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Thanks to doctorrich from lightfighter.net for giving us his feedback -
Just finished the GORUCK Challenge Class 247 in Manchester, New Hampshire. I did the Challenge wearing a set of Sand Storm Light Fighter boots. I was the only challenger wearing military footwear, the others were wearing a combination of track shoes or trail runners.
The Light Fighters are LIGHT. I wore them to one drill weekend prior to the GRC so I could break them in. Initially, the area around the balls of my feet immediately in front of the arch was tight and uncomfortable. After some adjustment and walking around for about 30 minutes, the material seemed to loosen up and was no longer uncomfortable.
As I stated earlier, I was the only Challenger wearing military footwear. The Light Fighters are very lightweight but less nimble than running shoes, which is to be expected. However, they were not uncomfortable doing bear crawls and running up multiple levels of a parking garage over and over. I recently blew out an ankle on an O-course 2 months earlier... the added support of the ankle padding on the Light Fighters was a welcome addition and better than I could have expected if I had worn running shoes.
For the 10+ miles of the GORUCK Challenge, I didn't roll my ankle once. The ankle support was excellent. In addition, I wore a set of Vermont Darn Tough wool socks with these boots and spent the entire Challenge wet from multiple trips into rivers and lakes. At the end of the Challenge, I didn't have a single blister. No shit.
The soles of the boots showed absolutely no wear or separation from the uppers, even with extremely tough use while soaked. The only noticeable wear was at the toes with a single popped stitch on the toe and horizontal abrasion noted to the "epidermis" of the leather. This was from doing push ups in the Merrimack River with my toes balanced on sharp river rocks. For comparison, I weigh 180 pounds and this evolution was performed at least 4 times over a 9 hour period in the river.
The drain holes are were freaking awesome. Whenever we would leave Duck Shit Island and cross through the river to begin carrying our picnic table or log ("what rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs, runs over your neighbor's dog? It's Log-Log-Log!"), the water squished out of my wool socks, out through the arch drain holes, and the boots didn't fill up or retain any appreciable water immediately after hitting the road.
In summary-
The Sand Storm Light Fighters are light with excellent water drainage. They are so light that they can easily be used as trail runners.
They showed only mild wear after a grueling 9 hour ruck event and multiple tests while completely soaked.
There were no rub spots on my feet and I didn't have any foot injuries while wearing them.
Log. It's better than bad, it's good.
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