Teardowns · updated monthly
Weaknesses found in some safes
Not a hall of shame. A list of the places where testing labs, locksmiths and burglars all arrive first — so you know what you are looking at when a door is open in front of you.
SECTION, NOT A PRESS PHOTO
- Why a drawing and not a photograph
- Press photos show paint. The parts that buy you minutes — fill, relocker, the anchoring of the boltwork into the body — are never in them, because they are not attractive.
- Where the numbers come from
- Published test standards and certificates, plus what locksmiths and lab technicians say on the record. Where a claim is ours and not a laboratory's, the page says so in the sentence itself.
The eight recurring ones
| Weak point | What it looks like in the shop | Costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Door gap | A clean bezel that hides an even gap along the opening edge | The first two minutes of any pry attack |
| Dead bolts counted as live | “Twelve-bolt locking system” on a door with four moving bolts | Nothing structurally — but the seller just lied to you |
| Uncertified lock | Certified body, no EN 1300 or UL Group marking on the lock itself | The cheapest way into an expensive box |
| No relocker | Nobody mentions it; the spec sheet has no line for it | Turns a drill attack into a solved problem |
| Thin fill, thick claim | Steel gauge quoted loudly, fill material not mentioned at all | Angle grinder time, halved |
| Hinges outside | Presented as “360° opening”, which is true and irrelevant | Little, if boltwork is right — a lot, if it isn't |
| Anchoring skipped | “It's heavy enough, no need to bolt it down” | The whole safe, on a trolley, in four minutes |
| Old certificate, new model | Certificate dated years before the product on the floor | Everything the certificate was supposed to guarantee |
Each row links to the tests and documents it rests on in the full entry pages. Where a maker disagrees, their reply is published beside ours.
The honest frame
None of this makes a certified safe a bad purchase. It makes an uncertified one a gamble
priced like a certainty. A rating is a stopwatch reading under known conditions — that is all it
has ever been, and it is still the most useful number in the trade.