Champion Safe

Crown C40 Gun Safe Review

The Champion Safe, Crown C40, is one of four models in the Crown Series. The Crown Series is the best, or “TOP of the Line”, offerings from Champion and is a very impressive safe. The safe holds up to 20-40 long guns, with additional space available for handguns and other items.

If you are interested in the Crown Series but want something either a little bigger, or smaller, there is also a Crown C30 (14-28 guns), C50(22-44 guns) or C60 (25-50 guns).

Ok, let’s get to the nitty gritty on this safe. There are definitely some great category killer advantages for this safe, along with some grey or fuzzy areas that you need to take into account.

Key Advantages

1. Steel: The C40 has 7 gauge steel. I am aware of no other residential gun safe that has better steel and only a few others that can match it: So far, so good for the Crown C40.
2. Locking Bolts: There are 22 bolts around the four sides of the door. Each bolt is 1.5″. This is nothing extraordinary, simply a good solid feature.
3. Fire Rating: The stated fire rating for the safe is for 2 hours at 1,750° F. Wow! This is very hot and very long. If you experience a fire this hot that burns this long, you arguably have bigger problems than losing your guns. All joking aside, this is an impressive fire rating. However, please read below regarding this same rating.
4. Re-Locker: Champion is the only home gun safe that uses glass in its re-locker system. This feature is usually only found in commercial grade safes.

Champion Safe Key Disadvantages

1. Fire Rating: Champion Safe performs all of its own fire ratings. It calls it the “Phoenix Fire Protection.” They divide the protection into different classifications. At least to me, this seems like it is a formal third party rating system. It is not.Generally, I do not like it when companies do their own fire rating. Nonetheless, Champion does a good job at explaining its fire testing and the results it obtains. Most other manufacturers who do their own in-house fire testing do not provide any information about the process. Thus, I certainly have a better feeling about the testing done by Champion.
2. Door Seal: Champion Safe uses door seals from Lorient and Zero. Is this a problem? I don’t know. I have not heard of these companies nor have I heard anything positive or negative regarding their products. However, the industry standard door seal is from Palusol. Almost every good safe manufacturer uses Palusol. I do not know any other safe manufacturer that uses the Lorient or Zero product.
3. Height: The safe height is 66 inches. Not short but not as high as it could be. Make sure your guns fit.

Fit and Finish

You will have to buy the lighting and dehumidifier kit if you want this option.

There are 8 different colors available, three of which are two tones. The two tones are pretty cool. You have two choices of interior shelving organization.

Bottom Line

The Crown C40 from Champion Safe is an excellent safe with a very good reputation. For the cost, about $3,100, it is a good buy.

I only have two quibbles. First, when you purchase the best safe that a company makes, it would be nice to get a dehumidifier and interior lighting. My comparison is when you go to buy a luxury automobile and the dealer tries to make you buy the floor mats for an additional cost. Yes, I can afford it but, really?

Second, I wish they would have done the fire rating with a third party. It really is a good rating, so they should spend the extra money and time to have it verified.

Champion Crown C40 – By the Numbers