I'm a pretty loyal customer. If I'm happy with something, a particular brand for example, I'll stick with it until I'm no longer happy with it or no longer happy with the company that makes it. I'm like that about food, clothes, tools, etc. For example I've bought Heinz ketchup, Levis jeans, and Nike shoes for as long as I can remember. My multi-tool of choice is the Leatherman Wave. When I bought my first Wave about 15 years ago, they came in real leather cases, which were dyed brown, and had a brass snap on it. Now they come in a black (sort of) leather case, with elastic on the sides and close with velcro.....ain't progress grand?
Back then there weren't nearly as many models of Leatherman multi-tools to choose from, nor nearly as many makers of multi-tools in general. Nowdays anyone tooled up to make knives is making multi-tools. That can be good and bad at the same time. The good of it is that someone will invent something innovative and change the landscape of multi-tools. The bad of it is that most of the second tier and lower manufacturers will turn out worthless crap.
I own two Waves, a surge, and a M.U.T.(Military Utility Tool). Those four tools fit all of my multi-tool needs. I keep one Wave in my tackle box, one Wave in my GHB (Get Home Bag), the surge in my truck console, and the MUT in my carbine deployment bag. I've never owned a Gerber multi-tool, but have heard good things about them. I've owned a few of their knives and the quality is sufficient for the price, I can't imagine the multi-tools would be any different.
The Wave is a very capable tool for urban, suburban, rural, and wilderness survival. However it looses some of it's functionality in the wilderness as a majority of the tools are for tightening/loosening, stripping, or opening things that aren't normally found in the wilderness. or The MUT is an awesome tool for armorers or people who maintain their weapons in the field vs. on a cleaning bench. I can completely field strip any weapon I carry using only the M.U.T. The Surge is handy because it's smaller and lighter than the Wave, so it's likely to get dropped into my cargo shorts pocket.
I don't intend to do a review of the Wave, everyone on the planet it seems has written a review on either the Wave or it's equivalent by Gerber. I did however write a review about the M.U.T. and you can read it here. It fits my needs very well, and as you'll see in he review it's quite capable.
I realize I haven't posted in awhile, and for that I apologize. Life happens, and with small kids, it happens fast and without warning. However, we survived the summer, the vacations, the out of school kids, the back to school rush, and the death of another immediate family member (my mother in law). It's been a crazy ride. I'll write about surviving the summer in an upcoming post, I learned a lot.
Remember I'm not an expert, and I don't play one on the Internet. My opinions are exactly that....my opinions. Thank you all for reading and being patient with my lack of posts while I struggled through a difficult summer. As always, comments, suggestions, topics are always welcome....criticism not so much :)
