I have 2 guitars, 1 u-bass, 1 34" 4-string P, and 1 35" 5-string all on "off the wall" hangers. They've been up for years. Those hangers take 3 screws in a triangle pattern footprint. I used one of those stud locators that beeps to find where to locate the screws. Wall studs are supposed to be 16" apart, so once you find one of the wall studs, you can use a tape measure from there, or use a tape measure and stud located together. On all of my hangers, the width of the wide part of the triangle pattern was too wide to catch the wall stud. Only one side was able to be screwed into the wood. The other side was in sheetrock, so basically this:At a minimum, drywall anchors should support 25 lbs each. If installed properly, two should support
It's maybe a little hard to see, but I tried to color the screw locations in green that were able to "catch" a wall stud and be screwed into wood. The red screw location couldn't catch a stud because wall studs just aren't that wide. I used one of these where I indicated red on all 5 of my wall hangers:
It doesn't matter whether you use the anchor on the right or the left screw location, just be sure to put the other two in wood. I've had my hangers up for a few years now and they are not loose/going anywhere until I take them down.
Alternatively, you can do this:
That's not my stuff, just a random image I found on the interwebs. Basically all you do is get a board long enough that there's enough space for all your hangers/instruments. Make sure it's at least as wide as your hanger is tall. Don't get your hangers too close together otherwise you'll bump them into one another every time you put up/take down a bass.
Sort of the same story here; if you go this route, make sure you secure your long board with proper sheet-rock or whatever kind of screws you need for the kind of wall you have. Secure the long board with as many screws as makes you comfortable in every stud location you can reach. I had this arrangement before we moved. I did accidentally get my basses a little close to one another. live and learn... On one of the ends, my long board was a little warped, so rather than leaving up a board that had a 1/4" gap between the wall and that board, I just secured it flush using one of those dry wall anchor screws in the second pic. At any rate, once that board is up, you can enjoy knowing that all 3 of your guitar hanger screws are in wood and those baby's aren't going anywhere.