 How you going? This is a field. This is a boot. Put them together and you get Grant Stone's Field Boot in Badalasi Carlos Veg Tand Saddle Tand Makeup. Keep watching and I'll tell you what they've been through in the last three months. G'day and welcome to Bootlossophy. If we haven't met, my name is Tech and I'm in Perth in Western Australia. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands I live and work on, the Wajik people of the Nungar Nation. Today I'm going to take a look at how these field boots by Grant Stone have held up in the three months that I've had them. But first a reminder about Grant Stone. If you're new to the quality heritage style boot world, you may not have heard of Grant Stone. For those of you who have, bear with me, Grant Stone is based in the U.S. Great Lake State of Michigan in a town called Baroda. Okay, I worked in Chicago for a year in the 1990s but I admit I'm terrible at American geography. I only knew that Michigan was somewhere to our right somewhere and I have no idea where Baroda is or how big it is. Anyway, their headquarters and warehouse is in Baroda, Michigan but their manufacturing is contracted to a family-owned factory in Xiamen, China. Now I've been to Xiamen, it was probably 10 years ago now, maybe even more I think and it's on an island that even then was a booming resort island. For Aussies it's like the Gold Coast and for Americans it's like Las Vegas. For the Brits, think Blackpool before 1980 and then amped up by 100. Because they're made in China, people often question either the politics or the quality. I'm not a fan of authoritarianism anyway but I understand the factory is privately family owned if that makes a difference to you. As for quality, well since Grant Stone started in 2016 there's been a lot of discussion about their quality and I think the argument is clearly settled today. Grant Stone boots are objectively the most well-made boots you can get for their price and clearly operate a strict specification and inspection system as with any good manufacturer. In some interviews with the founders, Wyatt Gilmore and Josh Lang, they don't specifically say it but they talk of discussions over imperfections that indicate they also have whether formally or informally a productive continuous improvement process. If you want to see more talk about their quality standards, go check out my earlier video about their diesel boot in the same saddle tan leather up there. This is their field boot model. It's based on what I think I can call an American hunting boot style. Maybe not the LL bean rubber bottom style but more of the type made by say Russell moccasin. Let me be clear though, that is the style. These are not real moccasins where the bottom piece is one piece of leather wrapped under the feet and then sewn onto the top vamp piece with this classic moccasin stitch. That needs some unpacking. First, moccasins are the footwear originally made by Native Americans where one piece of leather wraps under your foot and is then sewn onto the vamp piece with the famous moccasin stitch around the top of the vamp. There are many mock moccasin boots. The Red Wing classic moccasin, all of these have that stitch and some are really sewing two pieces of leather together. Others merely mimic the stitch to raise the leather there into a roll and yet others like the Olden Indy are clearly just a cosmetic stitch without even raising or puckering the leather around the apron. Grant Stone themselves do a moccasin in their brass boot and you can see my review of one up here. I believe that only Rancourt and Russell Moccasin are the only ones today who still use genuine moccasin construction. Now I'm sure I'm going to get comments below telling me I'm wrong. And I have been told but I cannot verify that the Timberland boat shoe is actually a hand stitched moccasin construction. So there are even more comments. Anyway, genuine moccasin constructed boots have the single piece of leather wrapping under the foot and sewn on to the apron piece but then a more hardy outsole is attached and sewn to the bottom. These feel boots have the look of that classic moccasin construction with the other panels around the bumper but these are actually constructed using the Goodyear welt form of construction. See my video about the details of Goodyear welt construction up there. The 360 degree Goodyear welt attaches to the uppers and insole on the inside of the boot and attaches to the midsole on the outside. Then the rubber wage sole is glued to the midsole. Inside is a cork filler and a steel shank. Even though I'm never sure why wage sole boots need shanks, somebody will tell me. The uppers are tough veg tanned leather from Badalassi Carlo in Italy. They are known for their traditional tanning methods, rotating hides in a vat or botali in a liquor made from tree barks. This is their premium grade full grain leather that while having the firm feel of veg tanned leather still has a pretty supple feel to it. When new it has a bright orangey colour but as it gets wet and patinas with use develops into this deep caramel tan. This pair was oiled with liquid mink oil before I went on my vacation because I knew that they would be subject to wet muddy conditions and they did darken the shade because of that. Under normal conditions with a conditioner like Venetian shoe cream or Big 4, this shade won't start appearing until at least a year as happened on my diesel boots in this leather. I don't mind it, I prefer the slightly muted effect of the oil and water on it. The design is a mockto, hence the stitching around the apron. It looks like actually two pieces of leather sewn together. You can see the top vat piece being hand stitched over the sidewall showing the flap that's stitched down. The quarters are sewn on top of a boat shaped piece of leather, so that's the quarters. The boat shaped piece of leather goes around the boot adding to the real but not quite real moccasin construction. There's a piece of the leather bumper across the toe but it isn't a real toe bumper either I don't think. It's sewn onto the side piece rather than on top of it as a second piece of leather rather like a false toe cap. There is a single piece backstay with a pocket stitch further adding to the look of a hand stitched moccasin style. Inside the heel is a veg tan leather heel counter which in this case feels really stiff and supportive. The quarters provide a 7 inch shaft, 8 if you measure from the bottom of the heel. At the top of the shaft is a padded collar made from suede. The padding is very light, not like the padding at the top of a timberland classic yellow boot. It's not bad in use, it does reduce the rubbing on the back of your leg if the shaft was all firm veg tan leather. What it doesn't do though, unlike the tins, is to provide a waterproof seal if you cinch the lace up tight. The skinny laces provided go through brass eyelets and two D-rings at the top, noisy. The laces are skinny and difficult to cinch up because they slip backwards against the hardware as you tighten them and before you tie them. They are a bit of a pain to lace up because of that and because of the floppy D-rings. I have tried putting leather laces through but they don't look right somehow like the balance is off. I haven't tried thicker paracord laces and that might work better cosmetically. I took possession of these, ripping them out of the hands of the postie last May so it's been a little over three months. In the short number of times I've worn them, I have worn them reasonably hard. I first wore them every day for a week and then every second day for another week in order to break them in. That's my usual breaking schedule. That was in an entirely urban situation wearing them to go to work in my office and to go to the shops and around the parks near my home. Wearing them in was really no problem aside from the usual extra flexing required for wage sole boots. Apart from the centimetre thick wedge at the flex point the welt is about three or four millimetres thick and the veg tanned midsole is also about four millimetres thick so getting them to flex where my feet flex was as always something you need to work on when breaking in wage sole boots. Then I spent a period of about a month wearing them at least three or four times a week but not always for a full day. I'd wear them when I worked in my yard or to go for long walks in different terrain from around the suburb to a journey through Kings Park which is a bush reserve nearby or through some of the walks available near me that had rocky, sandy and limestone gravel paths. The boots went through all that quite well. They were a little uncomfortable as work boots digging holes in the garden or kneeling on the roof cleaning gutters because they were stiff and difficult to kneel but I might put that to not being totally broken in in that respect. Initially taking them for long walks was also uncomfortable because I really felt the stiffness in the leather and cork and sole combination under my feet but after a few good walks of a good duration it seemed to settle down. In my usual half down from true size eight these in the Floyd last are roomy and I think I could have got away with another half sized down and maybe going up a width. The extra volume added to the discomfort on long walks but after adding a thin foam in sole it was fine. Then I spent another month breaking in other new boots but I did always pull these out when my wife and I went for our Sunday hikes through the National Forest south of Perth so add to the experience another four or five days of six to seven hour walks in dry but rocky forest trails. Finally I took them on a vacation to our southern forests in our south west in the wet winter we had this year. They were used most days out of the ten days as daily wear whenever we went to the nearest town or well into wineries but I also used them extensively on four day long hikes we took through the parts of the Bibermond track that's a long forest and coast of track through that part of the world. On those hikes they went through really wet forest trails in the rain and got totally wet and soaked on most days and my report is they did not let a drop of water in alright I didn't swim across a brook but two inch deep water courses were not a problem and I had to jump splash across a sudden stream of water caused by the heavy rain and nothing got through. Yes hiking boots big tick QC after three months use like that also big tick nothing came loose nothing split no loose threads even or stitching I suppose I should tell you now about conditioning I did not condition these when I first got them but after planning our vacation I oiled them with liquid mink oil just before we left yeah I know of course that would darken the leather but I was more concerned of the waterproofing that they would need they darkened but I don't mind as you can see I I call them mellowed rather than darkened after the deluge I just wipe them clean with a damp rag brush the remaining dirt off when dry and then gave them a coat of Venetian shoe cream when I got home the VSC got absorbed pretty quickly so I guess they needed it after the moisture a second coat was applied immediately and then brushed off with a good quality horsehair brush now if I A did mine getting them darkened and B did not intend to use these as proper field boots I would have just start with VSC from the very beginning okay so to summarize good boots good quality out of the box good quality under more pressure than many of my boots the outsoles have worn well except for the grandstone embossed leather patch under the instep that's been scratched and really looks ugly not sure why they bothered to put it there good comfort during and after breaking wage soles are comfy but two cons with these firstly they can be slippery in muddy clay I don't think the corrugated pattern is deep enough or perhaps being all in one direction maybe that could have made them slippery second if you get mud in the troughs of the corrugations wiping them to come indoors is not a quick task wiping your feet on the door mat in the usual way are you dragging your feet backwards does not work and you kind of have to do a kind of shimmy to drag your feet sideways in line with the ridges that sounds silly I know until your wife notices the muck that you're bringing into the house and it's no longer silly as a work boot the thorough good wage sole and red wings traction tread are really good to remove dirt as you walk in and out of a construction site these would not be that good for that as for long-term value well it's only been three months but I am confident in these so I think they stand up well already a good price for such a well-constructed boot with battle lassie leather at 380 us when competitors might well sell these for a hundred more they're clearly going to last a long game making cost-aware economical and that's it these are making their way up there in the list of boots that I most grab when I'm going outdoors hey I hope you like this quick look at the field boots if you did please click on the like button I'm gradually moving up to 9,000 subscribers so if you're not subscribed I'd really appreciate it if you helped me out by clicking on subscribe below as well and in between video uploads if you want to catch up on boots you can check out my website bootlosophy.com until next time take care and see you then