Advice desperately needed

[beeinak]

Victorinox steel is pretty nice. I do not know what your needs are, but I have field dressed a deer and hog with a Swiss Champ (just to prove a point to a buddy) with no issues. I also think they make the best saw blades and scissors (they just work well).

 

[VTer]

Buy an Alox Farmer. The can opener works well enough as a #2 Phillips, the build is rugged and it’s plenty comfortable to carry. All the talk of Vic blade steel being sub par is garbage.

That's a very good point. For most household purposes (hinge screws, cabinet hardware, etc.) the can opener is perfectly serviceable. You’re not going to remove or tighten a deck screw or drive a drywall screw into a 2x4 stud; but for those tasks you’ll have the proper tool anyway. The biggest drawback of the tool is that it’s useless for recessed screws, which is why I’d like to see the inline Phillips from the Swiss Champ in more knives.

 

[JJ_Colt45]

I carry an Alox Farmer or Farmer X daily along with whatever other fixed blade or modern folders & Leatherman I carry on any given day. Yes the blade will dull quite a bit faster than high carbide higher hardness steels, but a SAK's blade will sharpen up very quickly and with minimal effort and they are thin and meant for cutting stuff well and not prying a car door open.

I choose the Farmer or Farmer X because you can get Alox scales and they are pretty tough and for minor use the can opener will work on phillips head screws within reason. If you have to have the phillips head look at the Fieldmaster or Tinker Deluxe, but in my experience if you need more than the Farmer's can opener tool on a phillips head screw I'd want an actual screwdriver not just a SAK with a phillips head bit. YMMV.

Olight offers a handy little lightweight Titanium keychain bit driver that could be your driver solution and then you can focus on a knife/tool for cutting tasks.

That's "the rub" with multitools ... they are adequate for lots of minor jobs, but don't excel at much compared to dedicated tools.

 

[Roamad]

By the way. When I look for these I tend to search through images rather than a normal search.

It's fun. You get some weird stuff.

I can't find a video. But I think ruike do a liner lock version.(mabye)

I have a Ruike with the liner lock & wrote about it here. Mine has no Phillips driver but other versions may. The main blade is 12c27 and very good— maybe a notch above SAK but only just.

 

[Roamad]

I’m coming up on 40 and this mentally has taken over me too. Vic steel is not a super steel, but it’s amazingly easy to sharpen SO SHARP and is extremely tough. My Vics have never dulled to the point of being unusable after a very hard day of work and are sharpened back with 30 seconds on a brown ceramic rod.

The OP is looking for a Victorinox Hiker but doesn’t know it yet. I use one (ironically?) for hiking and have always been happy with how sharp it is at the end of a hike, even 10+ days.

The Hiker is a great suggestion and one of my favorite SAKs. A big advantage is the small secondary blade, which is great for carving.