Continued from part I of this article: Understanding Hand Tool Safe Cracking
Now we’ll examine power tool safe cracking techniques. These types of attacks are relatively uncommon in residential situations. This is because even cordless power tools are too heavy and cumbersome to carry for long periods of time. In addition, power tools are the classic uni-tasker – they do one thing well when the typical burglar needs his tools to do many things well. A very small percentage of residential safe attacks employ power tools, and, in a large proportion of those instances, the burglar opportunistically uses the victim’s own tools.
One of the most common methods of power tool safe cracking employs the cordless drill. Almost all drill attacks are conducted against the door of a safe in the hopes of compromising the lock mechanism. Occasionally, the door frame is drilled in preparation for a subsequent punch attack against the exposed boltwork. Fortunately, all good UL RSC rated safes will have robust countermeasures against these kinds of attacks. These include anti-drill hardplates, one or more relocking devices that are tripped by drill attempts and more robust construction of the safe door and frame compared to the safe body.
Of course, given enough time and drill bits even a high security safe can be opened via drilling. In fact, drilling is the method most professional safe technicians employ when all non-destructive means of opening a client’s locked safe have been exhausted. Good safe technicians also usually know the closely guarded “weak points” of individual safe designs, allowing them to drill open a safe much faster than most criminals could.
Even so, it may take a professional safe technician up to an hour, depending on his knowledge and skill level, to successfully open a high quality RSC safe using a specialized drilling rig. In addition, UL safe crackers also rely heavily on drill attacks when conducting their brutal RSC testing.
Another device sometimes used in power tool safe cracking is the reciprocating saw, or Sawzall. These machines can be wickedly efficient at quickly cutting through metals, particularly thin gauge steel. Once again, cheap import safes with 12, 14 or 16 gauge bodies are especially vulnerable to this kind of attack. But higher quality UL RSC burglary safes, many of which employ composite walls between 2 and 4 inches thick, will only yield to these tools very slowly. A criminal would need a lot of blades, a lot of time and a great deal of patience to successfully use a reciprocating saw on a well made RSC safe.
I wanted to take a moment to talk briefly about two different attacks that are rarely used on safes anymore – torch attacks and manipulation attacks. Torch attacks employ an oxygen fed cutting torch to burn through the steel body of a safe. But significant amounts of equipment and training are necessary to successfully breach a safe using this tool.
With the decline of the manufacturing trades in the U.S., the knowledge needed to use a cutting torch is no longer as widespread as it used to be. Therefore, torch attacks are usually only seen in professional safe cracking operations conducted against commercial targets. In rare instances, an opportunistic burglar may attempt to cut open a safe using the homeowner’s own unsecured cutting torch equipment.
Manipulation attacks are what we traditionally think of as safe cracking. Old movies are full of these references. A sophisticated thief wearing all black slips into a bank at night and immediately goes to work on the vault’s dial, trying to “feel” the right combination.
Luckily, manipulation attacks are largely works of fiction in the modern age. The unique skills needed to pull them off take decades to master. And today’s combination locks are much more manipulation-resistant than those of the past. The newest type of safe lock, the digital lock, can’t even be opened via traditional manipulation techniques.
Now we come to the most dangerous type of power tool safe cracking – attacks involving angle grinders, cutoff wheels and circular saws. These are heavy duty cutting implements that will slice through 1/4″, 1/2″ and even 1″ steel plate with moderate effort. In fact, this is one of the reasons that modern, high security, TL-15 and higher rated safes are all made from composites – usually a mix of high strength concrete interspersed with carbide and metal nodules sandwiched between two steel sheets. It is easy enough for these power tools to chew through steel by itself, but they perform poorly against the combination of different materials present in the typical anti-burglar composite fill.
Power tool safe cracking using angle grinders, cutoff wheels or circular saws is exceedingly rare in residential situations. They are usually seen in burglary attempts on commercial firms such as banks, pawn shops, jewelry stores or other high risk targets. Even if a burglar does use one of these dread power tools against a high quality RSC safe, it will still take anywhere from a couple minutes to ten minutes of very loud, very hard work to cut open. And costly carbide or diamond tipped blades may be ruined in the process. Few burglars are willing to engage in the extensive planning and expense needed to execute these sorts of sophisticated attacks against residential targets.
In the end, I think you need to weigh your personal needs and desired level of security against your budget. As of 2017, a high quality RSC burglary safe might cost anywhere from $800 to $2,500, depending on its size. Comparably sized TL-15 safes run from about $2,000 to $6,000. Prices increase again for TL-30 and higher rated safes. Gun safes, being substantially larger than most other safes, will also have higher prices.
In any case, a residential burglary safe must first and foremost be stout against basic hand tools like pry bars and sledgehammers. And it must always be bolted down securely to the floor. Once you clear these requirements, which any good quality UL RSC rated safe will easily do – you are protected against the vast majority of residential safe attacks.
If you lock up your power tools so that a thief can’t use them against you, another major risk factor is eliminated. Even if subjected to power tool safe cracking, a well designed, robustly constructed RSC burglary safe will be able to resist most drilling and reciprocating saw attacks for a surprising length of time.
I don’t believe most homeowners need a commercial grade, TL-rated safe for their valuables. Now, if you are planning on storing very expensive items with a value of more than $50,000, then I think you need either a high security floor safe or a TL-15 or TL-30 rated burglary safe. You should also consider something more secure than an RSC safe if you are operating in a business or commercial environment or live in a very high risk neighborhood. But most of us, thankfully, will do just fine with a robustly engineered, well built UL RSC rated safe.
