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Shraks vs New Balance Work: Weight, Rating, Grip and Price, Side by Side.
New Balance is known for fit range and running heritage, and its work line carries that reputation across. Shraks comes at it from the safety side: a certified work shoe built to feel like a sneaker.
Here is the honest comparison, on the nine specifications that determine whether a shoe holds up on a real floor.
Check the current specification of any pair you are considering before you buy. Ranges within a brand vary widely, and a line can change between seasons.
Note: this comparison uses publicly listed specifications. Brand names belong to their owners and neither brand has endorsed this page.
1. Safety rating
Shraks: ASTM F2413-24 (impact, compression, puncture) and EN ISO 20345:2022 S1PSNew Balance: ASTM F2413 (no year or classification codes stated)
In the US the habit is to check for a standard number, see one, and move on. New Balance states ASTM F2413 with no year and no classification codes after it, and those codes are the part that tells you what was actually tested. The Shraks Moon was tested by TÜV Rheinland to ASTM F2413-24 for impact, compression and puncture resistance, and it carries EN ISO 20345:2022 S1PS in Europe as well. A standard number without its year and codes is a label, and a standard number with them is a specification.👉 See the Moon
2. The toe cap
Shraks: Steel toe cap, tested to 200 joulesNew Balance: Composite
The usual advice is that steel is the serious option and composite is the soft one, which is simply wrong. Both New Balance's composite cap and the steel cap in a Shraks pass the same 200 joule impact test, and a cap that passes is a cap that passes. The real difference is volume: steel is thinner at equal protection, so it takes less room off your toes, while composite is lighter and won't set off a metal detector. Pick on where you work and what you walk through, not on which material sounds tougher.👉 See the Moon
3. Puncture resistance
Shraks: Puncture-resistant KevlarNew Balance does not state this on the product page.
A cushioned, technical-looking midsole reads as a protective one, and it is doing a completely different job. New Balance's page describes what its midsole does for comfort and makes no puncture-resistance claim anywhere; Shraks states a puncture-resistant Kevlar layer. Air units and foam are built to return energy, not to stop a nail, and the two get conflated constantly because they occupy the same part of the shoe. If you walk across anything that was recently a pallet, this is the row to read twice.👉 See the Moon
4. Upper
Shraks: Breathable meshNew Balance: Mesh
Both of these shoes use a textile upper, so the honest version of this row is that they are chasing the same thing: New Balance and Shraks have each decided that a shoe you wear for ten hours should breathe rather than armour your foot. The trade is the same on both sides too, because mesh that lets air out lets water in. What it buys you is a softer start, which in this category is the difference between a good first week and a fortnight of blisters.5. Insole
Shraks: Cushioned and removableNew Balance: Removable
The habit is to buy the shoe and then buy an insert to fix it, which only works if the original comes out. It does in both of these: New Balance and Shraks each ship a removable footbed, so whatever you already wear goes straight in. Worth knowing because a large share of the people who need safety footwear are already in orthotics for exactly the reason they need it, and a glued-in insole quietly rules a shoe out for all of them.
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THE MOON SIDE OF THIS COMPARISON
Tested to ASTM F2413-24 and certified to EN ISO 20345:2022 S1PS: a steel toe cap, a Kevlar midsole and a slip-resistant rubber sole, at about 15 oz a shoe. Try them at work for 30 days.
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6. Sizing
Shraks: US men's 4 to 14, women's 5 to 15New Balance: US 7-15, medium and wide
The standard approach to a narrow size range is to take the nearest size up and wear a thicker sock, which moves the blister rather than preventing it. New Balance lists US 7-15, medium and wide, while Shraks runs one range across the whole line. A size range that starts where men's sizes start tells you which foot the last was cut for, and everyone outside that range is buying a scaled-down version of a shoe designed for someone else.7. Price
Shraks: $79.99 $133.99New Balance: $149.99
The instinct in this category is that paying more buys more protection, and the certificate says otherwise. New Balance is the dearer shoe here, and both are certified to the same family of ratings, so the extra is not going into the toe cap or the midsole. It goes into trade distribution, a rep, a catalogue and a brand that has been on sites for decades, which is a real thing to buy and simply isn't protection. Once two shoes hold the same class, price stops being a safety question and starts being a procurement one.8. Returns window
Shraks: 30-day returnsNew Balance does not state this on the product page.
Trade suppliers often leave the return window off the product page, and New Balance does; it lives in a policy page somewhere, and in this industry it is usually the statutory minimum. Shraks puts 30 days on the page itself. Given that fit is the one thing you cannot read off any product page, a returns policy you have to go hunting for is a bad sign about the part of the purchase that carries all the risk.9. Weight
Shraks states about 15 oz a shoe. New Balance publishes no figure you can put beside it, so we do not compare it.Lightweight is the most used word in this category and the least often followed by a number. New Balance does not publish a weight for this shoe, which means the claim can't be checked, and it is not unusual: of the sixteen competitor products we priced for these pages, twelve publish no weight at all, and the four that do never say whether the figure is for one shoe or the pair. Shraks states about 15 oz a shoe. The insight is that weight is the spec you feel every single day and the one the industry is quietest about, which is unlikely to be a coincidence.
UP TO 40% OFF · FREE SHIPPING
THE MOON SIDE OF THIS COMPARISON
Tested to ASTM F2413-24 and certified to EN ISO 20345:2022 S1PS: a steel toe cap, a Kevlar midsole and a slip-resistant rubber sole, at about 15 oz a shoe. Try them at work for 30 days.
2-3 day delivery
|
FREE shipping
Try them today, 30-day returns.