Outdoors

My Justin safety toe work boots got to be too hot and heavy for summer, especially with the heavier socks to pad the safety toe(why on earth the safetty toe edge can be felt as a hard 1/8″ step inside the boot is beyond me!! )

So I sprung for a pair of the 5″ Warthogs from Duluth Trading.
I have to be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed at first.

Felt cheap. Like, felt like $10 walmart shoes type cheap. Super light and stiff materials.

But I reminded myself that lighter build, and thinner material’s don’t automatically mean junk. The stitching itself looked good, and the leather does feel good, like real, nice leather.

Remembering that i wanted light and cool, I ignored first impression and wore them.

(Also reminded myself that my $10 Walmart shoes actually hold up really well to hard work wear, regardless of how cheap they feel!)

The insoles sucked. Super hard, less than 1/4″ thick, like stiff styrofoam, no cushion at all… not sure what is up in their thinking there. So I stuck in a set of aftermarket SoftSole(I think) thin memory foam instead.

Anyway, after 2 days in the boots, I loved them! They are light and easy to wear. There was like 1 day of break in on the leather, and 3 days to loosen the outsoles a little..

Super comfortable, they wear like an old favorite sneaker, but are durable like a boot.

Good traction. Only a little mud so far, but they grip it. Its a softer rubber not like concrete so I have high hopes for wet concrete/rocks/light ice this fall.
They are waterproof like advertised. In the rain, wet grass, puddles etc. Haven’t stood in more than 2″ of water for more than a couple minutes yet, but I’m sure they’d take it ok.

Going on about a month and a half now of all day every day wear. I spend a lot of time on my knees sitting on my feet, they’re flexible and don’t gouge me. They haven’t got a frey or tear, no noticeable wear from it.

Underfoot support is good. Could be better but they make up for it in flexibility. Lots of time crouching/squatting is hard on your feet, and these leave me with very little aching. The same as or better than the $250 Justins!

Side to side ankle support is almost nill at 5″ and soft leather… but I prefer the range of motion anyway.

At first I thought $60 was too much. Now I’m sure I’d pay the full $130 regular price for another pair. If they come back in stock, I will!

Like I said, they were on clearance. I took a couple weeks to make sure they’d work out, and missed getting a pair for when these wear out; the way I wear boots into the ground, and as durable as these are so far, a spare pair could mean a decade covered for summer boots…

Thinking about getting a pair of their slip on boots… styled like the popular Aussie boot, with the elastic only at the sides/top.

But I have a hard time laceing and tieing boots comfortably every day… The perfect tension is hard to get, and important to keep my feet from hurting a lot from the start… No control with elastic so I’m not sure about that yet.