# Gun Safes - Impossible To Break Open?
**URL:** https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968
**Category:** The Bunker
**Created:** [July 4, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968 "2017-07-04T17:33:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@End\_Transmission](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/End_Transmission)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/1 "2017-07-04T17:33:40Z")
So I’m holed up in a house with a gun safe and I have no guns. Well, no guns I could practically use. I did remove the M2 Browning HMG from a mobile gun system and haul it along with 240 rounds of .50 BMG ball back home, but it was too heavy for my puny scientist to use, and more importantly, it required the shooter to stop and set up on appropriate terrain to fire (totally reasonable and good attention to detail). So anyway, I dragged a chair into the closet with the gun safe, set up the HMG, and methodically put ten rounds in the gun safe from one tile away. It seemed totally unfazed, although one of my shots which must have missed to the east did apparently have the kinetic energy to destroy a WALL TILE.
The game gave me no direct feedback on whether the Browning was even scratching the Gun Safe, so I went to work on it with a Fire Axe for about ten or twelve turns until the game told me “You don’t seem to be damaging the gun safe”. Respectively…THE FUCK?
If I recall correctly, a round of .50 BMG is supposed to be able to put a hole through the engine block of a humvee at 300 meters IRL. That’s what it’s designed for. Likewise, going to town with the pickaxe end of a steel fire axe on the hinges of a gun safe would eventually break it open, even if it took a hundred swings. Gun safes are secure, but they’re not THAT secure.
Same complaint, to a lesser degree, about the metal doors into science labs and military bunkers. I remember being able to break them before but recently I detonated a land mine on one of the suckers (by erm…failing to disarm it) without even denting it. I know C4 works, or did, in the past. It wouldn’t be so bothersome if Lab ID and Military ID cards still spawned at the rate I remembered, but I’m playing the same build of the game I was playing in November of 2015, and they seem to have mysteriously disappeared.
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### Author:  [@Aluminumfoil](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Aluminumfoil)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/2 "2017-07-04T19:35:52Z")
It’s a long-standing problem of Cataclysm. Objects have no hit points. They either break or they don’t, you can’t wear them down.
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### Author:  [@Azrad](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Azrad)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2017, 7:42pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/3 "2017-07-04T19:42:36Z")
Sledgehammers are your best bet. Smashing non-corpse objects need a lot of bashing damage, and the fire axe doesn’t quite have enough. I know that normal safes can be bashed open with a sledgehammer on an 8 strength survivor.
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### Author:  [@BorkBorkGoesTheCode](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/BorkBorkGoesTheCode)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2017, 10:39pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/4 "2017-07-04T22:39:22Z")
Try "a"ctivating a jackhammer in the direction of the safe.
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### Author:  [@Azrad](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Azrad)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/5 "2017-07-05T02:52:18Z")
Gun safes, or at least the electronic safes, are immune to jackhammering for some reason.
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### Author:  [@End\_Transmission](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/End_Transmission)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/6 "2017-07-05T14:28:23Z")
I was wondering if it was an intentional game balance decision (“more people should be using lockpicks/makeshift lockpicks/stethoscopes”) or just an issue.
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### Author:  [@Nijuni](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Nijuni)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/7 "2017-07-06T23:28:04Z")
Iirc, the only way to open a Gun Safe is…
…by using an Electrohack (or a Fingerhack CBM). Stethoscopes are used on regular Safes, while Lockpicks (and Fingerpick CBMs) are used on locked Doors.
I’m not sure if those count as spoilers, so I put it under “spoiler” just in case.
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### Author:  [@leebash](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/leebash)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 11:52pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/gun-safes-impossible-to-break-open/13968/8 "2017-07-06T23:52:03Z")
> [@BorkBorkGoesTheCode](#):
>
> Try "a"ctivating a jackhammer in the direction of the safe.
It works only for regular safes, not gun safes, IIRC.