It weighs nothing and disappears on your keys. A Shard or Mullet can do most everything you’ll ever need a keychain tool to do and then some – in my time carrying a Shard it’s opened countless beers, tightened up electrical plate screws, opened cans of paint, opened crates, cut stray strings, tightened hose clamps, and a million other little things. On top of those functions the Mullet also adds a ¼” hex bit driver at the aft end of the belt loop hanger, and a small straight scraper. Like the Shard, the Mullet has a pry bar/nail puller with a v-notch wire cutter and two sizes of straight screw driver, as well as a 3D Philips driver and a bottle opener. It’s a key dangler- it has an open end you can slide onto your pocket or through your belt loop – and has a large split ring with a hole on the opposite end to attach to your keys. If you’re looking for something to hold your keys, rather than something to add to your keys, Gerber recently introduced the amusingly named Mullet multitool. I’ve carried a Shard for more than 5 years now and I can’t count how many times it’s saved the day by being on my keys. There’s an oversized hole for the key ring, and small amounts of jimping on the top and bottom to give you a solid grip on the tool. The two tines are large and small sized straight screwdrivers, and the notch of the nail puller can also serve as a wire stripper (and can cut strings in a pinch.) The middle of the body houses an angled bottled opener (a must have for any tool!) and the rear includes a built in Philips screw driver. It offers a lot of functions in a small size (2.75” long, 0.6 ounce weight) and for almost no money ($7 for the black anodized version.) At the front you have a pry bar/nail puller with a decent angle to maximize what leverage you can attain. It’s probably the only keychain multitool most people need, but it’s not perfect. Get it? Shard, like part of an Artifact? Anyway, the Artifact was a huge failure but everyone wanted a Shard, so it wound up in production. The Shard was originally a promo “giveaway” item handed out for free at trade shows, never actually distributed. To say the Artifact was terrible was an understatement, as any tool that has the propensity for injuring the person carrying it is – the little X-ACTO blade liked to open up when you weren’t expecting it, slicing legs and fingers and hands galore. Years ago, Gerbercame out with a keychain multitool called the Artifact that they believed was going to be “the next big thing.” It had a similar form factor to the Shard, but included a folding utility knife with a basic liner lock. All of these are winners, but maybe you’ll find something that fits your use profile closely here. After some deep-dive research, we’ve narrowed the list down to a top ten plus one bonus option for keychain tools that will make your life a little easier. So sorting out which keychain multitools are actually worth a damn and which are junk is a tall task. That’s likely because impulse buys are common (the low price and gift-ability makes these enticing ‘why not’ purchases) and development costs are (relatively) low. There’s a lot of competition and a steady wave of new products coming out in this field. But what’s the best when it comes to keychain multitools? So a multitool that can attach to your keys without weighing you down ends up being one of the most useful tools you can buy, because you’ll actually end up having it on you and using it when you need it. That’s where keychain multitools come in.Ĭhances are, if you’re awake and have on clothes, you’ve got your keys with you. What about tools you’ll actually carry? It’s been said that the best tool for a job is the one you actually have on you, rather than the one that’s sitting back at home on a shelf when you actually need it. The Leatherman MUT EOD is great for when you need to diffuse a bomb, but it weighs around 12 ounces with a sheath and can be used as a paperweight in a pinch. They’re big, heavy, ungainly, and sometimes impractical. Some modern multitools are paramount to carrying a toolbox that folds into a single block of metal. There’s endless discussion about what sophisticated multitool is the most useful.
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