So You Want To Buy a Multitool?

First off lets figure out what you actually want/ need. Who do you want to be?: Bear Grylls or Rambo?

Did you select Rambo: Wow, you’re really cool, but this isn’t for you. Go to bass pro and just buy the biggest Kbar knife possible. Take that knife and strap it to whatever dumb leg mount/ roof rack can hold your obscenely large knife and then just leave it there until it rusts because you will use it approximately one time to impress your buddies on your one and only booze-filled car camping/ canoe trip.

For the rest of you that need a real recommendation please continue reading. The first step is to determine what you want in a multitool. Here are the only things I look for: a knife, pliers, and a screwdriver. Literally, everything else is optional. If you ever regularly find yourself needing one specific tool, then find a multitool that also has that tool. For 99.99% of the population according to math, a pair of pliers, a knife and a screwdriver is all you need. While many will claim the knife is most important, I find myself using the pliers the most. The next thing to look for is quality and a nice warranty to back it up. There are lots of brands that can fulfill your multitool needs at every price point such as Gerber, Victorinox and my favorite Leatherman. Realistically they all make plenty good tools, but Leatherman makes my favorite.

knife plus pliers plus screwdriver

My favorite tool of all time that does exactly this is the Leatherman skeletool. It’s light weight and packs only the essentials and none of the bloated weight. It has a knife with 420HC steel, pliers with wire cutters, Phillips #1 & #2, Screwdriver 1/4″ & 3/16″, belt clip and a carabiner that doubles as a bottle opener (hell yeah brother). All weighing in at only 5oz. Best of all, all Leatherman tools have a twenty five year warranty which I’ve used before to replace some pliers that got mangled. They also make the Leatherman Style that is pretty much the same deal but keychain size. They have a new Free series that allows for one handed opening with magnets, but until they make a skeletool version I’m not interested. I also own a Leatherman wave but at 8.5oz its over twice the weight and frankly I never use any of the extra tools.

Photo: Leatherman.com

At the end of day, the best multitool is the one you have with you. This is why I advocate for a multitool with only the essentials because the easier it is to bring with you, the more likely you are to have it. The skeletool is with me on all my outdoor adventures and would also make a great everyday carry. That being said, during the week as a robotics engineer the only knife I carry is a box cutter. At work I have a full tool bag full of all of my specialized tools and pliers there really isn’t a need to have all of that in my back pocket. A knife needs to stay sharp, so for the day to day I would rather just easily swap the blade out and destroy my blade at will.

So what are your thoughts on multitools? Any of you Rambos out there want to let me know how you managed to use your obscenely large knife? Feel free to share your favorite multitool suggestions in the comments. If you’re a Russian bot, stripper bot, or a grandma that wants to let everyone know about how their grandson went fishing before feel free to comment, but I’ll probably delete it.

…unless it’s funny or you pay me.

Buying Options:

Leatherman Skeletool: Order from Amazon

Leatherman Style PS: Order from Amazon

About the Author

22 thoughts on “So You Want To Buy a Multitool?

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