I've been thinking of buying a handsaw tool to fit in my Magic Bag, and this looks intruiging, if a little pricey. The Leatherman 830566 Hybrid Pruner with Sheath has several useful tools. I expect I would be cutting down saplings with the pruners and working larger branches with the saw, but maybe this is just an over-the-top piece of gear and I'd be better off with a lighter and cheaper folding (lock) hand saw that has a bit more reach? It looks new and I haven't seen it in any stores or heard any comments on it, so thought I would see what the ETS crew thought about it.

Super specialized, but I understand that it has a following among certain military units- the pruner and saw is apparently very useful for camoflauging a position.

Iit might take off among hunters for the same reason, particularly those who use tree stands. But I'm curious as to how well the saw and cutters work on bone and cartiledge, as it could be a wonderful assistant with sectioning larger animals.

We've used them a bit over the summer (the Vista model). Definately looking forward to putting it to use this coming duck season. In the past we've always carried a folding saw and a seperate pruner. This should cover both just fine.

Just using it for camoflouging a blind though, not really for cutting through bone, though I'd imagine it should work well for that. I can see the pruner being pretty dang handy for general branch cutting though. Much more convenient than a small saw when getting through couple inch branches.

The choke tube wrench seems kinda handy, but not required. Then of course there are all the usual leatherman refinements....
J

I was thinking the same thing. It looks like maybe you could bastardize it with some old parts from a broken down leatherman and make it more "survival" friendly. Unless, of course, one wanted to do some grafting of tree varieties... <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

If it had a ratcheting bypass shear, I bet it would do bone with no issue. Maybe they'll make a hunter-leatherman down the road.

Cool... good to know it's useful. Might have to put it on the list.. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />