About the usefulness of multitool when camping

Shotgun said:
My experience has been different.

Scissors. I've never used the scissors for anything other than trimming the odd moustacheo hair.
Can opener. Never used, even in the city.
Bottle opener. Yep but the spine of a knife works as well.
Cork screw. Never.
Saw. Not even the saw. What's reasonable for a sak saw is reasonable to break or baton IME.
Screwdrivers. Never.
Awl. A few times maybe.
File. Never.
Pliers. Never.

In the city I have a mutlitool in the car and maybe a sak in my pocket but I've gotten away from them in the woods. I can see how they COULD come in handy but for me they never have.
Click to expand...

While I respect your opinion...I would point out that your field of view is rather restrictive...

In the last week I have used the tools on mine to :

Scissors: cut zip ties,heavy envelopes,paper,hair,wire,plastic
Can opener: used the small screwdriver tip on this to tighten some screws.
Bottle opener.: used the wire stripper to strip wire, used the large flat head, and opened cold beer last night!
Cork screw. N/A (farmer)
Saw. sawed up a whole bunch of 3/4 PVC for a project I built.
Screwdrivers. See above.
Awl. Clean my fingernails, scrape gunk off old parts
File. N/A (farmer)
Pliers. N/A (farmer)

Mine never leaves my pocket...even if I go on a plain I put it in my check bag in case the plane goes down so I know which bag to look for to find a knife...my bag (a pelican case) will be floating... If I'm lucky enough to survive the impact. If you think that's paranoid...look at all the airliners crashing in Asia...
 
KD5JHA said:
While I respect your opinion...I would point out that your field of view is rather restrictive...

In the last week I have used the tools on mine to :

Scissors: cut zip ties,heavy envelopes,paper,hair,wire,plastic
Can opener: used the small screwdriver tip on this to tighten some screws.
Bottle opener.: used the wire stripper to strip wire, used the large flat head, and opened cold beer last night!
Cork screw. N/A (farmer)
Saw. sawed up a whole bunch of 3/4 PVC for a project I built.
Screwdrivers. See above.
Awl. Clean my fingernails, scrape gunk off old parts
File. N/A (farmer)
Pliers. N/A (farmer)

Mine never leaves my pocket...even if I go on a plain I put it in my check bag in case the plane goes down so I know which bag to look for to find a knife...my bag (a pelican case) will be floating... If I'm lucky enough to survive the impact. If you think that's paranoid...look at all the airliners crashing in Asia...
Click to expand...

Good! And yet.... your view is just as situation specific as the one you quoted. :)
 
I want to like SAKs and multitools more than I do.

As useful as they seem in theory my experience over several years and many back-country miles of experimentation has been that I rarely use them and never miss them when I go without.
 
I do kind of like the SAK concept for bushcrafting and basic mountaineering/hunting [minus the saw] and I'm a huge fan of my original Leatherman multi-tool. I don't own an SAK though, I had to be dragged over to a buddy's to use the blade for a few hours to change my mind about it. Not so sure on the $$ though. The Tops version is pricey enough...some of these < $1,000 customs are well out of my acceptable price range.
 
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