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Product Description
I'm a fan of leatherman, and I was able to pick up a couple of these on a Christmas closeout for about a third of normal cost. Let me break it down:The Good:1) Solid Tools. Includes sturdy needlenose/plier combo with soft and hard wire cutter combo. Nice 3 inch blade. 2 sizes of standard screw driver bits and a phillips, all are tough. Wire-stripper, bottle opener, can opener combo, and a lanyard ring. Plust it has both metric and Imperial measurements on the handle.2) Cheap3) Decent quality leather sheath (though I prefer nylon)The Bad:1) Although otherwise of quality construction, the cheap plastic inserts in the handle are sharp (they have an edge) and even in the finger molds, they tend to dig. The plastic offers no grip quality improvement either.2) The knife fingernail notch sits below the handle edge, making it difficult to open. In fact, all of the tools are tough to get open to some degree except for the Phillips driver.3) Tool selection is minimalist. Would have been better served to opt for the screw driver bit system they use on the higher end models and substitute a scissors and maybe an awl or small saw instead, of course, it's an inexpensive tool, but I'm not sure how this would be any more expensive to build in this way.4) Pretty heavy for what you get - doesn't weight much less than my New Wave.The Ugly:They look like a cheap Chinese knockoff. To some degree the handle digging into your palm reinforces this view. They are of rather plain design.If you can pick it up for a decent price, it's a solid tool. It's design belies a nicely constructed and well balanced feel and the implements are of decent quality (though obviously not the steel used in their higher end models). If you use your pliers a lot, I strongly suggest another model with rounded steel edges like the New Wave or Charges. Based on Quality, Performance and relatively low cost, I'm giving it a 3.5. Because it lacks some utility, and the handles are pretty much a mess, I'm rounding it down to 3 stars on Amazon (no halves). I'm putting these in my vehicles as emergency gear - they won't be Every Day Carry items for me.The cheap and sharp platic inserts are the deal breaker. If they fixed those, I would have rounded up to a 4 for sure based on your bang for the buck.
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