Displaying items by tag: centerdrive

It’s not often you get the opportunity to pit a multitool directly against a competitor as the variety of functions makes almost every model different from every other one.  Occasionally though, we manage to find a couple that are close enough that we can match them against eachother in a very fair fight- last year it was the Leatherman OHT vs the Gerber Center-Drive and it resulted in a draw.  You can see last year’s match up here:

Gerber Center-Drive Vs Leatherman OHT

This year we are going compact as the SOG Reactor takes on the Leatherman Skeletool.

With the introduction of the new black Gerber Center-Drive I thought it was about time to do a Group Buy on them. We should have also done one when the Center-Drive was originally issued, but we were a bit tied up with another Group Buy at the time, and when we got around to Gerber, everyone already had one. 

This is it, the Grande Finale! Buckle up boys and girls!

The ending may surprise you somewhat, but it was absolutely, 100% as objective as I can personally get, and I stand by it.  But, enough rambling about it- let's get down to it and find out once and for all, which multitool is better!

And, if you haven't seen the first three parts to this shootout you may want to check them out before this one:

Part 1	Part 2	Part 3

To continue our epic battle between large sliding head plier tools from both Leatherman and Gerber, today we are looking closely at the blades.  Since both tools feature plain and serrated blades, we thought we would put them together and see how they stack up.  Since blades are among the most used functions on a multitool we thought it was only fitting to dedicate an entire battle to just them.

As we begin, both the Center-Drive and the One Hand Tool (OHT) are tied at six points after Leatherman's early lead in Part 1 and Gerber's almost total domination in Part 2.  Both tools are going to try to pull ahead today, as the final challenge is tomorrow, and time is running out!

We all saw Gerber's marketing surrounding the release of the Center-Drive, and amongst the images of tattooed craftsmen re-imagining old world techniques and blending in modern technology, we saw the Center-Drive compared to both the Wave and the OHT. While Gerber's marketing may have been over the top, I don't think it was any worse than Leatherman showing soldiers carrying the OHT, despite the OHT never having been issues to troops anywhere, despite it having been designed specifically to try an usurp Gerber's hold on sliding head plier tool contracts with the military.

I guess what I am saying, is that when you cut out the marketer bullpoo and actually concentrate on the tools themselves, which one is better? Are they both hype, or are they both on the level? Or, one of each?

Are you getting tired of all the hoopla surrounding the Gerber Center-Drive yet?  I hope not, because we have more Center-Drive news!  Following the great showing the Center-Drive had during the 2016 Multitool.org Multitool Of The Year we decided to kick it up another notch!

In November of 2016 Gerber introduced the Center-Drive in a major media storm.  Everyone was talking about it, wanting to try it for themselves, speculating on whether it was hype or whether it was the real deal.  I'm a bit late to the party for reviewing it, and you'll see hundreds of different reviews and unboxing videos already, but mine is going to be different, because there is a reason we are late to the party.  I have actually put mileage on the Center-Drive- I've carried and used it, and I don't think the value of a tool is in it's ability to be pulled out of a package.