My new Safe arrived Saturday morning.

Got a call last week from the folks in Waco who were building me a safe. They said it was finished and asked, could they deliver it Friday. I told them I was in San Saba Friday. It'd have to be Saturday. So they said they'd be here around 10AM.

That meant, after weeks of procrastinating, I'd finally have to clear out the large storage room in the garage, clearing a place for the new safe. Friday night, after getting home from San Saba and before going to bed, I took everything out of the storage room and spread it out in the garage.



Here's what it looked like out there after the fact.



You're thinkin', "There's piles of crap everywhere." You say "crap." That's a very subjective term. One man's crap is another's treasure.



For instance, check out all that ammo, and the clip bags. Treasure!



In the end, the storage room was empty, swept and clean. See that chest of drawers there, on the left? Guess what it's full of?



Treasure!



Treasure!

Then I decided to go around and document my previous gun storage choices. Before I was robbed in 2005, I kept all my AKs in my closet in the bedroom. That served only to make them handy for the robbers. I noticed then, after the fact, that while those dickless fucks had pulled all the closet doors open, pulled all my drawers open, and even polled the faces off my clocks, they hadn't even noticed the closet in the laundry room. Normally, the door to the kitchen is open, and that door covers the closet door. Sometimes I even forget that closet is there.



So, after the fact, that's where I chose to hide the remains of my collection.



As I rebuilt my collection, that closet filled up.



Also, my gun case filled up. The robbers had mostly left these guns alone. They opened the doors, pulled out my French Mas 49/56, checked it out, and then tossed it on the bed.



So, I've used that closet and this case, which I inherited from my uncle John, to hold all my old guns. My buddy Dave in convinced that my uncle John, who was a carpenter, built this case himself. I'll have to ask his son about that the next time I see them.

The delivery guys called us at about 8:30am, but then didn't actually arrive until about 11.



When they did, I had them back their truck right up into the garage.



They manhandled the safe off the back of the truck...



And then attached a cool, electric dolly to it. The dolly allows them to easily go up stairs.



All they had to deal with at my place was that little step from the garage floor level to the floor level of the house.



Once they got it into the room, it was all shoving and pushing to get it into the spot where I wanted it.



Then they drilled into the concrete floor of the room and bolted the safe to the floor. I asked them while they worked, "If I decide to move, will you guys come and pick this thing up and move it for me?" They said they would, for a fee.



After about 20 minutes, my new safe was in place. I've wanted one of these for SO LONG, it great to finally have it.



I went and got every long gun I have, and I loaded it up. It looks like it's full, but I've spaced them out here. The safe actually holds 50 long guns. You do a count. See how many you can see.



After It was full and the door was closed, I set out to rebuild the storage room around the new safe. It turned out to be pretty easy. The old camping equipment went back in easy, and other stuff was just thrown away.



I took the shelves apart and stacked them into a tower, and then used the tower to hold a lot of gear, and all my ammo.

During that process, my buddy Dave showed up with my newest acquisition. He'd called me, expecting me to drive up to Gatesville to get my new Garand. But I told him about the safe, and told him he needed to drive down and see it. He agreed.



That's the new Garand there, front and center. It's a Winchester. The stock is made of Beach, and it's pretty rough, but I'll work on that. Dave talked me into getting this second rifle. He says my other one, my Remington, is so clean, so perfect, I should never shoot it. I should just oil it and put it away. So I got this new one so I'd have one to shoot. The old one is now a "Safe Queen", as Dave says.

Anyway, I've put about 8 of the older guns back in Uncle John's case, but the rest are safe now. No more broom closets. No more worries about slobbering, lazy, dickless assholes breakin' in and makin' me miserable again. Feels good. Well worth the investment. Cheers.