What is better for a safe, Locking Bars or Traditional Round Bolts?
Liberty Safe has taken a bold step in changing over their high-end gun safe models to their new Military-Style Locking Bar system opening up the debate about which is more secure, locking bars or round bolts? Both are designed with the intent to ward off a variety of sophisticated burglary attacks in which someone would attempt to force the door open. The effectiveness of locking bars vs. rounded bolts all boils down to one thing: how much pressure can your bolt or locking bar take?
To compare, you have impressive silver bolts that shoot out from the door of the safe, they are round and shiny and usually constructed of a thick hunk of steel covered by chrome. Alternatively, in Liberty’s newly designed safes, you have thinner but wider tabs or bars that slide from the door into slots or behind the frame of your safe. At first glance it may seem the big chrome bolts that remind us of something out of a bank vault look like serious business would be more secure than discreet black tabs, but perhaps Liberty is onto something with their new Military Style Locking bar technology. In fact, during Liberty’s own testing, Liberty’s Military-Style Locking Bars withstood 15,300 lbs of pressure, while the competitor’s bolt brackets with round bolts were defeated with just 6,000 lbs of pressure.
Let’s look into the design of Liberty’s next-generation of locking systems a little bit deeper. If your safe’s locking bars are properly constructed, like Liberty’s are, you will see tabs jutting out from it like teeth. Liberty’s locking bars are not welded or screwed together but are constructed out of one solid single piece of steel meaning there are no weak points such as screws or welded joints to exploit. The tabs that are sticking out of your safe’s door are less than a third of the actual steel bar that is behind the door.
