Gerber Shard Keychain Tool - Silver [30-001501] Pack of 1

Product Information

The box cutter/scoring tool work very well, one of the best out of the tools we reviewed. It does unfortunately make it unsuitable for frequent travelers but overall is a good feature. The bottle opener is somewhat difficult to use just because of the angle of the tool but always works in the end. Frequent complaints include the screwdriver being just slightly too wide to use on standard screws. What it comes down to is that Gerber has a broader range of products that go from extremely entry level to top of the line. If you’ve only experienced their consumer focused stuff bought at Wal-Mart you’ll have a different opinion of them than if you’ve been using their multi hundred dollar products. What is great about Leatherman that Gerber doesn’t offer Both the tools are marketed as airline safe or TSA friendly. I have heard many stories of passengers successfully taking these tools with them during air travel. However, I would be skeptical of such claims. No airline officially declares any specific multi-tool as TSA approved, and your chances will depend on the country, the airline, and the whims of the TSA staff on duty on the day of your travel. Features include spring-loaded needle-nose pliers and an internal wire cutter. Small handles greatly benefit from the spring-loaded design, making gripping and ripping pretty easy. In addition, you won’t have to manipulate the small handles here constantly. Keychain multi-tools are primarily made for two things: versatility and everyday carry. Carrying a mini multi-tool on your or even a simple lanyard will instantly allow you to jump into a DIY project. What does a keychain multi-tool do?

The large lanyard hole actually allows you to use all of it’s 7 tools without taking it off, which sets itself apart from many other keychain tools. We think Gerber beats out Leatherman in this category. Folding knives are the companies bread and butter, they’re just more experienced that Leatherman and produced an overall better product. The Gerber Obsidian product picture An EDC pry bar has to have the appropriate tool at one of its ends to fulfill its essential function. All others are secondary, but as many functions as can be placed in a compact tool without making it too big for EDC are welcome. Common features include a bottle opener, screwdriver, a bit driver, a hex wrench, and occasionally a knife blade.\ Length and Weight The pry bar and nail puller both work well enough. One thing we really like is the raised wedge on the underside of the puller that gives you additional leverage when getting started. You’re not going to be pulling free any large diameter nails with it but you can definitely pop up heavy duty building staples and standard nails. The bottle opener was unfortunately less impressive. Like many of the tools we’re reviewing here it doubles as the carabiner/keychain hole and you can see the compromises they made there. It works, but you’ll probably need to try more than once. CRKT ships the K.E.R.T. with a smaller rubber cover to keep the belt cutter covered, and I get why. The small rubber cutter is handy!We honestly found the Brewzer to be the more attractively designed of the two. It’s a sleek little tool that looks good on your keychain, but in terms of actual usefulness it loses out to the Shard. The Brewzer does exactly what it says it will of course. Overall though it just can’t stand up to the outsized value the Gerber Shard provides you. The Leatherman Shard product picture The Wave Plus wasn’t without its minor qualms. The nylon sheath felt a little on the cheaper side, and I did find the ‘one-handed open internal tools’ to usually require a bit of a struggle, demanding both hands more often than not. The Gerber Shard consists of seven different tools in one: a pry bar, small flathead driver, wire stripper, larger flathead driver, bottle opener, lanyard hole, and Philips head (or cross driver, as the folks at Gerber refer to it as). And, despite its small size, it excels at doing all of these (although, is lanyard hole really a feature something can excel at?). Gerber Shard In Detroit

It’s not going to replace the Craftsman in your garage, but it does work well with average, household screws that need tightening or loosening here and there. This is likely the least used function for us and probably the one that is a bit far-fetched. In a pinch, it can work, but it’s not meant to replace a dedicated tool. #4 and #5 Small and Large Flathead Screwdrivers The Style PS is a great little tool designed for frequent travelers and those who often find themselves in secured buildings. It doesn’t have any blade on it at all, just a small pair of scissors, tweezers, and a nail file. Compared to the Gerber Dime it has a lot less functionality but is still an excellent specialized tool. It’s clear when looking at the Vox Access Tool that the build quality at least is excellent. Böker made this tool out of lightweight and corrosion resistant titanium. It’s definitely one of the nicest looking tools on this list, though it’s also one of the largest. The Vox Access Tool is 3.6 inches long yet weighs only .7 ounces due to its titanium construction. Interestingly the only advertised tools on it are a combination pry bar/nail puller, bottle opener, and a window breaker spike. A small and large flathead driver brings the same upward curve as the Mullet but smaller in size and easier to use by far.Leatherman and Gerber are well-known manufacturers of multi-tools. Multi-tools are compact, versatile tools that combine various functions into a single device, making them useful for camping, hiking, and survival activities. The diamond-coated file was a handy tool to sharpen my blades on the go, a useful trait when out in the wild. The ruler markings along the edge of the outer handles were a modest but handy feature, aiding in small measurement tasks.

When you need to pry things apart or gain access to closed spaces, there's really only one tool for the job: a pry bar. But traditional pry bars are usually too big to carry daily, and even if you could tolerate the weight, lugging one around could give people the wrong impression about your intentions. A keychain multi-tool can represent an entire tool kit. Depending on the tool, it might feature everything from tweezers to a knife blade. Some models will include Philips and regular head screwdriver additions, while others might come with more specific components like needle-nose pliers. What are the benefits of a keychain multi-tool? Other tools are small but well chosen, and all are inside-access only (so the tool must be unfolded to access them.) One handle holds a medium Flat/Philips driver, a pair of tweezers, and a bottle opener/small screw driver. The other handle has a small clip point blade in 420HC, a medium straight screwdriver, and a nail file/nail cleaner. There’s also ruler demarcations on the handle if you need to measure something shorter than 4.7” long. The handle with the tweezers has a built in keyring loop with a small split ring to mount to your keys. The tool set on the Micra is more similar to a Swiss Army knife than to a typical Leatherman product, but they’re all useful things for day to day life, and the whole tool takes up very little space when folded.Leatherman has a well deserved reputation among multi tool enthusiasts for producing high quality products that get the job done. The Brewzer is a tiny little tool at just 2.45 inches long and half an ounce of weight. It’s made out of stainless steel and is one of the more elegant looking one piece multi tools available. At its small size and light weight it’s perfect for clipping to a carabiner or attaching to your keychain through the amusingly beer bottle shaped hole. Next we’ll look at the Leatherman Squirt PS4. The Squirt and the Dime have very similar tool loadouts. The Dime does beat out the Squirt with its inclusion of tweezers and a useful little box cutter. One thing we really like about the Dime when compared to the Squirt are the removable torx bolts instead of rivets used in its construction. It’s a small thing, but we like being able to take apart our tools for regular cleanings. Examining the design, we see it adopts a two-headed appearance, granting tons of leverage to work hex screws. The grips were kinda nice. Most EDC pry tools are single-piece steel or titanium items with bare metal handles. Some integrate handle scales for added grip in wet conditions. Others have slightly more ergonomic designs that let you leverage the tool to accomplish big tasks despite the size. And if there’s a lanyard or keychain hole at the rear, it becomes easy to use those things as an extension of the tool's grip despite its size. Material And those three hex drivers built into the handle are pretty cool tools. Not to mention, the G10 grips bring increased comfort and leverage.

Chances are, if you’re awake and have on clothes, you’ve got your keys with you. So a multitool that can attach to your keys without weighing you downends up being one of the most useful tools you can buy, because you’ll actually end up having it on you and using it when you need it. But what’s the best when it comes to keychain multitools? Ahh, multitools are so boring these days. They all offer the same basic functionality. Oh, this one has a set of pliers! This one has scissors. Oh wow, look, a pry bar. Blah blah blah. How about a multitool you can eat your breakfast with? A big reason to carry a Shard is the bottle opener. It works flawlessly every time. Enjoying a local Fort Worth, Texas beer, Rahr & Sons Texas Red. The K.E.R.T. also sports a 1/4-inch hex driver, which proved ultra-smooth when removing hex screws. It fit on with ease and spun them right out. You might associate 5.11 Tactical with cargo pants and button-down shirts, but *surprise* they make a series of E.D.C. tools too.Cost-Effective: Provides a good value for its price, especially when compared to other one-piece multi-tools. For popping bottles, the Shard was the second-best tool, according to my wife. I couldn’t disagree. It gripped and ripped tops off without much of a fight. The Shard ranked #2.