Part 2- Blade
The blades on each tool are roughly the same size, and both feature liner locks and one handed opening accessibility. The blade on the SOG is a plain edge, while the Skeletool is available either partially serrated or as a plain edge, depending on the model.
As tested, and at the cheaper end of the range is the partially serrated blade- if you want the plain edge blade you need to spend more money or try to find a first generation Skeletool, in which the cheaper ones had plain edge blades and the more expensive CX had the serrated edge.
Either way, moving up to the more expensive CX model will also get you 154cm steel in the blade, versus the black coated 420 stainless found in the Reactor. The cheaper standard Skeletool does not list a blade steel but appears to be some derivative of either a 440 or 420 type steel. As someone who doesn’t worry myself much about steel snobs, I have used both Skeletools and Reactors quite extensively and I don’t find a significant difference between the steels themselves.
Where these is a difference is in accessibility- while both blades are easy to access, the Reactor blade is assisted opening, and allows for lightning quick opening. There are some folks that like this feature and some that don’t, but it provides at least a slight advantage over the Skeletool blade.
Further, there is a well documented complaint about the Skeletool blade- it’s too short. If you look in the blade slot there is ample room for additional blade, and in fact a larger blade mod was done by MTO member Evil10 some time ago. Given that this blade could have been longer, one has to wonder why Leatherman opted not to give the user as much blade as they could.
SOG gets this point, but only marginally.
SCORE- SOG 2, Leatherman 1
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