When I saw Rancourt offering the "natural" color ~15 oz. chromepak in shoes and boots a few weeks ago, I jumped on it as I had been wanting a chromepak shoe or boot and the super heavy chromepak had me drooling. Let's start with my biggest take-away: boy am I glad I got the ranger mocs and not the boat shoe or slipper. I'll get to why if you read on in the review.
Went with their make-up on the site, expect replaced that ugly honey thing with a natural midsole and white vibram christy sole. They took only about 3-4 weeks to get to me after I placed the order.
First Thoughts: THESE ARE THICK and I mean THICK. Seriously, I mean look at the pictures. They skived some of it just so the foot could enter the shoe without being torn up my several mm thick edges. I'm pretty sure the leather on these could stop a knife. The chromepak is of course super delicious, oily, and quite malleable for its thickness actually, but it is still a very tough leather. It is honestly so tough that these aren't very comfortable without socks really at all, but as you can see from the pictures the design and aesthetic is more of a robust ranger moc in which socks fit the style and they go great with some denim. These aren't your boating sockless mocs that go with short shorts. These babies are definitely more of a chilly rainy day moc where you might drop a cinder block on your foot. But really, I like the aesthetic of the tougher, more rugged ranger moc because I don't have anything like this really, especially at this height which is good for chilly spring. My most similar shoes would be my 875 red wings and they get pretty warm at this time of year along with my other boots, so these fill a nice little hole. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting them to be this rugged. I almost got these on a camp sole, and I am so happy I did not. These babies would've crushed that poor sole.
Size and Fit: So, this is where things could've gotten ugly. I went with my normal Quoddy/Handsewn size on these (these are my first Rancourts). Stephanie, literally their one customer service person (basically who you talk to if you call, e-mail, or custom design shoes) seemed kind of knowledgeable and assured me the sizing was the same as the rest of their line and that their fits were very similar to Quoddy and Yuketen sizing and I should get the same size as I do with those. So I went with a 12E, as I do in Quoddy and Yuketen usually. I don't know if its because maybe they skived after the lasting, these used a more robust last, or the super thick leather just doesn't stretch around the last in the same way but these were pretty damn big out of the box without socks. I mean, I could manage but there was some pretty noticeable heel slip. Luckily these turned out to be shoes that pair better with socks style-wise, at least I think so. They are a little robust for the no socks and shorts look. With socks they fit very well and are muchhhhhhh more comfortable, so I'd say that's the way to go with these babies. Order your normal size and expect to wear socks. I mean, if you want to get some nice callouses then order a half size down and go sockless...
Construction/Leather: I'll keep this short as I already talked about most of this. The construction itself is great. I don't really see any defects at all honestly. The leather must have been hard to work with so this is pretty impressive. These are designed slightly differently than the normal ranger mocs and I think this design suits the leather a bit better and honestly thing the normal ranger moc design would be impossible with how thick this leather actually is. The leather has an incredible amount of pull up that you can see in one of the pictures so I can't wait to see how these age!
Final Thoughts: These are great if you want a pair of rugged mocs in which the leather can protect you from the occasional dropped knife and will probable outlast you... haha but really, an awesome rugged shoe that goes great with some denim. Just know that this leather is thick and really not for a "chilling on the dock" summer shoe. I really don't know why they decided to offer these right in the middle of Spring. Also, they look much less rugged on the website than they do in person so keep that in mind.