Re: Best Gun Safe for an Apartment?
99% of gun safe companies make only gun safes because they can't cut it in in the real commercial safe world. They would utterly fail. The highest UL-recognized security rating that almost all gun safe carries is RSC, Residential Security Container. This is the lowest level of security rating available from Underwriters Laboratories.
Don't worry about fire rating. There is a reason why no gun safes to my knowledge have an actual fire rating from Underwriters Laboratories and mainly other lesser third party companies. Familiarize yourself with gun safe insulation and you'll realize most use drywall. You'll also discover fire barrier material in all sorts of safes protect the contents by releasing moisture inside the sealed contents to prevent them from igniting, but this turns it into a pressure boiler. This is great for documents. This generally isn't good for guns. I would buy a safe to protect the contents from theft and rely on insurance for fire damage. There is no guarantee that a fire won't damage your guns.
I won't dwell too much into construction details and weaknesses in design but gun safes aren't very impressive at all compared to the technologies employed in the commercial safe world, which are required to protect anything from small sums of cash to racks of diamonds. American Security makes real commercial safes at TL-15 and above security ratings rated for real burglar attacks. Some of this manufacturing trickles down to their gun safe line. If I had to select an entry-level safe, I would choose the American Security BF series as it uses a light-duty concrete-type filler between two enclosed sheet metal shells.
However I have to note that any safe is better than nothing as most types of burglaries are simple smash-and-grab. They'll probably hit the combo lock and handle with a mallet, break those off, and settle for your DVD player instead.