We wear shoes much more than we shoot, thus, for notions about comfortable fit let's look at how we find our footwear.
The deluxe option consists of having the foot fitted and the shoe built to spec. I've tried it and while much effort is put into building the stature of the expert salesman, I am not sure the confidence necessarily follows with wearing the shoe. Believing a salesman is a poor placebo for true fit. Simply put, custom made stuff is not necessarily always best sized either because of bad luck or simply a bad fit. Now what to do with the custom numbers? And what about style selection?
Off the shelf shoes come easily. Find roughly the proper fit and hope for luck in falling into the perfect size. Matches made in heaven such as these happen often enough if you only search. Variety is endless and buying shoes is fun.
How many shoes do we have? Which one style do we secretly love? Which one always seems to fit the most comfortably?
I know for myself that if presented with a shoe I do not like even if it is the most scientifically-ergonomically-optimally-physically designed fit, I will scream like a kid that the pair actually hurt my feet. And they will. Truly.
The point I am trying to make is that a perfect fit comes in many mysterious ways - and in dimensions even a top expert wouldn't know to measure. Try your luck and if you have accumulated a collection of shoes over the years you'll know exactly what I mean when we speak of our favorite boots and thus the most comfortable pair. It's much more than an expert craft, it is much more than just plain old luck, it is also the memory of shared adventures and also the idolization of others who wear the same gear, meanwhile, it is our inner most intuition that we should all learn to follow for the happiness of our soul.
The best psychological fit trumps every other number. For guns it is the same. You love them with the eyes and with the mind and you love the fit. To me, within reason of course, dancing around crafted numbers is the same whining tantrum we all used to put on for our mother when it was time for her to buy shoes for us as kids. Don't you all remember? the Sunday shoes -she- liked would hurt our feet... and the sizes were all wrong - no matter what. Tears were our added attempt at proving it. Meanwhile, the cowboy boots we really wanted were the perfect fit... oh yeah... and it did not matter that the store did not have them in our size either... and I suspect my mother was secretly winking at the shoe lady.
We cloak our love for such items in the mystery of secret numerology, that way, we have an emotional escape for when we are stabbed in the heart if things don't come our way or when faced with scorn and mockery. But truly, the numbers don't matter much, plainly, tradition makes for an authentic fit. Little kids become men and part of growing up is learning to be comfortable in the love of guns.
(I buy my own boots nowadays)
