Apexstone 80N/18lb 7 Inch Gas Strut 80N Gas Strut 7 Inch Gas Strut Cabinet 80N Gas Spring Gas Shocks Lift Supports Lid Stay, Set of 2

The door on my Sentry handgun safe stopped popping open after several years and I had to slip a small screwdriver in to get it open once I activated the unlock. Good YouTube videos on how to replace it with this gas strut. It was super easy - didn't actually have to use the wrench / socket as once you unscrew the lower end you can simply unscrew the old strut from the end mount and replace it with the new one (once you unscrew the ends of the new strut). Then screw on the lower end from the old strut, screw it on the new strut and put the screw back in the lower end in the safe. Make sure to transfer the spring from the old one to the new one as well. Took less than 5 minutes. True, the new strut doesn't open as far as the old one did, probably 60/70 degrees instead of 90 degrees, but open enough that there will be no problem retrieving a pistol in an emergency situation.

Gas springs are neat devices that can help doors or lids open with minimum effort and maximum safety. I bought a pair of springs to hold open the doors of two small cabinets (one spring per cabinet) that are installed horizontally in the soffit area above existing wall cabinets in the laundry room. The installation instructions that came with the spring are not very useful or complete.The doors and the cabinets are about 9-in high, so I chose the Apexstone 80N/18lb 7-in long springs for the application so that the spring physically fits within the cabinet. The small lower end of the piston of the spring is pinned to the wall of the cabinet near the bottom front and the cabinet and the upper larger cylinder end attaches to door near the hinge. It took a bit of trial-and-error to get the proper location of the upper pin on the door. In the hope of saving others some grief, let me outline the logic and the process I used for finalizing the critical location of this door pin:1. The spring (cylinder) is installed when the door is open (hinged horizontally at the top of the cabinet in my case) and the spring is fully extended and holds the door open horizontal at about 90 Deg.2. When the door is closed by pushing it down and rotating it, the weigh of the door and the hand force compress the gas spring and gently close the door in a vertical position.3. In the closed position the door is kept closed due to the action (moment) of its weight which is stronger than the spring action (moment) around the hinge. The spring has very little resistance in this position.4. The key objective in selecting a proper position of the door pin is to balance the action (moment) of the spring with the action (moment) of the weight around the door hinge. It is like balancing two riders around the pivot of a teeter-tooter swing. One rider represents the weight of the door and the other simulates the spring force. The pivot is like the door hinge. The two actions would be in balance when the products of the weight (force) times the distance of each rider from the pivot are exactly equal.5. Applying this balance requirement to my situation, the product of the weight of the door (Wd) times 1/2 of its height (Hd) or the distance to the hinge should balance or be equal to the product of the spring force (Fs) when fully extended times the critical distance (Sd) of the upper spring end from the hinge. This means the product Wd X (Hd/2) must equal the product Fs X Sd. If three of these quantities are known, one can solve for the fourth. That is exactly the case in my situation: the manufacturer lists the spring force Fs as 18lb, one 1/2 of the door height (Hd/2) is 4.50-in, and the weight of the door Wd is 4 lb. So knowing the three quantities I can determine the fourth, the critical distance Sd required for balancing the spring and the door actions. The distance Sd is Wd X (Hd/2)/Fs. Computing Sd = 4 lb X 4.5 /18 lb = 1 in.6. So the spring pin should be located on the door (the critical distance Sd) about 1 inch from the hinge.7. I pinned the piston (bottom) end of the spring inside the cabinet at the lower right front corner and attached the upper cylinder end on the door at about 1-in from the hinge. The bracket that accepts this upper end of the spring has long slots for adjusting the critical distance.8. It turns out, I had to increase the critical distance to about 1.25 in to allow for the damper action in the cabinet hinges.9. I hope the attached pictures will help clarify the verbiage of this long-winded write-up.10. One last comment: to separate the cylinder spring from its pivots, you need to insert a little screwdriver below the chrome split ring in one of the two locations provided while pulling out to pop the socket out from ball joint at either pivot.The springs work great, almost magically. They prevent the door from closing inadvertently on the fingers. Amazon fulfillment is always top notch. Little tricky to install, but you will be greatly rewarded if you are patient and do not give up.

took only about 8 mins to replace with a socket wrench and Phillips screwdriver. keep the upper and lower attachments from old gas strut, to use with the new strut.

Like others here, I used one of these struts to replace the failed piece in my Sentry pistol safe.This was "mostly" a drop-in replacement, but there are a few things that should be noted.- As others have said, the safe does not open as much as the original. IMO, this is not a super big deal especially given the cost.- The original strut has two mounting points -- one to the base of the safe, and the other to the lid. The connection point at the lid with the replacement strut fits identical to the original, but the one at the base does not. The original strut, on one end, has a hole that a screw threads through, to two posts on the base of the safe itself. The replacement does not, so it just sort of pivots on one of the posts. I really don't see this being an issue, even with daily use.- I had to remove one screw from the safe itself, on the left side of the base, as the head of the strut that attaches to the lid was hitting it when closing the lid. It does not seem to have made any impact on the integrity of the safe.All in all, for the price.. I'm mostly impressed. I've heard that an actual replacement strut is on intergalactic backorder from SentrySafe, so for now, this may be your only option. And heck, you end up with a second one to keep around just in case.......