The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I need some advice please. I'm having a new extension built to replace a garage alongside the house. The extension will be part of the house and the plan is for it to contain a gun workshop area (and my cabinets), a normal workshop and a bathroom. Given it is a fairly narrow plot (replacing a single garage) I want to keep wall thickness to a minimum to maximise space and have been recommended to use a timber frame construction. Question though - can gun cabinets be fixed to a timber frame wall, and if so any ideas as to how best to do this (or what to specifiy when having the wall built)?

In between the upright studs, batten out horizontally. Use big coach bolts and fix to the floor. Worked for me when we had a timber frame house.

Cool, I was hoping something like that would do the job. Thanks. Oh and I should have explained before that due to the need for access from the front of the extension to the back, and obsticles outside the gun cabinets will have to be fixed to the new wall - it wont be possible to have them attached to the original house wall.

I'd be very careful, mate. Don't assume that they will accept battens. I myself had that same problem when moving to a new build and the force had been given guidance with regard to stud walls. Essentially I had to weld up a frame which was then incorporated into the stud structure, bolted in and then covered with 3/4 inch ply. The bolts were permanently attached to the frame, protruded through the ply and into the cabinet.

Relatively easy to incorporate into your build and in hindsight I was glad I went to the trouble of removing the plasterboard and fitting. A house was screwed with similar walls and they removed a small safe by simply sawing out the studs around it.

At the very least I'd contact the licensing office for guidance.

Oh wow, thanks for the advice. I'll talk with my FEO before commiting to anything then.

what will the outside wall be? Is there easy access to the outside? Or is there an adjacent wall?


Whatever you do, think about using decent marine ply for the wall, even if you do plaster over. I put 18mm ply under the plastered on my new kitchen wall - so easy to fix brackets amd shelves.

The outside wall will be brick, and there would be easy access to it (it is not tight up against another property for example). I like the idea of ply under the plasterboard, especially as part of the extension will be a workshop.

Reason I asked about outer-skin and proximity of other walls was that if all wood it could be extracted from outside!

What about on the inside ... Maybe get a sheet of 16g mild steel, 1200mm square and fit that to four of the upright studs and any studs you are using for the cabinet using plenty of decent wood screws.

Then use 10mm coach bolts almost to the thickness of the timber to fix the cabinet with. they might be able to cut a large piece out of the wall but with a 1200mm plate attached, it would not be going anywhere.


As for the ply - use 15mm under 9mm plasterboard - or you could omit the plasterboard and fit nicely finished 18mm along the full wall and either varnish or paint.

Hmm, me thinks a call with the FEO will be needed when I get home. Starting to go back towards the idea of a normal cavity wall with 2 layers of brick - sacrifice 50mm of thickness, but should make all the fixings much easier....

jmc67 wrote:Hmm, me thinks a call with the FEO will be needed when I get home. Starting to go back towards the idea of a normal cavity wall with 2 layers of brick - sacrifice 50mm of thickness, but should make all the fixings much easier....

If you go that route there are options that will allow you to recover some lost space. High quality cavity insulation such as Celotex or Kingspan is a lot thinner than Rockwool; two offset layers20mm thick will be better than 70mm of Rockwool and you can then reduce the cavity size from 100mm maybe down to just 70mm. Certain blocks can be obtained in 75mm thickness rather than the standard 100mm which could give you another 25mm. You could use "Paint Grade" blocks which will alleviate the need for plaster and when well laid they look fine.

One example of a 7N block in 75mm http://www.travisperkins.co.uk/p/solid- ... 63/3893434 You can also get lightweight Aircrete 3N blocks and there are some excellent fixings for those. Some FEO may not like "Breeze" but Aircrete if installed correctly and te right fixings used will be sufficient (subject to you architect confirming loads and construction).