1) Most of your money goes into the construction of the safe. Being able to buy direct from Steelwater Gun Safes allows most of your money to be applied directly to the security, fireproofing, and the reliability of the safe. When you purchase through a dealer and cannot buy direct from the safe company, a lot of your money goes into the dealers pocket instead of the construction of the safe. The dealer then has to add their profit margin into the final price of the safe which can be an extra added 35% to 75% markup. So when Steelwater Gun Safes is compared with an equivalent gun safe sold through a dealer, the dealer’s price will be 35% to 75% higher.

2) Most gun safe companies will make new models every year to entice you into believing that this is their new and improved model, but in reality they have lessened the quality and reliability in order to compensate for the extra profit margin that the company demands for the new year. Also, after a few years of design changes it makes it hard to get replacement parts because the old parts are no longer being manufactured or produced in small quantities, making the replacement parts overpriced. Contrarily, Steelwater Gun Safes still believes that “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it". Our gun safes have not had a mechanical change in over 7 years. Mechanical problems, reliability problems, and cosmetic problems were resolved many years ago and Steelwater Gun Safes has met its goal when it comes to achieving excellent fireproofing, security, reliability and at the same time offering it at an affordable price.

3) We have thought about things that you normally wouldn’t.

• a) Most gun safes use particleboard for the shelving and particleboard will warp and sag after a short period of time. All our safes (22 gun and larger and excluding XT models) have steel u-channel steel plates on both sides of the top shelf to prevent it from warping and at the same time strengthening it many times over. Most top long shelves in competitors’ gun safes are particle board only and are not reinforced, which will warp and possibly break when even minimal weight is applied.
• b) We have found that after bolting down the gun safe through the body thickness of 9 gauge steel or thinner that the safe will still rock back and forth because the steel on the bottom of the safe will bend due to the leverage you get from the tall height and the weight of the safe. In some instances the safe can be rocked back and forth until the bolts work their way through the bottom of the safe. To correct this problem we installed an extra 1/4 inch steel plate in all 4 corners of the bottom to prevent this from happening to our safes (excluding XT and EG models).
• c) Most every gun safe from $300 to $8000 will have hardplate that protects the lock body from being drilled into and manipulated. These hardplates are approximately 4 x 5 inches. We installed a hardplate that is 10X larger to protect not only the lock body but the internal relocking device, gear drive system, and the vital areas of the linkages. This helps prevent against a successful break in if someone was to get a hold of the schematics and attempt to drill and punch certain areas.

4) All Steelwater gun safes are removed from the packaging and inspected thoroughly for imperfections, defects, or damages after they are received from the manufacturing plant. Damage can happen even though the gun safes are inspected at the manufacturing plant. To protect your time and investment, we unpackage each gun safe for a final inspection before it is shipped to you. This minimizes any problems or dissatisfaction you may have with our products.

5) The owner and designer of Steelwater Gun Safes has been the security field practically all his life. Right out of high school he picked up 5 years of law enforcement and then learned the locksmith field to open his own lock and safe company. He has serviced, repaired, and opened safes for more than 22 years. With this experience he has designed a safe that covers the security, fireproofing, and reliability that he professionally thought was needed in a gun safe.

6) Even though we take every step to minimize defects and mechanical failures we still have them on rare occasions. We strive heavily on taking care of our customer after the sale regardless if the safe is within the warranty period or even if the warranty has already expired. If there is a warranty issue we attend to it immediately and usually have the problem solved within 1 to 4 days. This even applies if there is an out of warranty issue or a problem that is even caused by the purchaser. We keep a full inventory of parts available to be immediately shipped out for repairs.

7) Most gun safe companies can take weeks to get the product to your location. All in-stock gun safes sold by Steelwater Gun Safes are shipped out in 1 to 2 days and to your location within 3 to 7 business days.