Ammunition Cabinets and Cartridge Storage
Separate lockable ammunition storage where the certificate requires it, and proper cartridge, choke and kit storage where it simply makes the room work.
What the certificate actually requires
This is the detail most often got wrong, including by people who ought to know better.
For a firearm certificate, the security condition on the certificate covers the ammunition as well as the firearms. For a shot gun certificate it covers the guns only. That is a real distinction with real consequences for how a cabinet is drawn, and it is the first thing we establish before setting anything out.
Where separate storage is required, it needs to be genuinely separate: a lockable compartment with its own lock and its own steel, not a shelf behind the same door. A single door protecting both is not separate storage in any meaningful sense, and it is not what an FEO is looking for.
As always, the adequacy of the arrangement at your address is a matter for your local police firearms licensing department. We agree the specification with them before we build.
Where it goes in the cabinet
The usual answer is a compartment in the base, below the barrel rack, with its own lock. It keeps the weight low, it uses depth that would otherwise be wasted below the guns, and it means one piece of furniture rather than two.
On larger commissions we make a separate ammunition cabinet entirely, matched in timber and finish to the gun cabinet, which suits collections where the quantity of ammunition makes a drawer impractical.
Either way the compartment is steel-lined and locked to the same standard as the rest of the cabinet, and it is fixed to the structure of the building along with everything else.
Cartridges, chokes and everything else
Beyond what the certificate requires, a shooting household generates a remarkable quantity of things that need a home: cartridges by the slab, chokes, keys, cleaning kit, rods and solvents, ear defenders, spare parts, cases and slips.
Left unaddressed it all ends up in a boot room floor, which is how good guns get knocked about. Drawer banks solve it, and they are the part of a commission clients tell us afterwards they use most.
A Wellington chest is the classic form: a tall, narrow chest of shallow drawers, made in the same timber and finish as the cabinet. Shallow drawers suit cartridges and small kit far better than deep ones, because nothing gets buried.
Where a room is being fitted rather than furnished, the same storage is built into the run — drawers below the rack, a slide for a cleaning rod, and a leather-topped bench to work on.
Ammunition and cartridge storage
A compartment in the base
Its own lock and its own steel, below the barrel rack.
Wellington chest
Shallow drawers for cartridges, chokes, scopes and cleaning kit.
Drawers under the rack
Where the room doubles as a study, the drawer bank does both jobs.
One piece, not two
Guns above, ammunition below, in a single fixed cabinet.
Questions we are asked
Do I legally have to lock my cartridges away?
If you hold a shot gun certificate, no — the security condition covers the guns only. If you hold a firearm certificate, the condition covers the ammunition as well. Either way, locking cartridges away is sensible where there are children in the house.
Can the ammunition go in the same cabinet?
Yes, provided it is a genuinely separate lockable compartment with its own lock rather than a shelf behind the same door. That is how we build it: a steel-lined compartment in the base, locked independently.
How much cartridge storage do I need?
More than you think. Clients consistently underestimate it, and shallow drawers fill quickly through a season. We would rather draw in more drawer capacity at the outset than have you add a second piece two years later.
Can you match a Wellington chest to an existing cabinet?
Yes, including cabinets we did not make. Send photographs and, if you can, a note of the timber and finish. Matching an existing piece is ordinary work for us.
All gun cabinets
The overview: what we make, what it costs and how a commission runs.
The specification
Steel, anti-bandit glass, locks and fixings, in full.
What the rules actually say
No law requires a gun cabinet. What the Firearms Rules do require.
Send us your gun list
Send us your gun list and a photograph of the room, and we will come back with a drawing and a price. From £7,000 plus VAT, delivered and installed anywhere in the UK.
Start a commissionFurther reading: gun room security, and what the rules actually say. Responsibility for the security condition on your certificate rests with you as the certificate holder, and the adequacy of any storage arrangement is a matter for your local police firearms licensing department.