Which blank t-shirt runs biggest?

At Medium, the honest answer to which blank t-shirt runs biggest is that it barely matters: the seven unisex styles below publish a chest of 20.0" or 20.5" and a length of 29.0" or 29.5". Half an inch of spread — less than the tolerance one of those brands prints on its own spec sheet. The differences big enough to feel are between cuts, where a ladies' Gildan G500L Medium is 17.5" across against 20.0–20.5", and at the top of the run, where published lengths pull a full inch apart from XL up.

All of it comes from those eight spec sheets — the styles on the blank tee shelf with complete published runs.

Chest and length in inches, laid flat; cells read chest/length, and a dash means the size is not published. Seven styles are unisex; the Gildan G500L is a women's missy cut whose row reads as a separate chart.

The same data as spreads — largest minus smallest at each letter. From 3XL up the ladies' run has ended, so each pair of columns covers the same styles.

Three things fall out. The unisex chest spread is 0.5" from M to 3XL and 1.0" at S, where the Next Level 3600's 19.0" sits alone above a five-way tie at 18.0". The unisex length spread does the opposite of settling: 0.0" at S, then 0.5", 0.75", and a full inch at XL and above. Wherever the ladies' cut is present, the all-cuts spread runs four to seven times the unisex one. Brand is a rounding error; cut is the variable.

Per-style pages: Gildan G500, Bella+Canvas 3001C, Next Level 3600, Hanes 5250T, Champion T525C, Comfort Colors C4017.

The largest single difference here is not brand against brand. The G500L is graded on a women's missy block, the other seven on a straight unisex block. At Medium the G500L publishes 17.5" across and 26.0" long against 20.0–20.5" and 29.0–29.5" — up to 3.0" of width and 3.5" of length between two shirts whose tags both read M.

The gap widens with the letter: 1.5–2.5" at S, 2.5–3.0" at M, then 3.0–3.5" at L, XL and 2XL. The blocks also grade differently: unisex styles add 2.0" of chest per size, the G500L 1.0" from S to M and 1.5" from M to L. A letter drifting inside one block over the years is the separate problem of vanity sizing.

Chest never comes apart. From M to 3XL every unisex style is within half an inch of every other, and at 4XL and 5XL the styles still publishing agree exactly, 30.0" and 32.0".

Length comes apart at one step. From S to XL each unisex style adds about an inch of body per size and they stay within an inch of each other. Between XL and 2XL the Champion T525C and the Hanes 5250T add two inches, 31.0" to 33.0", while every other unisex style adds one. The field splits rather than spreads: at 2XL three styles sit at 33.0" and four at 32.0"; 3XL repeats the split an inch higher. Above 3XL only three styles remain, then two, and the Hanes is the longest of them: 35.0" at 4XL against 34.0" for the G500 and 3600, and 36.0" at 5XL against 35.0".

"Bigger" has to be asked one column at a time. The Comfort Colors C4017 is the clearest case: at Large it is 22.5" wide against 22.0" for six other styles — half an inch — but 30.75" long against 30.0", three quarters. At XL the width lead holds while the length lead grows to a full inch. Order a C4017 for a wider shirt and you get a disproportionately longer one.

The reverse trade sits in the ladies' run. A G500L 2XL publishes a 23.0" chest — between a unisex Large (22.0") and XL (24.0") — on a 28.0" body, exactly the length of every unisex Small. A Next Level 3600 in XS publishes 17.5" across, the same chest as a G500L Medium. Three letters, one chest number; the pit to pit measurement carries across all three.

A tubular body is knitted as a cylinder and finished without side seams, so the hem is as wide as the chest and the pattern cannot taper. A side-seamed body is two panels sewn together, so the pattern can narrow toward the hem and set the armhole where a retail silhouette wants it — the difference behind "wears slimmer".

It does not appear in the two columns above. The Bella+Canvas 3001C, the side-seamed retail-fit blank here, publishes exactly the same chest and length as the Gildan G500 at all six shared sizes.

Nor can this data settle which of the eight are tubular. The hem-width column, where a taper would show, repeats an identical value across five of the eight styles at Small — a shared grading block, not a per-style spec. Construction is on the brands' own sheets; ranking these blanks by taper would mean inventing it.

The practical consequence is not that one blank is bigger. It is that your customer's idea of "Medium" was set by whichever blank they bought last — on this shelf, anywhere from 17.5" to 20.5" across.

Chest and length in separate tables are in the t-shirt size chart.

These are spec sheets, not shirts. Every number is design intent published by a brand, with a stated variance of ±0.3" for seven styles and ±0.8" for the Comfort Colors C4017. The half inch between the widest unisex Medium and the narrowest is smaller than the C4017's own tolerance, so two shirts from two cartons can reverse the ranking. How ShirtMath sources measurements covers what a spec number is worth next to a measured one.

Only two columns are trustworthy. The catalog stores eight points of measure for tops, but at Small five of these eight styles publish an identical hem width (17.54"), bicep (6.6") and sleeve opening (5.91") — values that repeat across brands come from a shared grading block, not a per-style spec.

Two shoulder columns are visibly wrong. The Hanes 5250T and Champion T525C shoulders add exactly 2.0" per size, the Hanes reaching 31.25" at 5XL — not a shoulder — and the Champion's 3XL value (21.71") breaks its own series. The Gildan G500's sleeve column carries the long-sleeve 5400's numbers. Bad cells are why this comparison is narrow.

Eight styles is not the market. These are the catalog's styles with complete published runs, not a survey of the trade.