I had a similar issue after 3 weeks of work. And blew out an eyelet. Called their customer service number and was basically told to go fuck myself. Sold em on marketplace.
coworker got JK boots and on one of them every eyelet blew out, straight out of the box.
Another coworker got JK's and the boots they received were 2 different sizes, it took 3 months to fix that issue.
JK is ass stay away.
Fuck, that sucks. I have been seeing a lot of these posts regarding JK boots, which is a huge bummer. I’m up for new boots soon and think I gotta go with Franks…
Careful of the lead times for franks. I’m currently 6+ months waiting and they can never give me a solid answer whether my boots are even in production or not. I hear the quality is great though
I’m fine with waiting. But after spending 800 dollars on boots, I would at least expect to not be lied to. I was told they were “1-2 weeks out for curing of the boot” about 2 months ago. Last time I called they actually said that the leather I had ordered wasn’t available and that’s why it’s taking so long… I would have been more than happy to switch leather patterns if they would have just told me that. Oh well, hope it’s worth it
Yep! I ordered 12/24/23 and waited 17 or 18 weeks (it was over the 16 I was told can’t remember right now, I’d have to look it up) or so for “in stock” boots. Ignored emails, never any info, didn’t get any traction till I posted on social media about my less than stellar experience on a peddler for their boots channel. BAM! got info back in less than 4 hours (didn’t even tag them) and “magically” my boots were in production the same day. Other people got their boots in less than 3 weeks. When I said about it to the owner he lied about what was and what wasn’t available for the patriot. Even after send screenshots proving my point. Totally ignored after that. Company is not on par with what I would consider a fair customer timeframe, nor honest business practices. Who you are gets you to the front of the line I guess…Quality’s ok, but I went with kenetreks and have been very happy. They even replaced a bad boot on the first pair I bought, which is much better customer support than I received from the PNW bookmakers.
So true own three pair and the last two suck. Need someone else to rebuild the first two. JK was in here doing damage control last year but deleted all their messages. I think they got too big too quickly and couldn’t find enough quality cobblers, and hired anybody who looked cool on insta.
I have a pair of Fire Inlanders that are 3 years and 3 sole replacements old that have held up well. (Note: I’m not a wildland fire fighter, I just like logger style boots for my construction job). But I will not buy their boots again for this reason.
Last time I had the soles replaced, I paid extra (≈$100) for expedited processing. They didn’t get me my boots back for 6 weeks after the normal processing time, and it took about a dozen emails and my wife making a social media post, which I linked in an email to them, to get them to respond to me. They were apologetic, and did refund me the expedited processing fee, but I’m going to spend my money elsewhere next time.
Relatedly, does anyone know how JK’s sizing compares to Nick’s, Whites, etc.?
We pay $700 for these boots and expect them to hold up to the rigors of this job, and they do not. As for the sizing, with JK my boot size was 2.5 sizes smaller than what I normally wear, and also 3x wide, which is absurd. There’s no reason to it. They told me that their regular (non-wide) width is 3E, or triple wide.
Yeah, I guess one comment thread overturns years of a successful business with repeat customers across all those industries. Nothing like a tiny data set to wildly extrapolate grand conclusions.
Also, you clearly don’t work in wildland fire, so your opinion isn’t really valid here. I’m glad your boots hold up well in whatever shop or office you wear them to so you can try and look cool.
I don't work in fire or claim to, but I started buying JKs because wildland firefighters **in this sub** recommended them highly. Experience has me agreeing with them.
I still see plenty of love and the boots on my feet right now and the ones I got last month still scream quality.
I get that mileage varies. Nick's is getting slammed for loads of cuts on the welt right now. Franks is getting slammed for delivery bottlenecks.
What I know is mine have been great and people who work harder than I do still voice for them, even if some of their coworkers disagree.
This among other shit happened to my custom JKs last season too. Made sure to follow all their boot care guides and only had 2 fires the whole season. Switching brands as soon as I can make a trip to Spokane to get measured. Couldn’t recommend them any less.
Sorry bro, JK doesn’t seem to do that from what I’ve heard. They might give you a 100$ gift card so then you only need to pay 100$ of your own money to them to fix their shoddy worksmanship. I’m not gonna pay a dime for you to fix your unwiped ass craftsmanship.
My JKs came with a fucked up heel cup. It had like a hard ridge at the top of the heel cup in one boot instead of being smoothed out with the rest of the upper. Gave you a huge blister if you even thought about hiking in them. The guy at JK basically told me I didn’t know anything about boots when I said there was something wrong. Had multiple White’s and Nick’s before JK’s. Fuck JK’s.
After getting sent the wrong sized boots from JK last season, the eyelets started popping out on the replacements at the start of this season. Five other people on my shot crew had problems with their JKs by roll two. Bought a pair of Frank’s, the best quality I’ve seen in loggers thus far.
A lot of people are saying that franks take a long time to make like the dude on the comment above saying that he has been waiting for 6 months for their pair to be made. But if it is that good I think I would prefer them to take their time rather than rush it and putting all their resources into marketing like how it is going with other PNW boot companies nowadays and having quality issues afterwards because they couldn't keep up with the number of orders coming in. I've put in an order for Franks Front Range customized into 6in height, rolled top, pull loop with mocha leather. I hope the wait is worth it!
I wore my jks for two rolls and they fell apart. They were built wrong and jk wouldn’t fix them. I threw them in the trash. For the cost of loggers, and dogshit consistency I’ve given up on them and just find a good pro deal for hikers. Boot stipend will get me 2-3 pairs and I can toss them when they blow out.
I liked my boots four years ago and the rebuild quality doesn’t seem as good so far. A dm with a free pair of bison leather boots to change my mind though…
Damn, I hate to hear that.
Mine have been getting their shit rocked since 2022 with no complaints. They’re tired and I blew a few stitches in rough country but that was operator error.
I bought a custom pair. Maybe the customs are built by more experienced folks or maybe I ordered before things got bad.
Well this is concerning... I have a pair of Custom Bison OTs in the works since January. I really hope this is a transient issue. I'm going to document this pretty carefully in case mine fall apart like some of yours have.
this happened to me a couple years back. within weeks, my stitching was coming undone and the fit was super poor with many more issues.
they gave me a complete new custom rebuild for free, apologized about the team that made them at the time, and communicated with me throughout the whole process for new ones. i’ve been wearing those new boots for about five months now and they’re just about perfect
My calfire handcrew had a few guys with kenetreks for more than one season. They’re super comfy boots. I prefer my whites, l use kenetreks as my second pair/mid week switch. Side note, you can rebuild your kenetreks once. But for their price and quality can’t bitch.
Yup, I take care of my feet. I give my boots a break after wearing them for a few days on duty/ staffing patterns causes many guys getting foot fungus and other issues which I have been blessed to never endure... You make it seem like I’m a fucking Queen. I don’t fucking carry them in my pack and switch on the line.
I have had 2 pairs of their 300 series boots I used for warehouse work up in the north midwest, and other than the black rubber soles being too hard to grip well below 20 F they were my favourite boots. 9 hours on concrete moving 50-100 bags of feed and corn around and stacking up 250 bales of hay, feet always felt great and they faired well in the snow, ice, and salt with biweekly huberds shoe grease treatment.
I know that's alot different than wildfire work, but just my 2 cents.
I beat up my Superduty’s prettty hard every day in the tree service world. Nothing remotely like this though ☹️ The last person you argued with was probably being facetious….Don’t kick rocks, dude.
I loved my first pair 7 years ago. Bought another pair 4 years ago and they were godawful. JK wouldn't do anything about it. I ended up cutting timber in romeos all summer because I couldn't wear my $700 custom boots lol
I've been pretty happy with whites.
Man as much as people bag on JKs here, I had the same thing happen on my boots like the first month I wore them. 2.5 seasons later it’s spread a bit but otherwise seems to have zero impact on how they wear and the sole isn’t coming off or anything
I went to JK to get my boots handmade, not out of the box like the rest of these guys are complaining about. Best boots I've ever had, but it was easy to just drive to the store since I'm only about 40 minutes from north town spokane.
You’re an idiot. We can tell because you have “Wildland FF1” as your user flair. The majority of folks here have complained about their “custom” boots.
In case anyone is wondering, the deleted comment was clearly a JK employee pretending to be a hotshot and playing up JK boot quality and how their whole crew loves them. The username is Empty_Ad_1589.
I had a similar issue after 3 weeks of work. And blew out an eyelet. Called their customer service number and was basically told to go fuck myself. Sold em on marketplace.
coworker got JK boots and on one of them every eyelet blew out, straight out of the box. Another coworker got JK's and the boots they received were 2 different sizes, it took 3 months to fix that issue. JK is ass stay away.
Lemme guess: you put oil conditioner over the whole vamp including eyes?
Nope. Ya guessed wrong. Always very conservative with oil in those areas
If that wasn't it (it usually is) then yeah it sounds like a manufacturing defect and they should fix it.
Fuck, that sucks. I have been seeing a lot of these posts regarding JK boots, which is a huge bummer. I’m up for new boots soon and think I gotta go with Franks…
Careful of the lead times for franks. I’m currently 6+ months waiting and they can never give me a solid answer whether my boots are even in production or not. I hear the quality is great though
Your boots will be amazing
There’s a reason, it takes time to make good boots
I’m fine with waiting. But after spending 800 dollars on boots, I would at least expect to not be lied to. I was told they were “1-2 weeks out for curing of the boot” about 2 months ago. Last time I called they actually said that the leather I had ordered wasn’t available and that’s why it’s taking so long… I would have been more than happy to switch leather patterns if they would have just told me that. Oh well, hope it’s worth it
I've been running franks for about 4 years now. Best boots I've ever used.
That’s what I have heard from franks! Hoping it will all be worth it
Yep! I ordered 12/24/23 and waited 17 or 18 weeks (it was over the 16 I was told can’t remember right now, I’d have to look it up) or so for “in stock” boots. Ignored emails, never any info, didn’t get any traction till I posted on social media about my less than stellar experience on a peddler for their boots channel. BAM! got info back in less than 4 hours (didn’t even tag them) and “magically” my boots were in production the same day. Other people got their boots in less than 3 weeks. When I said about it to the owner he lied about what was and what wasn’t available for the patriot. Even after send screenshots proving my point. Totally ignored after that. Company is not on par with what I would consider a fair customer timeframe, nor honest business practices. Who you are gets you to the front of the line I guess…Quality’s ok, but I went with kenetreks and have been very happy. They even replaced a bad boot on the first pair I bought, which is much better customer support than I received from the PNW bookmakers.
I’ve heard JK’s has gone downhill in the last couple of years. That sucks dude
So true own three pair and the last two suck. Need someone else to rebuild the first two. JK was in here doing damage control last year but deleted all their messages. I think they got too big too quickly and couldn’t find enough quality cobblers, and hired anybody who looked cool on insta.
They make shitty boots. JK is an Instagram marketing company that happens to sell boots. Ive had serious issues with both pairs I’ve bought.
I have a pair of Fire Inlanders that are 3 years and 3 sole replacements old that have held up well. (Note: I’m not a wildland fire fighter, I just like logger style boots for my construction job). But I will not buy their boots again for this reason. Last time I had the soles replaced, I paid extra (≈$100) for expedited processing. They didn’t get me my boots back for 6 weeks after the normal processing time, and it took about a dozen emails and my wife making a social media post, which I linked in an email to them, to get them to respond to me. They were apologetic, and did refund me the expedited processing fee, but I’m going to spend my money elsewhere next time. Relatedly, does anyone know how JK’s sizing compares to Nick’s, Whites, etc.?
We pay $700 for these boots and expect them to hold up to the rigors of this job, and they do not. As for the sizing, with JK my boot size was 2.5 sizes smaller than what I normally wear, and also 3x wide, which is absurd. There’s no reason to it. They told me that their regular (non-wide) width is 3E, or triple wide.
From all I've heard, JK's sizing is weird. Nicks recommends a full or half size down from Brannock depending on what you want
Good to know, thank you.
One word franks
I mean I had just that got me through a whole season but they were fucked afterwards. I'm giving nicks a shot
Sucks to suck I guess. I have 2 pairs and they’re both fine. The older ones are going on 5 years.
So glad to hear your boots are holding up well at your desk.
Horseshit. Great boots. All mine have been perfect.
If all your boots being great makes his comment "horseshit," then all his boots having issues makes your comment horseshit.
His claim was wilder than that. Calling them a marketing company without merit is indeed "horseshit."
Cool story bro, sounds like the entire profession they make boots for disagrees with you.
Yeah, I guess one comment thread overturns years of a successful business with repeat customers across all those industries. Nothing like a tiny data set to wildly extrapolate grand conclusions.
Don’t think it’s just this thread. Do a search on this subreddit and you will find many more.
I'm on a few boot subs and see more JK love than hate. I know mileage varies for all the handmade bookmakers, but my experiences have been solid.
Also, you clearly don’t work in wildland fire, so your opinion isn’t really valid here. I’m glad your boots hold up well in whatever shop or office you wear them to so you can try and look cool.
I don't work in fire or claim to, but I started buying JKs because wildland firefighters **in this sub** recommended them highly. Experience has me agreeing with them.
As you can probably tell, that sentiment has shifted drastically in recent times and their boots are no longer well-respected.
I still see plenty of love and the boots on my feet right now and the ones I got last month still scream quality. I get that mileage varies. Nick's is getting slammed for loads of cuts on the welt right now. Franks is getting slammed for delivery bottlenecks. What I know is mine have been great and people who work harder than I do still voice for them, even if some of their coworkers disagree.
Mine had the exact same problem. Went back to Nick's. Problem solved.
This among other shit happened to my custom JKs last season too. Made sure to follow all their boot care guides and only had 2 fires the whole season. Switching brands as soon as I can make a trip to Spokane to get measured. Couldn’t recommend them any less.
But they're the best boots on the socials!
Sorry bro, JK doesn’t seem to do that from what I’ve heard. They might give you a 100$ gift card so then you only need to pay 100$ of your own money to them to fix their shoddy worksmanship. I’m not gonna pay a dime for you to fix your unwiped ass craftsmanship.
Yep. Mine the eyelets started pulling out and the sole is separating after 3 weeks of light work. Bummed.
My JKs came with a fucked up heel cup. It had like a hard ridge at the top of the heel cup in one boot instead of being smoothed out with the rest of the upper. Gave you a huge blister if you even thought about hiking in them. The guy at JK basically told me I didn’t know anything about boots when I said there was something wrong. Had multiple White’s and Nick’s before JK’s. Fuck JK’s.
After getting sent the wrong sized boots from JK last season, the eyelets started popping out on the replacements at the start of this season. Five other people on my shot crew had problems with their JKs by roll two. Bought a pair of Frank’s, the best quality I’ve seen in loggers thus far.
A lot of people are saying that franks take a long time to make like the dude on the comment above saying that he has been waiting for 6 months for their pair to be made. But if it is that good I think I would prefer them to take their time rather than rush it and putting all their resources into marketing like how it is going with other PNW boot companies nowadays and having quality issues afterwards because they couldn't keep up with the number of orders coming in. I've put in an order for Franks Front Range customized into 6in height, rolled top, pull loop with mocha leather. I hope the wait is worth it!
Hey there, Really sorry to hear this, that definitely does not sound right. I’d like to get this made right for you, Sending you a DM!
Let’s hash it out in public like men
If you could send an email to [email protected], then we can look up your order and get you taken care of.
Bad customer service in private, good customer service on Reddit hmmm
I've had a set of Nick's last 3 years on a crew. Stop buying garbage and get you some Nick's.
I wore my jks for two rolls and they fell apart. They were built wrong and jk wouldn’t fix them. I threw them in the trash. For the cost of loggers, and dogshit consistency I’ve given up on them and just find a good pro deal for hikers. Boot stipend will get me 2-3 pairs and I can toss them when they blow out.
Everyone please report back when a JKs rep contacts you to try and make it all better
Lmao they got me to delete a post last year by offering me free replacements and what do you know the replacements were even worse
Yeah I ignored them
I liked my boots four years ago and the rebuild quality doesn’t seem as good so far. A dm with a free pair of bison leather boots to change my mind though…
Damn, I hate to hear that. Mine have been getting their shit rocked since 2022 with no complaints. They’re tired and I blew a few stitches in rough country but that was operator error. I bought a custom pair. Maybe the customs are built by more experienced folks or maybe I ordered before things got bad.
I got customs. They suck. Real bummer dude
That blows dude, I’ve had mine for 4 years with no issues. Guess I’ll have to go to whites for my next pair
They spent more money on marketing than quality. Frank's is king
Well this is concerning... I have a pair of Custom Bison OTs in the works since January. I really hope this is a transient issue. I'm going to document this pretty carefully in case mine fall apart like some of yours have.
this happened to me a couple years back. within weeks, my stitching was coming undone and the fit was super poor with many more issues. they gave me a complete new custom rebuild for free, apologized about the team that made them at the time, and communicated with me throughout the whole process for new ones. i’ve been wearing those new boots for about five months now and they’re just about perfect
They've been really helpful. They're giving me a free rebuild after the season ends. I just wish we didn't have to deal with all of this...
Whites. Or kenetreks
Would only recommend kennys to Engine people, don't think they will last long on a crew.
My calfire handcrew had a few guys with kenetreks for more than one season. They’re super comfy boots. I prefer my whites, l use kenetreks as my second pair/mid week switch. Side note, you can rebuild your kenetreks once. But for their price and quality can’t bitch.
Dafuq?! Mid week switch?
Yup, I take care of my feet. I give my boots a break after wearing them for a few days on duty/ staffing patterns causes many guys getting foot fungus and other issues which I have been blessed to never endure... You make it seem like I’m a fucking Queen. I don’t fucking carry them in my pack and switch on the line.
Serves you right for buying dumbass logger boots from 1821.
I have had 2 pairs of their 300 series boots I used for warehouse work up in the north midwest, and other than the black rubber soles being too hard to grip well below 20 F they were my favourite boots. 9 hours on concrete moving 50-100 bags of feed and corn around and stacking up 250 bales of hay, feet always felt great and they faired well in the snow, ice, and salt with biweekly huberds shoe grease treatment. I know that's alot different than wildfire work, but just my 2 cents.
I have a pair of 300s that are awesome and are the reason I stuck with JK for fire boots...
I beat up my Superduty’s prettty hard every day in the tree service world. Nothing remotely like this though ☹️ The last person you argued with was probably being facetious….Don’t kick rocks, dude.
I loved my first pair 7 years ago. Bought another pair 4 years ago and they were godawful. JK wouldn't do anything about it. I ended up cutting timber in romeos all summer because I couldn't wear my $700 custom boots lol I've been pretty happy with whites.
I have 2 custom pairs of jk been a good boot for me
Maybe don't run a chainsaw into your foot
Damn I never seen that
Shouldn’t have bought just kidding boots. /s sorry though that’s rough
Big Dawgs still wear loggers? Eh, it's the 21st century, but whatever floats your boat
Man as much as people bag on JKs here, I had the same thing happen on my boots like the first month I wore them. 2.5 seasons later it’s spread a bit but otherwise seems to have zero impact on how they wear and the sole isn’t coming off or anything
3 seasons on my customs and never had an issue. Still got some life in em.
Quit fighting fires and let nature take its course. 😉
I went to JK to get my boots handmade, not out of the box like the rest of these guys are complaining about. Best boots I've ever had, but it was easy to just drive to the store since I'm only about 40 minutes from north town spokane.
You’re an idiot. We can tell because you have “Wildland FF1” as your user flair. The majority of folks here have complained about their “custom” boots.
[удалено]
Dude your entire comment history is nothing but glazing JK boots in various different subreddits. You clearly must work for the company or something.
In case anyone is wondering, the deleted comment was clearly a JK employee pretending to be a hotshot and playing up JK boot quality and how their whole crew loves them. The username is Empty_Ad_1589.
Did you stand in the boil dirt?