Pound-for-pound (or more correctly, ounce-for-ounce), one could argue that a multi-tool provides as much or more bang for the buck as any EDC gear/tool/implement. Admittedly, the usefulness to you depends on your day-to-day environment, but given the wide selection of tool configurations among the manufacturers, I think you'd be hard pressed not to find one that isn't useful to your lifestyle.

You acknowledge their particular suitability to an urban environment. Agree 100%. Consider then, isn't that where most of us spend most of our time ... in an urban environment? Replacement for a good fixed-blade knife while camping, hunting, hiking, or other wilderness activity? Absolutely not. Like any tool designed for multiple tasks, they're not as effective as an arsenal of individual, dedicated tools (that, for obvious reasons, don't lend themselves to compact EDC/PSKs). But they're not meant to compete with dedicated tools.

Given their reasonable cost, light weight, small bulk, I view multi-tools as an efficient bit of redundancy in a kit or on my belt. At <$100 (in most cases), why not?


Not sure what size/weight you have in mind, but the soon-available breacher bar from CountyCom looks interesting for a small bag.