Reactor vs. Skeletool Battle Of The Multi Tools

well hey folks welcome to the channel and welcome to another episode here at Gideon tactical I got to tell you today I am really excited for this battle of the multi-tools now today the two multi-tool companies that we're going to be looking at are Leatherman and SOG now Leatherman and SOG both have been making multi-tools for quite a while they both have a lot of things going for them in their company and so neither one of these companies is new to making multi-tools and before we get into the ins and outs and we're really going to compare these two multi-tools and we're going to compare them in this Theory and system of possibly replacing a twot tool system the concept behind these multi-tools is really to take a multi-tool that maybe you carry on your person all the time you EDC it say like the Leatherman PS um 4 squirt uh or something like that something small pretty compact that you would carry on a regular basis maybe on a keychain or on your belt and then you also take a folding knife a pocket knife and many of you including myself probably have that integrated into your daily EDC systems well the idea with these two tools that we're going to be looking at today is to replace the two tool system combine them together and give us a one tool option and so there is the possibility today that we're going to be looking at I'm going into it with an open mind I hope you will too of could these two tools possibly if we like one of them in particular uh could we possibly retire taking a folder and a multi-tool and just take one of these two tools today so let me introduce you to these two Gladiators that we have in the arena in this battle of the multi-tools first off we have from Leatherman the Leatherman skelet [Music] Tool we also have the sog [Music] reactor so today let's go ahead and dive into not only this theory of possibly taking two tools combining them together giving us one tool and whether or not this may be integrated into our EDC systems and ultimately lightening our load in our EDC systems as as well as just how these tools function which tool is better and which tool do I gravitate to more and why and hopefully it'll help you make a wise decision on which one of these two might fit in one of your EDC systems so with that being said let's go ahead and get to it so let's start with size comparison in the pocket what's the type of real estate and weight we're looking at with these two tools now obviously just by looking at it you can tell that the sog reactor is going to be the more compact option it's going to weigh in at 4 2 oz so rather lightweight very you know nominal for most pocket knives out there uh it's going to have an overall length from front to back of 3.8 in and according to my measurements a maximum thickness of like 4.8 uh 0.48 on the maximum thickness for this tool whereas on the flip side the Leatherman is going to have an overall length of 4.2 in so about half an inch longer in overall length it has has a maximum thickness of 0.5 even so maybe just a hair thicker than the sog and then it's going to weigh in at 5 oz even so you're looking at about 8 O of difference this will be a little bit heavier and a little bit longer so a little bit more real estate a little bit more weight for the Leatherman a little more more compact for the sog you got to have bottle openers on your multi-tools for your refreshing drinks and with the sog we kind of have this little Hideaway kind of just sits inside the the body there you pop that little guy and it will uh pop the top no problem you do have to do a little bit more fiddling than you would with the Leatherman uh the Leatherman not only works as a bottle opener and I was recently just seeing how it performed putting it on the camera and Ashley had a big issue with me using the Leatherman and drinking the coke that I was about to open actually look different whoa are you drinking that so in spite of Ashley's intense dis likee for me drinking that soda at the moment um this is a very good bottle opener it's easier to grab than the sog on the lip and then it does act as a secondary attachment point with that kind of Carabiner system works great for attaching either to a belt loop on your belt uh or attaching to the interior exterior of packs so I really like that feature a lot so let's go ahead and talk about in my opinion probably the most important aspect of these two multi-tools if I'm going to consider retiring a folder and just carrying these not only do does the knife have to be very accessible but it has to just feel good in the hand and just be an overall easy deployment and usefulness for me so we're going to have take a look here at the sog first and what we have here is a black coated blade and this is what's really cool and just kind of stands out right away is that this is an open assisted multi-tool it has a spring in there flings right open real nice and quick so the deployment is very fast I like that aspect lot so this is going to be an 8cr 13 mov steel blade this is a Chinese made multi-tool now HCR 13 mov uh is a decent budget steel there are lots of folders out there that you know holds a decent steel uh holds a decent Edge takes a very easy Edge and so it's just you know for a budget it's not by any means a premium steel Now The Cutting Edge is 2.25 in overall length it is a Hollow Grind kind of that reverse sheaths hoof design and just really gets the work done that you would expect from a multi-tool and from a small compact EDC knife it's going to fly through all your different materials that we have looked at and have tested this on and I've had this for about a month now of daily Ed seeing this in comparison with the Leatherman tag teaming them every other day swapping them out so that I can not only get the concept of replacing the folder but also just its performance and I got to tell you for the average EDC task around town uh on your person you know this definitely gets the job done from opening packaging cardboard cutting rope cutting uh and all those type of applications and it's going to hold a decent Edge and it'll be very easy to get a hair popping sharp edge back on it now with that open assisted feature and again just whips out super fast really like that really cool there is a safety like you would expect on a lot of sogs and other Assisted Opening knives it's this little red lever right here when it's down it's locked open and you can deploy it all day long no issues and then if you're worried about it deploying in your pocket or you have children around you can push it up and then it will not deploy the blade and it's very secure so if it's up it's not going to be bumped down if it's down it's not going to be bumped up you really have to mainly give it that nice little click to make it work that way for you so that's nice and the open assisted feature that they do offer that I I could take it or leave it it's not you know this uh safety feature but this thumb stud is a problem for me this thumb stud is very small and narrow and just is uncomfortable not not only to grab but I find myself often times bumping it and missing it the first time I want to deploy it now the reason for that is because it's so close to the frame and the body of the multi-tool so they didn't want it snagg in your pocket so I appreciate that but they really should have just gone with a finger Notch over the thumb stud and that would have made it easier and then we wouldn't have had to worry about making such a small thumb stud so that is a complaint of mine it's kind of difficult to actuate sometimes because of the placement and size that they decide to go with so finally I want to show you all also the frame lock this is a frame lock as you can see there actuates well no real issues there they give you a little bit of gimping so it's easy for you to grab and move out of the way it is rather thin though so just know that is a very slim liner lock uh it gets the job done for the task that you would expect this little blade to perform but I would have liked to see that maybe a little bit thicker now where the sog may be really flashy and you know new to the market and it's like ooh cool open assisted multi-tool that's sweet this is the Leatherman is much more um rustic and in my opinion easier to use uh when it comes to deploying now we have the uh finger hole right here similar to what youd expect like maybe on a Spyderco but they've grounded in in such a way it catches your thumb very easily there I really like that and then I can easily without even flicking my wrist deploy it so it's real smooth real fast and I like that aspect of the knife a lot and then I can just disengage the liner lock and close it back up and again whip it right open and a lot of that is made possible by the bronze bushings in there if you can see that right in here which makes it a very smooth deployment now where the sog is all Chinese made the Leatherman is all USA made so that's really cool to see that and you can tell in the overall just fit and finish and quality we're going to talk a little bit more about that in the ergonomics in a minute uh that there's a lot more not it just the the Leatherman feels higher quality it just does there's no way around it just feels higher quality uh they've done a better job of Machining all the Angles and that type of stuff now the blade is 420 high carbon steel if you know Leatherman that's what they use in majority of their blades it's a decent um steel I would say it's basically on par with the hcr1 13 mov steel that they're using on the sog it's going to hold similar Edge retention it's going to be similar in the rust resistance and is you know just a decent budget steel and it's going to get the job done and it's very easy to get a hair popping Edge on it now this also has a reverse kind of CHS hoof design we have a Hollow Grind this is a combo edge onethird of it being that serrai one 2/3 of it being that plain Edge the overall length is 2.6 in with an actual Cutting Edge of 2.4 in now I got to tell you as I began to use this in my EDC task for a combo Edge it performed well I am not a fan of combo edges I prefer plain Edge knives in general I have very few combo edges so for a combo Edge it does well because the teeth are rather shallow I went through all the cardboard cutting all the nylon rope all those different things nylon rope it snags a little bit that's because of the teeth and again I believe a well tuned plain Edge will cut better and smoother versus uh serration but all the different materials that we went through very pleased with this performance and we absolutely um complete any EDC task that I put before the um skelet tool so I was very happy with that good size as well and just a good performer in that sense now the Leatherman also has that liner lock and it's about the same thickness as on the sog and definitely gets the job done for the EDC task that you're expecting this multi-tool to handle neither one of these multi-tools is like a hard use tactical blade or something like that it there is slight flexing when I did really harder tasks put a lot of pressure on I can feel it flexing slightly but it hits dead center and it's going to get the job done for the task that the blade can handle so let's look at the pocket clips again if this is going to be replacing my pocket knife I better be able to put it in my pocket with a pocket clip and it better be able to be accessed very quickly well I got to say for both of these guys they get the job done now the so I believe is a little bit better designed and the reason for that is because it's a little bit more Compact and it's that deep ride loopover design that you can expect from most SOG product so that makes it ride real deep in the pocket which is awesome and uh just doesn't really take up a lot of real estate as we've spoken about and is right around that 4.2 o so the pocket clip in combination just with the overall frame and size of the multi-tool works great and basically feels like I'm carrying a pocket knife uh in my pants you know for the for the day which is awesome and I love that deep ride they do even give you this little uh hole right here so you could run a lanyard if you desire now the Leatherman is similar but not quite as deep r as you can see there's about a quar of an inch sticking up out of my pocket but it is a very good swept pocket clip it does the job well it's very slim as well so it's not going to get in the way and it keeps the pocket or excuse me the multi-tool easily accessible and feels just like a slightly larger folder than say the sog so it still makes me feel like I'm carrying a a pocket knife in my pants which is awesome so the two plier heads are basically the same they're I would say on the smaller end of needlenose pliers uh they have very similar tee setups they kind of have a snubnose needlenose setup um they both have cutting instruments now obviously the Leatherman is going to be a form of 420 um stainless and it is USA made and then the sog is going to be I believe 2 CR 13m steel or something like that uh Chinese made steel I haven't seen one being stronger than the other I would say they're very comparable in their capabilities uh the one thing that you'll notice here with the Leatherman is that it works great does everything that you would expect a medium to lightweight tool to do but it also has a kind of a secondary notch in there for either hard wire cutting so like bailing wire or something like that or it works great for stripping wire as well but overall for the Leatherman Works fantastic the sog the same thing works great Cuts wire does smaller to medium size bolts and nuts and those type of things the needlenose things that you would need it doesn't have that little kind of Notch in the teeth to be able to do any type of stripping but it does on the back side here have wire crimpers so that is something that the Leatherman does not so it's kind of a trade-off which one's more important to you uh the sog offers crimpers the um Leatherman offers kind of a harder wirewire stripper feature now here's really where the rubber meets the road and I start seeing a lot of of problems with just the overall design of the sog is in this arm uh this really tiny arm is a big issue because as we begin to use the the tool what I found was I cannot get very good leverage on the tool to get a good cut there's just a little arm here versus a huge sweeping arm on the Leatherman which really gives me the ability to open that sucker up and get a really good clamp on it and get as many fingers as possible and just get really good leverage on the tool so right out of the gate I that was one thing I started to notice is that there's a really spindly little leg and then a nice big large sweeping leg and the Leatherman definitely gives me more leverage now the other thing to consider as well is that they there are these little gears right here that so calls their compound gears as supposed to double the pressure of your cut now I haven't seen it that in the sense of that it cut wire twice as easy as the Leatherman I haven't seen that to be the case but when up ends up happening with with this gear is it it's not necessarily a problem I me it's just there and that's what they claim uh that it does but what happens is in order for me to open up these pliers all the way to their maximum width I have to take the handles all the way out as you can see the heads are still extending to about there possibly even a little bit farther Yep they're still going right about there that's wide that's as wide as the heads will go and look at how wide the handle is I mean that's impossible for me to try get a good grip whereas to get the exact same distance with the heads on the Leatherman you can see a huge difference in the angle proportions the Leatherman I can easily get my hand in there get a good clamp and I can get larger wire in there or you know just get around something rather easy and then do my clamp with this thing I it's not going to happen so that'll that combined with the little mini spindly leg here just really create a lot of problems and honestly though the head is design fine and cuts through and uses you know can do nuts and bolts and all those type of things and cuts wire very easily uh it makes it very difficult with the little leg for leverage as well as the really wide stance that it has to have to get around anything let's talk about the screwdriver bits for both of these multitools you know it's very important to have this now we'll talk about the sog first because it's new now it has the secondary arm as we've kind of been discussing a little bit here today that is actually just the holder for the bit this arm does nothing else aside from hold it this is not where you're supposed to actually use the bit and this is just a standard um quter inch hex head bit so any quinch hex head bit that you may own will also be able to fit in here this comes with one Phillips one Flathead you can see right there but instead of using it there it's designed to fit back here and you can see they have these little magnets on either side and this little seating arrangement where you just clamp the little bit in place there and now you're able to use it more like a standard kind of short screwdriver now in concept I really like this idea it gives you a really solid straightforward motion when you are using the bit the problem that I have is you have got to squeeze this thing as tight as possible you really have to just you know almost make your hands red you know and get that blood flowing into your hand and pinching the around the the um multi-tool otherwise the bit starts to spin inside there so I would have liked to either see a latch or just make it in some other fashion so it doesn't have to necessarily do that I like the placement it's kind of unique it's a little different it definitely gets the job done uh but that is something just kind of be aware of if you're having to put any sort of Leverage at all on there or even if you just kind of let loose of your hand a little bit the the hand the if there's not ex a lot of pressure on the bit the bit could even either fall out or it'll start to spin so that is a little frustrating for me now the skelet tool is pretty standard what you'd expect from most Leatherman it's kind of got that squared flat head or flat um bit system it comes with a set of flat flat heads and it comes with a set of Phillips heads the spares whichever ones you're not using at the time sit into the body right there they never want to pop out it's very secure in there and then you do have the bit area with a little uh lever that you have to press and depress to kind of uh release the bit in there so it's nice and secure it's not going to fall out while you're Ed seeing it in your pocket or whatever and then you can either use it in a kind of a standard screwdriver system like this or you could kind of do it in a pistol grip which is actually what I tend to do and it kind of feels like you got like a a ratchet or something like that and works really well and definitely gets the job done with zero complaints so here's another thing to kind of consider here is that the sog and I I kind of referred to it um uh at some point here in the video I don't remember where exactly but a lot of the angles are really sharp particularly the liner lock right here and this other frame piece right here are very thin and very sharp and so when you're grabbing the multi-tool and you're using it you know for the knife and the knife ergonomics uh it it's really kind of brutal to your hand down here it's nice and rounded up here no real issues up above but the lower portion is very I'll just say it uncomfortable it's just not good when you're putting a lot of Leverage on the multi-tool I wear large size gloves you can see there I can get my whole hand on there no problem so that's good in the size range but uh you can't put a lot of hard pressure and you can definitely tell um not only just in the quality that you know there there's just a lot of sharp angles there but the comfortability as well on the flip side the Leatherman has all of the angles rounded off very nicely no issues at all and you can see there I got plenty of room out the back uh to spare there so that's just something to consider you can just kind of feel the difference in quality but man I can just squeeze this as hard as I want doesn't create any sort of hot spots doesn't create any sort of biting into my hand they really thought through how is this going to feel in someone's hand and we want to make it as ergonomic as possible and they've definitely done that well okay so the prices on these two are actually very competitive for what they're offering now they're both going to be right around the $50 mark on Amazon we'll have linking in the description below so depending on which one is connecting with you or whichever one you want to try out if you want to use those links it's always a fantastic way to support the channel uh but that's where I purchased both of these was off off of Amazon uh the reactor's brand new and I paid I think I paid like $52 for it uh and I got a deal on the skelet tool and I think I paid like $42 for it uh but usually they're going to be right around the $ 45 to $50 Mark is what you're going to um be paying just remember that you are getting a Chinese made product for about 50 bucks you're getting a US product for about $50 so that's really my only hangup is I would have liked to see the sog maybe more around the 35 to $40 mark because it's all Chinese made and then you know around 50 bucks for the Leatherman would make sense to me because it's all USA made and all the stuff that are going into it so I think the sog is maybe about5 or $10 overpriced in my opinion but they're both very comparable and are battling for the exact same price point well it's time for us to wrap up this battle of the multi-tools and if you haven't been able to figure figur It Out by this point I got to tell you between the two the skele tool wins the battle of the multi-tools the sog reactor has many things going for it I think there's a lot of potential there a lot of great ideas but it just was executed poorly in my opinion maybe in future Generations SOG will be able to kind of hone some of these things and give us a really competitive option to the skelet tool but between the two and if you're really considering this idea I would say pass on the reactor go with the skelet tool and now in that concept now that we've kind of gotten you know and figured out okay which of the two wins the battle okay can this concept and does it work for me in my systems and possibly you in your systems could the skelet tool really replace and would I replace this folder and a multi-tool get rid of these guys and just carry the skelet tool I say yes the potential is absolutely there for the exact same amount of weight and real estate that these two guys take up this skelet tool is going to give me the exact same Cutting Edge uh length it's going to give me better bigger pliers it's give me better bigger um bits for my screwdrivers and it just gives a lot of options for me now I love multi-tools and Blades so I'm never going to you know necessarily totally just go to a one tool system but for many of you out there this I think may be a great option and a great idea and since having dived into the skelet tool because I was kind of skeptical about this whole idea n you know let's keep a multi-tool multi-tool keep a folder a folder and those are never going to you know uh cross over but I think that Leatherman has done a fantastic job with the skelet tool of being this kind of crossover idea and there are definitely days where I go out and I know I'm going to do a lot more work with a multi-tool but I still want that really fast access to a pocket knife without a lot of weight and lot not a lot of real estate and then on those days I leave a folder at home and I leave this little multi-tool take it off the key ring and Bam I bust this guy out and I rock that I love it so much I'm going to be getting the CX version very soon so you'll you will be seeing a video sometime this year on the original skeleton tool and the CX version that's upgraded with some carbon fiber and a plain Edge 154 CM blade so um that that's how much I love it that's how much I feel it can integrate into my EDC system so hopefully this video if anything is just kind of giving you some food for thought seeing hey could this fit and integrate into your EDC systems obviously that's up to you to decide but I definitely see huge potential for it and it definitely is going to be now integrated into my EDC systems depending on the day and depending on what I'm going to need to do uh the one thing I just want to touch on real brief that I don't see this really excelling at is um in outdoor use this I wouldn't carry this on a hiking trip or a backpacking trip um in that sense I would be carrying my Leatherman rebar or a super tool because it has a saw it has plain Edge it has files it has alls it has a lot more tools that I would use out there in the wilderness this uh it it's not a Wilderness multi-tool at all for me in my mind so with all that being said guys thank you so much for checking out the Channel Please Subscribe comment like share this video check us out on the relevant social media and as always remember stay equipped stay prepared and we'll see you out there

Channel: gideonstactical

Views: 332,439

Keywords: skeletool skeletool cx, skeletool and reactor, skeletool, multi tool, best multitool, bear grylls, edc multitool, tread bracelet, reactor, paratool, supertool, sog reactor, multi-plier, waffle house, thelateboyscout, small multitool, medium multitool, the late boy scout, shooting, multitool, swisstool, leatherman, victorinox, multi-tool, backpacking, diesel, combat, testing, firearms, outdoors, juice cs2, gear, rebar, gerber, review, sidekick, powerlock, powerplier, rev, edc, macv

Id: 140kSvBhWzI

Length: 24min 3sec (1443 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 01 2016