but how would it be fastened to the walls to hold all that weight? Hanging several dozen guns gets heavy.
 
Glockaholic said:
that's an awful lot of trigger locks.

IMHO a cinder block room in the basement with a steel door or two and climate control that will keep the humidity at bay might suffice.
Click to expand...

But, it does satisfy the safe storage requirement. [wink]

Pilgrim said:
With regards to proper security:


It would seem that peg board would be the easiest but how would it be fastened to the walls to hold all that weight? Hanging several dozen guns gets heavy.
Click to expand...

Frame it in with 2x4's 16" apart and secure the pegboard to them with drywall screws. Use a heavier/better grade pegboard rather than the thin/flimsy unfinished stuff. Due to the stud spacing, the weight of the firearms will be supported and distributed within that 16" area.

One bit of advice... if you plan on painting it, the finished glossy side doesn't hold paint very well (at least not latex paint).

One other option is to look for commercial/retail type displays from liquidation/going out of buisness sales.
 
In regards to storage requirements:

When I took the safety class at S&W, the instructor said that your whole house does not count as a locked container, but that it was legal to store firearms in a locked room within your house as long as access to that locked room was limited and the firearms were unloaded.

The example the instructor gave went like this: it's perfectly fine for your spouse to have a key to your gun room, but if you put the key on a peg next to the door then you've got problems. (If you make 50 copies of the key and give it out to all your friends you ALSO have problems.)

IMHO, with the quality of most trigger locks, I imagine a solid door with a good deadbolt is going to keep your guns more secure then having them displayed with a trigger lock on each of your guns.

While what a "secure container" is appears to be quite poorly defined, I searched around the net and found the following interesting things:

DOCKET 04-P-1738: He was found guilty of improper storage because his bedroom door lock was one of those that can be defeated with a bobby-pin (like you find on a bathroom door I assume). BUT some of the footnotes are interesting (all are summarized):
(2) They assume a locked bedroom CAN be a container.
(3) They cited a CT case, but that case said that the guns must be stored in a location that a reasonable person must consider secure. (So, would a reasonable person consider guns stored in a room behind a good door with a deadbolt secure?) This also notes that the issue is not preventing theft, rather it is child safety.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=ma&vol=appslip/15604&invol=1

The Warren PD says (bolding mine):
66. DO I HAVE TO BUY A METAL CONTAINER OR SAFE TO COMPLY WITH C. 140§131?
No. You may use a trigger or cable lock, a cloth or hard locking gun case, a locked wooden gun cabinet, a locked closet, or any other locking device or CONTAINER that would prevent an unauthorized person from gaining access to your gun.
http://police.warren.ma.us/forms/firearms-faq3.html (Use the google cache, that site seems to be having issues.)

Brockton PD say the exact same thing and their site isn't having issues:
http://www.brocktonpolice.com/crimeprevent/gunsafety.htm

Of course, everyone should do their own research when it comes to the law, but as I understand it you do not need a your gun room to be a concrete bunker to be legal!
 
My dad's cousin has a gun room, down in Texas.

He used white pegboard inside built in glass cabinets.
The room has security bars on the windows and strong door going into it, which he keeps locked when he's not in there.

Of course, this didn't stop thieves who had cased him for a while. He was a gun show regular, setting up tables showing off his WWII Luger collection (etc). They figured out he had a lot more than what was on the table and used those bits of knowledge to time the burglary.

Those Julian & Sons cabinets look pretty doggone awesome, and made me think of a good custom cabinet maker that helped with my bathroom. His name is Ray Pillie from Framingham. He's also a custom knife maker, a historical re-enactor, hunter, and member of Southboro Rod & Gun club.
 
I was going to use filled concrete blocks for my safe room, but I think I want to do a poured concrete set up instead. Anyone know how much something like this will cost and how to go about doing this? I'd much rather do it myself so I don't have someone else knowing the weaknesses of what I build. I guess I'd need to know how to get the forms for pouring the concrete and how to make a ceiling on top and have the ceiling be strong enough...but also supportable....
 
doobie said:
I guess I'd need to know how to get the forms for pouring the concrete and how to make a ceiling on top and have the ceiling be strong enough...but also supportable....
Click to expand...

Try this on...

Carpenters, construction guys please DO critique...

Stud a wall using metal 2x4 studs offset so the wall thickness is 8" or so. The studs will NOT reach both sides of the wall. You'd use 24" centering with every other stud to one side or the other. Sheath the wall with t-111 siding and then fill the wall with concrete. It should look like a plywood wall and will really be 8" of cement with some steel in it. Maybe use some expanded metal or wire mesh inside? The idea is, use the wall sheathing as the concrete forms and don't strip them off after.

For the ceiling, say you place the gunroom in the basement directly under the living room. Remove the living room floor even inclduing the joists. Some sort of steel structure, topped with corregated sheetmetal and topped with 3" or so of concrete. On top of the concrete, you can lay a nice tile or marble floor.

Incorporating the gun room ceiling as the room above's floor gains you several inches of headroom in the basement. Of course if you have high ceilings there, never mind...
 
namedpipes said:
Try this on...

Carpenters, construction guys please DO critique...

Stud a wall using metal 2x4 studs offset so the wall thickness is 8" or so. The studs will NOT reach both sides of the wall. You'd use 24" centering with every other stud to one side or the other. Sheath the wall with t-111 siding and then fill the wall with concrete. It should look like a plywood wall and will really be 8" of cement with some steel in it. Maybe use some expanded metal or wire mesh inside? The idea is, use the wall sheathing as the concrete forms and don't strip them off after.

For the ceiling, say you place the gunroom in the basement directly under the living room. Remove the living room floor even inclduing the joists. Some sort of steel structure, topped with corregated sheetmetal and topped with 3" or so of concrete. On top of the concrete, you can lay a nice tile or marble floor.

Incorporating the gun room ceiling as the room above's floor gains you several inches of headroom in the basement. Of course if you have high ceilings there, never mind...
Click to expand...

If you've never formed or poured concrete before, I would recommend against experimenting in your basement. The formwork you describe will not be suitable to hold the concrete while it sets up. I would imagine that you would have a blowout at the bottom of the wall after a yard or two has been placed, leaving you with a mess to clean up in a hurry.

Also, lets think about the quantities of concrete involved here. For example, lets assume you want a room that is 10' x 10' x 7' high, with 8" thick walls, and you are going to use a single basement wall for one side. You are looking at placing more than 5 c.y. (~140 c.f.) of concrete. A sack of quikcrete is about half a cubic foot. Mixing almost 300 bags of concrete by hand isn't my idea of a fun time. And then how are you going to place it? A shovel full at a time?

A CMU walled room with grouted cells seems much more practical to me.
 
syntax said:
If you've never formed or poured concrete before, I would recommend against experimenting in your basement. The formwork you describe will not be suitable to hold the concrete while it sets up. I would imagine that you would have a blowout at the bottom of the wall after a yard or two has been placed, leaving you with a mess to clean up in a hurry.

Also, lets think about the quantities of concrete involved here. For example, lets assume you want a room that is 10' x 10' x 7' high, with 8" thick walls, and you are going to use a single basement wall for one side. You are looking at placing more than 5 c.y. (~140 c.f.) of concrete. A sack of quikcrete is about half a cubic foot. Mixing almost 300 bags of concrete by hand isn't my idea of a fun time. And then how are you going to place it? A shovel full at a time?

A CMU walled room with grouted cells seems much more practical to me.
Click to expand...

Well, you could always tell people it is artwork...

By CMU walls, do you mean cement blocks?

Re the wall structure, conventional forms are "tied" together with metal, I guess bolts of some sort? And that keeps them from blowing out? Could the basic idea work with ties like that? Does the ceiling / floor idea sound reasonable?

My own workshop is not so extensive, 2x6 plywood sheathed walls without the concrete. If/when I ever build new there will surely be a room poured when the foundation is done...

As to the bags, Pilgrim would laugh at the idea of 300 hand mixed bags being too much!!!
 
JuergenG is right, that is my gunroom [smile]

There is no limit on how many guns you can own in Germany, as long as you store them according to the requieremants of the gunlaw.
There are different cathegories of gunrooms, I chose to built it of the hightest one, so I can store rifles and handguns and even ammo in it.
The door weights over 400lbs, you would need dymanite or a cutting torch to get in by the door.

There are way bigger gunrooms and collections thane mine here in Germany, some reach up to 1000 guns[shocked]

Chris

PS: There is a simple way to built the concrete walls!!!!!!!
At least on my side of the pond.
There are hollow concrete blocks available, so you can stack them up and put steel reinforcements in. Stack up 3 rows and then fill 2.5 rows with liquid concrete and let it cure.
Than again stack up 3 rows and fill in 3 rows with liquid concrete.
That's the way I did it and my bunker is NOT in the basement, it is "upstairs"
 
Last edited:
awo425 said:
JuergenG is right, that is my gunroom [smile]

There is no limit on how many guns you can own in Germany, as long as you store them according to the requieremants of the gunlaw.
There are different cathegories of gunrooms, I chose to built it of the hightest one, so I can store rifles and handguns and even ammo in it.
The door weights over 400lbs, you would need dymanite or a cutting torch to get in by the door.

There are way bigger gunrooms and collections thane mine here in Germany, some reach up to 1000 guns[shocked]

Chris

PS: There is a simple way to built the concrete walls!!!!!!!
At least on my side of the pond.
There are hollow concrete blocks available, so you can stack them up and put steel reinforcements in. Stack up 3 rows and then fill 2.5 rows with liquid concrete and let it cure.
Than again stack up 3 rows and fill in 3 rows with liquid concrete.
That's the way I did it and my bunker is NOT in the basement, it is "upstairs"
Click to expand...

I think I might move to Germany... [laugh]
I was thinkin the same thing for construction. Get some cinder blocks and fill in the holes with concrete. I didn't think of putting steel bars in them though. good idea.
 
awo425 said:
JuergenG is right, that is my gunroom [smile]

There is no limit on how many guns you can own in Germany, as long as you store them according to the requieremants of the gunlaw.
There are different cathegories of gunrooms, I chose to built it of the hightest one, so I can store rifles and handguns and even ammo in it.
The door weights over 400lbs, you would need dymanite or a cutting torch to get in by the door.

There are way bigger gunrooms and collections thane mine here in Germany, some reach up to 1000 guns[shocked]

Chris

PS: There is a simple way to built the concrete walls!!!!!!!
At least on my side of the pond.
There are hollow concrete blocks available, so you can stack them up and put steel reinforcements in. Stack up 3 rows and then fill 2.5 rows with liquid concrete and let it cure.
Than again stack up 3 rows and fill in 3 rows with liquid concrete.
That's the way I did it and my bunker is NOT in the basement, it is "upstairs"
Click to expand...

Hey Chris,
about time to see you showing up here !
Check through the Milsurp forum and enjoy.
Be aware, there is a bunch of SKS enthusiasts around here[smile]
 

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