Burglar and Fire Safe, 1.7 cu ft

I bought this safe about three months ago. It is just what I needed. It has the space inside that I need but yet it's fairly compact. I wanted a simple mechanical combination lock because I don't want the batteries going out. I don't go into the safe often, so I wouldn't notice any warning light or anything like that.A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to anchoring the safe. This is where the product lost one of its stars in my ranking. There are four anchoring holes in the bottom of the safe so I thought there would be four anchoring bolts. There were only two, but by the time I finished I was glad there weren't four. I had to anchor into the concrete slab under my carpeting. I thought I would be able to drill from inside the safe, but there is the fabric-covered floor, then another heavy slab of hard material about a half inch thick, then there is the steel bottom of the safe. The holes do NOT line up with each other, so no drilling from the inside. So, I had to make a template under the safe and mark the holes on that template. Then I had to remove the safe and drill holes in the floor where I had marked the template. That went "OK."I thought I could move the safe back into position and then put the anchor bolts they provided in from inside the safe. Surprise! The holes in the steel bottom of the safe are too small for the anchors to go through. I didn't want to drill out the holes in the safe because I didn't want to break the finish and cause a place for rust to start. So, I had to put the anchors into the holes in the floor and get them set. Then I had to lift the safe up enough to get the top of the bolts through the three layers of the bottom of the safe. I'm over 70. This is NOT a safe I just pick up! I did devise a system to angle the safe down on the misaligned holes and finally tighten them down. But, this became an all-afternoon job.I'm hoping Mesa Safe Company sees this and fixes their manufacturing system to line the holes up the way the normal customer would expect them.If you're anchoring the safe, you might want to have some help available!

Overall, safe is quite nice. Very roomy, sturdy construction, and solid feel.Took off a star because the safe arrived with the dial mechanism totally broken. See picture. Dial was stuck out 0.5" and would not sit flush, as designed. The combination worked, which was good. Rather than going through the hassle of returning it, I decided to try to fix it myself. Youtube had a good video on combination lock and dial construction. I had to hacksaw about 0.5" off of the threaded dial rod in order for the dial to sit flush. Which means that this was never built properly, in the first place--the threaded rod was 0.5" too long. The rod was hitting the lock cover which pushed the dial out. Works great now, but the fact that I had to fix this myself and that it was not built properly is totally ridiculous. I mean thank goodness I'm an engineer, there was a youtube video on this, and that I had the tools to fix it.

This is an outstanding safe for the price paid. It suits my purpose quite well. The combination dial has a real nice, smooth feeling to it and I had no trouble opening it on the first attempt. When closed and secured the door does have about 1/8" play in it and as explained by the manufacturer this is to allow the heat-activated fire seal to expand in the event of a fire. This is normal for the safe folks! My house has a full basement so I placed the safe in a corner of my bedroom closet and mounted it to the floor with four 9/16" x 2" bolts. This safe isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Another reviewer on this site said he removed the shelf brackets on the side walls to remove the safe's floor plate. I did not find this necessary. I simply removed the bottom screw from each bracket and swung the bottom of it toward the back of the safe and removal of the floor plate was easy to gain access to the pre-drilled holes. I then used a marker to mark the floor through the holes, pulled the safe out of the way and then drilled the holes through the floor. After placing the safe back into position I placed the bolts (with washers) into the holes from the basement up into the safe and put duct tape over the bolt heads to hold them in place. I then went back to the safe upstairs and placed a washer, lock washer and nut on the bolt and then placed a socket with ratchet on it. The ratchet handle against the safe wall allowed me to go back downstairs and tighten with another ratchet. The way I see it now is if a thief comes around and sees the safe in the closet they will soon discover they are not going to carry it away. Even if they then go into the basement and see the bolt heads on the ceiling and attempt to loosen them the nuts inside the safe will simply spin because there is nothing holding them. Thus the bolts can't be removed. The only way to make off with the safe is to somehow cut the floor section out that it rests on. Probably would need a chainsaw to do that.