Milsurp After Hours

Well after a rather protracted process plod signed off my gun room a week last Friday.

It has been a life long ambition of mine ever since, as a little boy, I was taken by my father into a gun room on one of the estates he worked on as a stalker, I was captivated, surrounded by all those Holland & Hollands, Purdeys, Mannlicher Schoenauers, BSAs and Parker Hales gleaming in their racks along with the smell of gunoil and tow.

I knew then that I would collect guns and one day have a gun room of my own where I could sit and enjoy my collection (handloading was a thing unkown to me those 40 years ago).

Life passes and we live through all its phases and I suppose that when we get to our 50s or so and the family is grown up, you can get back to doing some things purely for your self.

Creating a gun room has been on my agenda of things to do for a few years now and I'd looked at several options of where to locate it in the house but none had been really suitable and would have been half measures at least.

However when our daughter announced that she was leaving home then a suitable opportunity arose, and before she had even thought of packing her bags I had started work on the process.

Now I could have more than just a room to hold my guns I could also relocate my reloading benches and my office area into a joined up layout that would meet my needs and then some.

When we built an extension onto our house 20 years ago we built a studio onto the back which I shared with my wife, a practising artist, as my workshop and reloading haven, pictures of which have appeared on these forums in the past. This meant that my wife would also gain extra space and have the workshop to herself when I vacated to the gunroom, a win/win situation which did help with domestic harmony as creating a gun room wasn't going to be cheap.

In the UK the home office lays down guidance as to the levels of security that is required for the retention of firearms in both domestic and commercial environments.

In order to create a gun room in which I could display my current collection in racks rather than in the 8 steel cabinets it was currently housed then I would in effect need to convert the room into a gun cabinet, this would require hard works to make the room secure to the accepted standard. As I also have ambitions to increase my collection and increase the number of slots on my ticket I would need to heighten my level of security by having a dedicated monitored alarm system installed for the gun room as well.

The first step in the process was to get the police down for a site meeting with the steel fabricator and the alarm people to go over my plans and agree the specifications as I wanted to ensure that I didn't get any surprises down the way about things being installed and then deemed not suitable. I have to say that both the police officers involved in this project were most helpful, entered into the spirit of it and were full of good sound practical advice that made the job better and saved me a bob or two as well, as this project was new to the fabricator and the alarm people as you don't get many gunrooms built nowadays in Britain.

Anyway the job went well with the hard works going in first, steel door, frame, locks and window bars. I put the steel mesh up to secure the partition wall myself, no big job. The alarm installation also went well until it came to connecting the alarm to the monitoring centre via the phone line, there was fault but BT the line supplier was adamant that there wasn't, it took me two weeks to get a BT engineer on site with an alarm engineer to sort the problem out and yes there was a line fault which BT had to fix, don't anyone tell me that the privatisation of the utilities in this country has led to better service my experience has been consistently the opposite.

Having got it all resolved I got sign off a week last Friday and I've been getting my guns and stuff back from storage, thanks Joe, and filling the racks. The racks and benches had all been put in earlier when the hard works were being done along with shifting my stuff out from the studio.

The gun room is off a small bedroom that I now have as an office with the computer, books etc and I can do my research with my guns to hand, heaven. This is the office:

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Steel door to gun room on the left:

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Door to gunroom:

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Now we enter Aladdins cave, well it is to me at least:

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Handloading bench with presses, components and stuff:

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Rest of the bench and more stuff:

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Lube sizing and work bench, the box in the foreground under my range bag is the BP container:

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The door into the gunroom:

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In the racks the reasons for this all :

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What a great project and result as well. Are you going into consultancy now!

Thanks Duncan, consultancy? naw! been there, done that.

Anyway I don't think there is that much demand for gunroom security services and advice here, its only sad old die hards like me that won't give in that will go to this much bother in the UK.

Well done Adam.

Looks like a lot of hard work to me but worth it Im sure.

I have converted the loft although I still have the guns in cabinets.

Its a old house and the loft is quite large and high enough to be able to walk upright with no problem.

All the reloading gear is up there as well.

The back bedroom is done out as a office.

The biggest problem is getting cabinets up into the loft they weigh a bloody ton and they make a awfull mess if you drop one.

You have my sincere and deepest condolences for the empty slots in your gun room...best wishes for a speedy filling of the empty holes!!!

Nice project, Adam. I'm sure you will make some additional improvements as the mood strikes. My gun room is not nearly as secure as yours. But..... somebody is home at my house most of the time now and most of my guns aren't worth much by the each anyway.

Do you have insurance on your guns? Will the insurance get any cheaper now that you have the room with an alarm and a steel door and the bars on the windows?

Congratulations on finishing your project. I have been to a couple of dealers that work from home. Both had concrete block rooms built in the garage area. One of them had a half ton steel cabinet in his block room, the other just had the guns on racks in the room. I have been measuring up to fit another cabinet in the room where I keep my guns. My existing cabinets are full and I have another couple of slots to fill, plus there is a shotgun or two I am after. This will bring me up to around 40 guns. My local Firearms Officer had not mentioned security to me and has left it up to me. When I asked he said they do not recommend security firms etc as security is up to me to provide. I have a full house alarm system installed, but not monitored.

Ragards

Peter.

I'd like to add my congratulations. I was hoping to do something similar in my flat, but it would appear that some of my neighbours have been accomodated at HM's pleasure. I have put in for my Section 7 though, so hopefully it shan't all be in vain.

And you should be thankful for the light. My desk at work is the gunbench, in a room with no windows. I do hope that SAD isn't something you can develop. . The upside is working for a Section 5 dealer.

Nick

Well Done

Congratulations Adam, a job well done!!!!! I hope some day to have a room like that. I noticed the bolts in the rifles. I have to store the bolts for my rifles separately from the rifle, pain in the ass, but one of the conditions of my permit.