A Man And His Gear

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Here’s Why Gun Safes Are So Expensive

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Outside of your car, and your home, if you are a hunter, into shooting sports, your gun safe is likely one of the most expensive things you own. Many high end gun safes can cost up to $10,000. While there are many inexpensive safes out there, the quality ones do tend to cost a lot.

So why are gun safes so expensive? The main reasons are because of an extremely high machinery cost for production, and of course labor, development costs and even shipping charges.

Let’s dig a little further into this topic, and find that even the brand on the front of your safe can add to the cost of your safe.

Machinery cost is high

What I believe to be the main reason for the high cost of a quality gun safe, is the machinery needed to build a gun safe from scratch. If you are so inclined, there is a really cool video on Liberty Safe’s website here about the whole process of building a gun safe.

The main cost has to do primarily with the machines that form the safe, and even bends the steel. Think about the engineering that must go into building a machine that can bend up to a ¼” steel and more.

You of course also have the welding equipment, and so much more.

Labor is expensive and specialized

Building a gun safe isn’t an easy task! You need to have people who are specialized in welding, machinery, automotive style painting and even showing up on time to work to make sure the assembly line is going.

Welding is by no means a low paying position

Finding the right people comes at a cost, and these companies have to pay that cost to get the right people in their company.

Development costs

As you will find in the Liberty video we linked to earlier, they talk about destroying their safes to make sure they hold up to their own standards, and also beat the competition. This is a crazy high cost!

What many people also don’t see is the cost it takes to test fire ratings both on their own, but also to be able to get a UL rating. This can be hundreds of thousands of dollars to get just one rating.

Again, to make a viable business this has to be worked into the price of the safe you are buying.

Shipping costs are not cheap

If you have ever shipped something freight, you know that it isn’t cheap, or easy. Now think about shipping hundreds or thousands of those a month.

Freight costs money and time

This cost can be a huge portion of the cost of a product, and has to be considered when pricing.

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Lots of heavy, and expensive materials

Now, this is the component of cost that most people are aware of, and should be mentioned here! You have to think about steel, other metal components, locks, fireboard or filling, carpeting, mirrors, glass, and so much more!

Warranty

Many manufacturers in the safe industry offer lifetime warranties on their products. Warranties are not cheap, especially when it comes to safes.

While there aren’t a ton of moving parts on a safe, the ones that do move or can be damaged are not cheap to fix. This includes the locking mechanism, door hinges, and the internal bolt work.

What happens when one of those things goes wrong, or worse yet, you get locked out of your safe? This results in the need for a specialized locksmith to be called in, costing a large amount. It also can result in having to ship a new safe, or ship a safe back to the manufacturer for repair.

These costs stack up, and have to be built into the cost of a product, as a good company will hold to their warranty with little to no troubleshooting.

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Brand names cost something

It takes years, and years to build a brand that people trust. However once you begin to get that trust, and have the quality to back it, you begin to be able to charge more.

Liberty Safe has built up an awesome brand name [Image courtesy of Liberty Safe]

Look at brands like Yeti, or Apple. The equivalents in the safe industry are brands like Liberty Safe, Browning, Fort Knox and a few more. These brands are able to charge just a little bit more than a competitor would, because customer’s trust them.

Conclusion

While most people think that the only thing that goes into their favorite product, regardless of what it is, they tend to forget about all of the other things that go into the product. It isn’t just materials, but it is the people, the machinery, design, and so much more.