Gerber just sent me a cut sheet on the new Gerber Versafix machete, and in the surface it looks quite interesting indeed. Will it hold up? Only time will tell, but it looks like it has just about all the things you want in a machete.
In a world where it can sometimes be difficult to carry a multitool, many of the manufacturers have struggled to come up with designs for TSA friendly type tools. The latest from Gerber is called the Mullet- will it live up to the "business up front, party in the back" mentality that has driven the haistyle it's named after? I'm not sure the mullet hairstyle sets the bar that high, so, yeah, it probably will.
It’s not often you get the opportunity to pit a multitool directly against a competitor as the variety of functions makes almost every model different from every other one. Occasionally though, we manage to find a couple that are close enough that we can match them against eachother in a very fair fight- last year it was the Leatherman OHT vs the Gerber Center-Drive and it resulted in a draw. You can see last year’s match up here:
Gerber Center-Drive Vs Leatherman OHT
This year we are going compact as the SOG Reactor takes on the Leatherman Skeletool.
With the introduction of the new black Gerber Center-Drive I thought it was about time to do a Group Buy on them. We should have also done one when the Center-Drive was originally issued, but we were a bit tied up with another Group Buy at the time, and when we got around to Gerber, everyone already had one.
Ever have a secret that you want to tell but you can't? It gets a lot worse when it's a case of you can't tell yet. I have- in fact, I have been really resisting the urge to go public with something that we have been working on for a while, but it's finally time!
This is it, the Grande Finale! Buckle up boys and girls!
The ending may surprise you somewhat, but it was absolutely, 100% as objective as I can personally get, and I stand by it. But, enough rambling about it- let's get down to it and find out once and for all, which multitool is better!
And, if you haven't seen the first three parts to this shootout you may want to check them out before this one:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
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To continue our epic battle between large sliding head plier tools from both Leatherman and Gerber, today we are looking closely at the blades. Since both tools feature plain and serrated blades, we thought we would put them together and see how they stack up. Since blades are among the most used functions on a multitool we thought it was only fitting to dedicate an entire battle to just them.
As we begin, both the Center-Drive and the One Hand Tool (OHT) are tied at six points after Leatherman's early lead in Part 1 and Gerber's almost total domination in Part 2. Both tools are going to try to pull ahead today, as the final challenge is tomorrow, and time is running out!
Yesterday I brought you the first part of the epic battle between the Gerber Center-Drive and the Leatherman One Hand Tool. When the smoke cleared from Round 1, Leatherman stepped out with three points, completely shutting out Gerber and their Center-Drive. With that much of a lead right out of the gates, can Gerber come back? The contest is far from over, so let's find out in Round 2.
We all saw Gerber's marketing surrounding the release of the Center-Drive, and amongst the images of tattooed craftsmen re-imagining old world techniques and blending in modern technology, we saw the Center-Drive compared to both the Wave and the OHT. While Gerber's marketing may have been over the top, I don't think it was any worse than Leatherman showing soldiers carrying the OHT, despite the OHT never having been issues to troops anywhere, despite it having been designed specifically to try an usurp Gerber's hold on sliding head plier tool contracts with the military.
I guess what I am saying, is that when you cut out the marketer bullpoo and actually concentrate on the tools themselves, which one is better? Are they both hype, or are they both on the level? Or, one of each?
You often see those silly little folding shovels from Gerber and SOG, the generic cheapos in Army Surplus stores and eBay and you wonder just how good they are? I mean they are probably okay in sand and soft dirt, but really, what good are they when things get hard? And yes, I mean hard, not difficult. Specifically, I mean rock hard, packed down, super frozen ice. The kind that starts as water (duh) then freezes, then has a huge weight placed on top of it, is occasionally warmed up slightly and refrozen until it is as dense as it can possibly get. In Canada we call it simply "winter."
What kind of people would write collect and review multitools? Quite simple really- we are designers and do-ers, outdoors types and indoor types, mechanics, doctors, problem solvers and problem makers. As such, we have, as a world spanning community, put every type, size and version of multitool, multifunction knife, pocket knife and all related products to every test we could manage in as many places and environments as there are.