Are the tools of decent quality on these? I've seen some good and some less good from Gerber. . .
I have an Armbar Drive. I keep it in my camper kitchen drawer as a general around-camp tool. I'd say it's one of their stouter/more rugged multi-tools, but also a little confusing. IMO:
1. The 1/4-hex driver works really well, BUT there's no bit storage and you need a very short bit (1" max I think) if you want the holder itself to fold properly. I just keep the phillips/flat combo in there that it came with, but I wish there was room somewhere to store 1 more - I have lots of square- and torx-head screws around my camper, so I never reach for this tool.
2. The bottle opener is a kind of weird pivot-to-open deal that you don't notice from some photos. It works, but it's very shallow and kind of clumsy to use. The bottle opener element also doubles as a hammer/striking head, but it's not very good at it. I'd never use it as a hammer. It does, however, work reasonably well as a pry bar - if you have anything to pry. You can't pull a nail with it (it only has a working travel of about 1/4"), but it might get one started out.
3. The scissors are probably the longest/largest in terms of blade length on any multi-tool I've tried. If scissors are your jam, this is the cake.
4. The knife blade is a drop-point, which isn't my favorite shape but works fine. It can be opened one-handed but it's not very smooth so you have to be careful not to let your thumb roll down onto the blade as you open it. You can't "flick" it open. It's a liner-lock, and a very secure one, but is easy to close one-handed. Mine came mostly razor-sharp - not quite shaving sharp and it feels a bit jagged if you carve paper, but sharp enough to be ready to use out of the box for most purposes. Hey, it's a multitool.
5. For some reason they decided to include the most useless awl of any multitool I've owned. It's sharp as heck but SUPER short so it's hard to use even if you want to. Personally I do not understand the fascination with awls on these things. Who the hell sews leather out in the field? It's not like it has a slot for a needle and thread. Apropos the original post, I think awls are way more useless than scissors, anyway.
At 3.1oz this isn't my go-to for any kind of EDC, whether in daily life or hunting. It's too heavy, bulky, and inefficient (no tweezers or other desirable hike/hunt oriented tools) to justify carrying in the field, and each of the tools it does have is somehow not quite worth the weight there. How many phillips screws are you really driving while you're hunting? And for home use, your kitchen shears, regular screwdrivers, and (presumably) EDC pocket knife are going to outperform what this thing does. It does look cool but other than that, I personally would recommend something else.
