I'm curious as to what makes you say the Leatherman/Gerber keychain tools have more modern materials and useful blade steels? Leatherman's 420HC and Gerber's undisclosed steel are both inferior to Victorinox in my experiences. If you're referring to aluminum, the Alox rambler or Minichamp are both even thinner and do not waste "a ton of physical volume for the sake of a toothpick".
Also, are the pliers or tiny file on the Squirt really that useful? I would agree the Juice series is much more capable than the 58mm knives but the Squirt/Dime keychain tools are heavier, thicker and more cumbersome on the keychain for not much more utility IMO.
interested to hear your thoughts!
I can see Nap's point about the small Leatherman tools. I love Victorinox, and I love the classic, but in spite of over a 20 year love affair with it, I have to admit that for size to size, the Leatheman tools are more capable. I can blame forum member Pinnah for my conversion to the dark side, but after our many "disagreements" he sent me a micra, and my world has never been the same.
To be fair to Dave, I did give the leatheman micra a fair trial, and I threw a lot of stuff at it. It came up grinning. It's just a tad larger than the classic, but offers a better tool set, and more rugged build so it can be leaned on a bit in an emergency. Then I tried the squirt, and I was a true convert to the small Leatherman cause. I still love my little classic, but so often it gets replaced or augmented with the squirt.
The blade steel is the same 420HC that Buck uses as well as Gerber. There is no secret about 420HC, and it's a good steel. As good as the SAK steel. The small pliers and scissors do work well, and I've used the heck out of my suit this past several months of moving to Texas. Packing up and boxing at one end, and unpacking andsettiing up at the other end. Much of the setting up involved re-assembling stuff Ihad taken down for boxing. Dealing with screws, small nuts and bolts. The tools on the micra and squirt took on a lot of tasks, and never came up short. I've put some abuse on the little pliers, thinking with the Leatherman warrantee that if it broke, I;d just send it in to Leatherman. They haven't broke, but have done very well.
The Leatherman scissors on the micra are heavier duty than the scissors on my little 58mm classic, but not quite as "surgically fine" for some things. The scissors on the squirt though do come awfully close to the SAK scissors. JUst a tad off near the tip for fine cuticle use. The file on the squirt has both a fine side and a courser side, and I have used the file and it works good on sheet metal and burrs on the backside of drilled holes in metal brackets. Pretty good file.
Both the knife blades on the Leatherman tools are chisel ground, and that may not be a bad thing for rough use. Easy and fast to touch up on a variety of material including smooth patio paving blocks, and the inside edge of a toilet tank top. The squirt does not have the nice lithe rweezers that the SAK does, but the micra has some very nice tweezers that work well on ticks, splinters, and cactus spines. And being permanently attached to the tool, the Leatherman tweezers don't go missing.
Here is a size comparison. The micra is so little bit bigger that it's negligible. I do love the classic, but if I were to need more tool, then I would not bother with the fatter 58mm's but go right to the small Leatherman.
The Leatherman scissors while not quite as good as the Vic's for trimming nose hairs or use in surgery, do offer a more robust scissors for rougher materials like canvas or light plastic, or even light wire cutting if you open the scissors all the way and put the coper wire all the way back near the scissors pivot. You won't go cutting your way through barbed wire, but it will handle light fine copper wire with no damage.
The squirt is actually a little shorter is size than the micra, but a little chunkier. Better in a side pocket than kerning. Makes a good edc pocket knife.
Another thing the Leatherman micra has going for it, with the blade out, you can fold up the handles and in effect you now have a blade that is not able to fold over on you. Sort of a back door lock. I'm not sure what this is good for, but there it is.
I love the little Vic classic, it's cheap, easy to find at low prices, and light weight on the eyeing. But if I need more tool, I go for a small Leatherman. Much more capability there. I've handled loose bolts and nuts up to 3/8 with the pliers on the squirt, as well as the hex nuts that secure the rear view mirrors on a Vespa GT200. They also give light wire cutting capability. These are real tools that have real function.
