Video Transcript
So shoes are a pretty weird thing to do product videos on because shoes themselves are a very personal experience. Everyone has a different opinion around or different preferences on what kind of shoes they like to wear or when they like to wear certain kinds of shoes. But Salomon is a brand that has been in the firearms industry for quite a while. This is the Speedcross shoe which I'm sure many of you all have seen if you shoot competitions, 3-gun, sniper matches or you're just going to ranges and you're kind of seeing what people are wearing. The Speedcross shoe is a shoe that's been extremely popular in the industry really ever since it came out.
I've been wearing the Speedcross since the Speedcross 3. We're all the way up to this is the Speedcross 6 Forces model and there's a couple things about this shoe that I particularly like. So this is a brand new one in their sort of Ranger green, green color. This shoe has a extremely aggressive tread. It's kind of like it's not quite cleats but sort of kind of is. That allows you to just move much more deliberately without slipping on certain terrain like gravel compared to some types of shoes. And it has a very pointy toe. So the reason I like a shoe like this is for doing, you know, maybe I'm shooting like USPSA style stages or something and I'm pivoting off of the front of my foot to move in and out of the shoe.
So I'm going to move in and out of the shoe the front of my foot to move in and out of positions quickly. I like having a shoe that has a pointy toe that I can drive into positions, especially if I have like a fault line or something much more deliberately. And that's also why I believe a lot of people in USPSA really like this shoe is the form factor. Now a couple things on the tread themselves. If you decide to wear these every day and they are a comfortable shoe but you wear them every day. You're going into town, you're walking on concrete and sidewalks and stuff. You are going to eat through the tread of your shoes very quickly. I'm talking a few months. So this is a shoe that I actually use in a more sort of specialized way where I will have a pair of them in my car or for certain kinds of matches. This is my pair right here.
And if it's super rainy or something you know because these are Gore-Tex, I will opt to wear these shoes for certain types of terrain and in the rain compared to some of my other shoes that aren't Gore-Tex or don't have these aggressive cleats. So recently at the Sniper Match that I shot earlier this year I decided to wear these once I got out to the range. I saw what I was dealing with. I was like you know what, I'm going to wear these guys because it's rainy. I also need a little bit more grip as I'm going up and down the hills with the weight that I'm wearing. And so I wore these and my feet were dry and I was able to move around nice and quickly. But I haven't really worn these since. These have kind of hung out in my car and I wear a different pair of Salomon.
My sort of my everyday Salomon because I don't want to wear out the cleats and the treads on the bottom of these shoes unnecessarily wearing them through our facility and just wearing them around town. So I do view this shoe as kind of more of a specialized kind of shoe. Obviously there's lots of people that wear these every day everywhere. Lots of employees and people here wear this shoe just as an everyday shoe. I've worn through probably four or five pairs of these doing that and so now I treat it as a more specialized shoe for shooting. If it's rainy, stuff like that and they just kind of hang out in the car. Now a couple things about the Forces line that I think a lot of people maybe don't know. So it's a much more muted color tone compared to some of the other Salomon out there.
It is not fully IR reducing like you might expect from say a plate carrier. When you look at these through night vision, certain materials particularly this sort of soft material right here is a little bit brighter sort of like a medium gray. It's not like super reflective. But it's not going to be super muted like everything else on the shoe. So you are going to have these little areas right here that are going to be contrasted a little bit against the rest of the shoe. And I've tested a few of the other Forces shoes and they all generally have one of the materials on the shoe that's going to be contrasted a little bit differently than everything else that's a little bit more muted. Now it's not as bad or as reflective as the standard civilian Salomon shoes that generally have these little reflective bits on the inside here that will obviously catch light and flashlights and whatnot and are probably not something that you want to wear for a tactical application. So, and these are the ones I wear every day because I don't have cleats that I'm trying to wear out. So that's the Speedcross 6. It's a great shoe. Especially if you're looking for something like this.
They come in a GORE-TEX waterproof version and there's also of course the GORE-TEX non-waterproof versions. There's a couple of colors to choose from. But again shoes are an extremely personal kind of product. You may wear them for a bit, decide this isn't your style and then move on to another shoe. But there is a reason that a lot of people in the shooting community wear these. Especially for running and gunning and really fast movements. And I've also seen guys rock quite a bit of weight with these. I mean I've rucked 60 pounds, not a whole lot with these and my ankles have been fine. I haven't needed anything much larger than that. Although I'm also not wearing this stuff for weeks on end. So if you have any other questions about the Salomon Forces line, go ahead and email us at [email protected].