Nothing Beats A Liberty Safe For Fire Protection

Liberty Gun Safes has a reputation of a company that performs more fire tests than any other. Even though a safe may go through rigorous testing by Underwriter Laboratories, Liberty also puts their own safes through a series of in house testing as well. In one such test, a Liberty safe was compared to a competitor by placing both safes into an oven. Both the Liberty Safe as well as the comparison safe had a typical fire rating of sixty minutes. Both were heated to around 1200 degrees in ten minutes, just like what would be experienced in a normal house fire. The Liberty Safe survived with flying colors, while the other safe was destroyed within just 23 minutes.

How can Liberty Gun Safes guarantee unbeatable fire protection? Three important qualities go into every one of their safes. The first thing is that a Liberty has an abundance of solid 5/8" fire boards that go into every safe, while many manufacturer's only use 1/2" boards. Liberty fire boards are layered solidly, while other companies create air pockets in order to give the illusion of solidity. These air pockets are prime for creating heat, making their products fail under rigorous testing. Liberty also uses a more rigid steel body construction, making it so the boards are as rigid as possible when installed. The third thing that makes Liberty better is the quality and balance of materials and construction. Each and every component is carefully hand crafted an inspected through every step of the construction process, to ensure there are not weaknesses in the structure itself.

One of the things that make Liberty Safes stand out over the competition is their fire rating, or BTU rating, that is clearly and proudly displayed not only on the inside of the door itself, but also in every page of their brochures. The British Thermal Rating is a more scientific approach to measuring exactly the amount of heat a safe can withstand for a certain period of time. Simply put, the higher the rating, the better the safe will hold up on the case of a fire. Not all safe companies use the BTU standards in their testing; only Liberty Safes use both the British as well as the United States Standards.

A safe is really the sum total of its parts, and if there are any weak spots in the design and construction of the safe, then it is going to fail at some point. In order to make sure that heat doesn't breach any of their safes, Liberty Safes has painstakingly made sure that there is adequate fire boards in not just the main body of their safes, but also in the door jams, the doors, locking mechanisms, and anywhere else there is a joint or possibility of a gap. Liberty also uses a water jet cutting technology that is superior to other fire board cutting methods. This not only ensures that all the cuts are precise, leaving no spaces or gaps between the boards or the exterior surfaces, but also to ensure that no piece is damaged in the cutting process. They have also developed a unique interlocking design, allowing these boards to stay in place even in the event of expansion and contraction that is normally found during a fire.

One of the weakest points in any safe during a fire is the seal around the safe door. In order to eliminate this weakness, Liberty only uses the best heat expanding door sealer, Palusol. This sealant not only expands up to seven times it's normal size during a fire, but is still maintains it's form, assuring that any contents of the safe are protected from both the heat as well as the smoke damage all the way up to 1400 degrees. Most of Liberty's competitors use a cheaper door seal which will start to break down as the ambient temperature starts to rise. Liberty also uses more door bolts, keeping the door from warping, and there are even door adjusters to make sure the door is tight even after installation.

Liberty Safes also puts all their safes through real life testing. It is one thing to perform tests in the perfect environment, entirely another in the real world. These safes have a wonderful survival capability, even in the harshest situations. For an example, one of Liberty's Safes withstood one of the most devastating wildfires on record, the Santa Ana Wildfire in 2007. This wildfire produced temperatures of more than 2000 degrees, hotter than some blow torches, and destroyed hundreds of homes. After the fire, one resident was searching through the rubble to find that although charred, his Liberty Safe was still intact. Upon opening the safe, all his valuables where still there, and unharmed. This is just one of the many different stories that inspires Liberty Safes to keep on working to be the top of the line in fire rated gun safes.