johnnyjohnny
Practically Family
- Messages
- 633
- Location
- lake balboa
i think generally you have to take all online measurements with a grain of salt. they're just references and a lot of the knowledge sadly comes from you yourself buying these jackets and getting a feel for what your size is.
that said, the most important measurement IMO is the armpit to armpit, which doubled is the full inch count size of the jacket. usually, and i say usually...these days, most jacket makers will add 5" to the the size, and that gives you the full circumference, and also the armpit to armpit. so if a jacket armpit to armpit is 25", the full size of the jacket (front and rear) add up to 50" all around. which is pretty much my size of 46. my chest is 43" to 44", so i pretty much need a 50" jacket to give me enough room for the jacket size i like, which is slightly loose. the size that goes along with a 50" jacket is usually size 46 (this has no correlation to older jackets and especially to various brands of jacket in the past, where a size 46 might more normally be 46" to 48" all around with 23" armpit to armpit.
a firmer more 'proper' military fit might be a size 44 for me, which would be about 48" around. that's a bit small for my tastes.
anyway, what i'm getting at here is that the closest you may get to finding out what size you take in any of these jackets is to call the maker and ask for the armpit to armpit of a particular size. then you'll be able to tell if that is similar to the jackets you own and like.
for me i can wear jackets from 25" armpit to armpit to 26" or even 27" armpit to armpit if i don't mind it loose, OR if a specific jacket has insulation which will take up some of that extra space. it also matters whether the jacket is goatskin with no insulation, or cowhide, which is thicker and thus eats up more space of the inch count.
so, i'm saying, there's no sure thing. it's all kind of squiggly. BUT, that said, for THiS particular Forrestal jacket, both legendary and cockpitusa had the same size measurement scale, showing a size 46 was 25" armpit to armpit, or about 50" all around. this is on the small end for me but for this jacket i wanted a better fit than looser so that was ok. HOWever, when i got the jacket it was really perfect because there's no insulation AND the leather is goat, which is thin and light (but very tough and durable in this particular jacket). had this been a cowhide jacket it would have been a bit tighter at 50" around, which still would have worked.
so for all of these you need to know your own sizing, and jackets you own that you like, and then use that as a guide for what you buy. but also know how whatever brand you are buying sizes its own jackets. AND call them to measure a jacket size for you if there's any doubt...they're great about this. cockpit/legendary's sizing scale on this particular jacket was about as right on as you can get with this stuff.
so you see, and most people here will agree i'd bet, it's all a crap shoot, like everything else in life. but you can make it work if you have some knowledge to work with.
once you get the armpit to armpit down, you can graduate to the length and shoulders, which for me have always worked as long as the armpit to armpit was on the money.
hope that helps, and wasn't way more detailed then you wanted. like many here, i've wasted tons of money on these jackets so have decades of knowledge about these brands and sizing, so am just trying to give you a taste of it as it's a drag having to send a jacket back for another size. of course you have to keep all tags on the jacket, no signs of wear, no cat hair, packaging in perfect shape, and wait another few weeks to get a replacement. so whatever you can do to get the correct size straight out is worth doing.
