Cutting Grooves in Boots

PatrickS916 · Post by **PatrickS916** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:20 am

I understand there are several heavily debated rules put in by the ISSF about shooting boots. The rounded off toes, the angle of bending of the sole and the material the sole is made of. I will be getting new boots soon, Corami to be specific and they may or may not pass the 22.5 degree bending of the sole rule. They will pass the material of the sole test and I will have the edges rounded off, but I have heard to guarantee that the boots will pass the EC, I should cut grooves in the soles of the boots. Has anyone had to do this? Also, if someone could give me advice on how to do it, I would be very appreciative. I would hate to have to miss out on a competition because my boots didnt pass EC.

Patrick

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:17 pm

New boots should pass fine so don't cut them. If they fail at EQ then you can do some modifications but they should pass even the new rules.

Rob.

jhmartin · Post by **jhmartin** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:00 pm

I recently ran EC at the USAS Winter Airgun match as well as the voluntazry check at the smallbore selection match.
USAS has an "official" boot flex tool.
We ran the flex tests on all the boots at WAG "for info only" and voluntary at the selection match.

Most new boots, straight out of the box will fail the flex test.

They need to be worn a bit and once the flex point is known and beginning to get worked in (remember you should not be "penguin walking") it seems that a good idea was to (with the boot off) place the toe on the ground and pushing on the heel to use your body weight to flex that point of the boot often.

Older boots, for the most part, seemed to have no problems and made us wonder why there was any issue at all in the first place.

SO ... just like your jacket/pants, don't bring them to EC right out of the box/package. Wear them a bit beforehand.
This is now especially important as the ECs before the event are voluntary ... if you shoot w/o checking them beforehand, you may get a real nasty surprise if you happen to get pulled off the line.

PatrickS916 · Post by **PatrickS916** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:42 pm

Thank you both, I will make sure they are broken in before my next ISSF match. I shoot at least 3 times a week plus some air rifle in the basement so I shouldn't have any trouble doing that.

Patrick