Sneakers aren’t going to cut it so don’t try
Another recent event at a local Carbine training event gave me another perspective on seeing novice weekend warriors show up at a class for the first time. Besides the usual guys that have gear fall off, magazines fly all over the place, guns break, scopes come loose, pants tear. I saw a guy try and shoot a course in a pair of sneakers. I know that sometimes people think that being able to move fast is important, and it is, but not having good foot support is really bad. Unless you have no intentions of having to run around very fast, sneakers are good for you, but i’ve seen so many twisted ankles and stumbling that I would never take a class with anything but boots. I have a couple old steel toe relics in my closet, I haven’t used them very much, but they are so hardly worn that I can’t thrown them away.
The tactical footwear that I have the most experience with to date is the Original Swat footwear. I’m not going to boast that they are the best boots out there, but they were well within my price range and I have not been disappointed by them yet. I am presently wearing 3 kinds of Original Swat boots and I still hate it when I have situations where I can not wear them. Considering how much weight I am sometimes asked to carry around, I really don’t feel the stress on my feets since I’ve been wearing the Original Swat Air 9″ 1232 boots. After about 8 months of wearing them I did feel the support begin to wear out, but that’s 8 hard months of work for less than $100. I could have saved money on some medical bills if i would have been wearing these years before.