Winchester Brand small multitool

[Faiaoga]

I wonder if other people have experience with the multitool sold by Winchester (the gun that won the West, not the cathedral that inspired the Beatles). It is made in China and is perhaps not the highest quality, but it is reasonably priced at $12 with a belt sheath and is only about 2 3/4 inches (70 mm) long when closed. The handles are a nice-looking brown artificial wood, it is less than 1 inch (25.4 mm) thick even with 4 layers of gadgets, and it looks to be decently made. The small Phillips head seems as though it will fit screw heads better than most SAK/multitool tools. Needle-nose pliers are spring-loaded and look as though they will stand up to light electrical work.

I only purchased this two days ago, so I have not had much experience with it yet. I still need to sharpen the small knife blade and saw, square off tne flathead screwdriver and so on. For the money, it seems to be a reasonable tool and it allows me to walk around with it on my belt, looking cool and MacGyver and competent without actually having to do anything There is a bigger, heavier model but my carrying that would be almost as heavy as my Gerber Multiplier.

Does anyone have experience with this tool? I am a classroom science teacher, not a construction worker or firefighter, so I do not need a tool for very heavy use. Faiaoga

 

[PJ Garrison]

Yeah I've seen these multitools, and they're generally not very well made.

Winchester will slap it's name on all sorts of cheap Chinese crap. Smith and Wesson does the same thing. In general, the quality on these will vary from passable to godawful. Some of the Chinese pocketknives are actually pretty decent, but I've never seen a good multitool that didn't come from a major manufacturer.

This is not to say that yours will fail you under light usage (it may not), but you never can tell until it breaks. It's a twelver dollar multi-tool and that's below the threshold for a quality tool (the Swiss Army Knife knockoffs are also terrible).

On the other hand, you don't need to break the bank to get a good multitool. You can probably find a Leatherman KICK for about 20-30 bucks and it's an amazingly good tool for the price. I've also been abe to find Gerber tools for the same price, though the quality is not as good. PRO TIP: Stay away from the Gerber Suspension... it's big, and heavy, and awkward.