What Are The Best Work Boots Money Can Buy?
What Are The Best Work Boots Money Can Buy?
If you work on your feet all day, you know how valuable a quality pair of work boots really are.
Your feet are more comfortable as you put in the work. Your feet aren't screaming by the end of the day. Your ankles, knees, hips and lower back don't hurt as much. You don't have to buy a new pair every three to six months.
What are the best work boots money can buy?
That depends on who you ask. We think that we make some of the best work boots available. We don't mean to wave our own flag too much, but a lot of people out there think we do too.
So let's talk about what makes the best possible work boot.
The Best Work Boots Are Made For You, Not Luckily In Your Size
There's no way to get a pair of work boots that fit perfectly unless you get unbelievably lucky. You can get boots that fit, or even fit pretty well, but you can't get a perfect fit unless yours are made to order.
You're going to hear a few names mentioned by most people who really know boots as being the best you can get. What most of them have in common is that they offer totally custom boots as an option. The boots are made to fit your feet specifically.
That's important because your feet are unique. They're your feet, and there's no other pair of feet exactly like them. The arch of your feet is unique, the width of your forefoot is unique to you, and one of your feet might be smaller than the other.
To get that perfect fit and support (especially in the arch) a handmade made-to-order boot will have it. A factory pair...merely might.
If you're demanding the very best, you only get the best fit if your boots are made to order.
Better Boots Are Built Better
Large national brands have to cut corners somewhere to offer products at a price point that keeps them profitable since they deal in volume. They have to keep prices low enough for the buyer to not race for the back button.
Bootmakers that focus on quality first don't. They get the best leather for a working boot or heritage boot, and build them better, with better materials and more of them, to make a pair of boots that will last longer.
Want an indication of what kind of quality a boot company produces? Look at their factory services.
If they don't offer full rebuilds without any conditions attached (like what shape the upper is in) then they know your boots will need to be totally replaced at some point. And that's the point.
You'll notice things like midsoles with fiberboard and cork that lose support after a year or two. Soles that separate when glue melts or dries out. Fabric liners that come apart in a couple months of wearing them.
These kinds of details don't matter when a shoe company is trying to make a product that's acceptable but still comes in under a particular price point.
They aren't bad people because that's how they make boots or shoes, but it's not the best money can buy. It's the best or at least a good example of something you can buy for less than $XXX.XX.
The best boots money can buy will have features like bark-tanned leather footbeds, which don't compress over time. Outsoles that are glued and fastened to the midsole so they stay together.
Factory services to keep your boots in working order for life, from a resole to a complete rebuild if needs be.
The Best Leather Work Boots Money Can Buy?
There are some other bootmakers, a lonely few, that make boots the old way, as they should be. We are one of them. Wesco, White's, Frank's, and a few others around the country still make handmade boots to order.
There are some differences in how they do things and how we do things, but if you ask anyone what the best work boots you can buy are...chances are you're going to hear those names along with ours.
It's because we don't compromise, cut corners, or do anything other than make boots the way they're supposed to be made so you get the most comfortable, durable and supportive work boots that can be made by man.
And a lot of people put us at the top of that shortlist.
According to Rose Anvil, we make the ultimate work boot. And they've torn apart a lot of work boots to see what's inside, including some huge brands in the work boot space.
Wranglerstar, a popular YouTuber with a homesteading channel and former career wildland firefighter, rates our HotShots as the best firefighter boots available.
Talk to wildland firefighters and loggers and you'll hear our name get brought up a lot as either the best or consistently one of them.
Are our boots really the best money can buy?