Admiring my shiny new Coghlan's Commando Saw (deluxe stainless steel version, naturally), I saw where, in addition to sawing, it claimed you could use it as a snare by threading the smaller pull ring through the larger one. That sounds a little far fetched to me. Has anyone actually had any success at using their wire saw as a snare, or even tried it? Or is this just Madison Avenue hype?

I considered trying it, but I didn´t for the following reasons:
- the big ring wouldn´t lock when the snare is closed
- if an animal is snared and yanks hard the wire will kink, this makes it useless as saw
- it´s shiny and hard to conceal
- it´s a hassle to fix the loop to a certain size (once again the ring is too big)

IMO it´s not worth trying. I carry better wire that´s useful for a lot of other jobs.

And another query about wire saws: How do you keep the wire saw "blade" from destroying other items in a tightly-packed pocket PSK? I can see where mine could punch or wear holes in the aluminum foil (not that big a deal), the water bag (very big deal) and other items it comes into contact with. Is the key careful packing or enclosing the wire in something? If so, what? <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Find some teflon tubing it will slide into. You now have a drinking straw for water seeps.

i put the fragile stuff on the bottom and put triple layered ducktape on peel off backing on top of it to act as "armor". other things around the saw are more resistend to damage and are at some places protected with tinder (cottonwol+ vaseline). the stuff stored in side the rolled up saw are "protected" with brass wire to protect the bobbin of wire inside. just make sure everything fragil or easily punctured is away from any sharp stuff inside.

Thought about that, by my Coghlan's wire saw has those enormous 5/16-inch brass swivel eyes on each end. I finally settled for slitting a length of telephone 3-wire casing and putting that over the wire saw "blade." True, the casing isn't much use for anything else, but it's all I could come up with that would not take up more space in my trusty Altoid's tin.

And then there was the matter of getting the wire saw to STAY in the Altoids tin. I finally had to resort to some brute force "training" to get it to hold its shape while I packed the rest of the goodies inside. Darn things have a life, and mind, of their own, it seems like.

if you have to force it in, or rol it up to tight it will get that shape in his "memory", so you will end up with a spring shaped saw, with's is annoying to use if you don't tention it.
i keep the saw in mine kits unused in his original rolled up condition, beacuse they won't get a annoying "memory". Use the unrolled one's, for normal use or practise.

this is what happend to mine wiresaw wenn i forced it in in mine altoid tin PSK ( retired now ).


The rolled up shape will stay and you won't be able to remove it, wenn you have to use it. so using it without tensioning will become harder and it will brake easyer

Wow, that's an impressive kink you've got there. What I did was remove the split rings from mine, then press it around the inside edge of the Altoid's tin so that it closely followed that rectangular shape. Then I stuffed the rest of the space with paper towels, closed the lid, sealed it shut and left it sit for several hours. When I opened it, the wire saw seemed to hold that rectangular shape, more or less, without trying to sproing out of the tin.