Leatherman Surge Review – The Heavyweight Contender

The Leatherman Surge sits under the ‘Heavy-Duty’ category on Leatherman’s website. The key word here is ‘Heavy’ because that’s undeniably what the Surge is. It might be heavy, but is it worth its weight in gold or is it just an anchor around your neck (not that you’re likely to carry it around your neck but you know what I mean).

Carry-ability

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Leatherman says it weighs 12.5 ounces (335 grams) but on my scales, it weighed in slightly less at 12.2 ounces. (345 grams) that’s still heavy. Compared to Leatherman’s next heaviest multi-tool, the MUT at 11.2 ounces, the Surge is heavier by 1.3 ounces. Most of Leatherman’s full-size and heavy-duty tools don’t weight more than 10 ounces so the Surge is about 20% heavier than most. Looking at SOG’s range, the SOG Center Drive gets on the heavyweight scales with a weight of 9.9 ounces.

In fact, the Surge is not only the heaviest multi-tool in the Leatherman product range, it’s also heavier than any multi-tool in the Gerber and SOG ranges. The only other multi-tool I could find that was heavier was Victorinox’s SwissTool CS Plus which has 8 more tools than the Surge and weighs in at a back-breaking 15.5 ounces (439 grams).

Anyway, I think you get the picture. The reason I’m making a big deal about the weight is that being 12 ounces puts some people off carrying the Surge. You have a couple of options on how you can carry it. Obviously, you can just throw it in your backpack, bug out bag or

freestyle in your pocket. Then there are a couple of ways to attach it to something.

My Surge came with a leather sheath. The sheath has an internal pocket to hold a bit kit strip. The sheath can be carried horizontally or vertically. If you want to carry it vertically on your belt, don’t have a belt wider than about 2.3 inches (6 cm). You’ll need a narrower belt if you want to carry it horizontally. You only have a slot of about 1.3 inches (3.3 cm) to slide your belt through. If you want to carry it on a bag strap, reverse the measurements (because your bag strap runs in the other direction than your belt, see?).

The Surge is also pocket clip capable. It doesn’t come as standard with one but Leatherman sells one (including a lanyard ring) for about $5 that locks into the tool locks. You might need to pull your belt in an extra notch to make sure your pants don’t end up around your ankles when you clip the Surge on!

I’ve had an upscale version of Leatherman’s stainless steel pocket clip and lanyard ring made. They are quick install and made from titanium with 5 laser etched designs. For a very reasonable price, they will give your Surge a custom look and make it your own.

Talking about the weight again, the Surge influences how you want to carry it. It’s a commitment to carry it as an EDC – I’ve done it and you notice the weight at first but after a few days, it doesn’t seem to matter. What does matter is that the weight gives you real confidence in how sturdy the Surge is. It feels very solid in your hand and you can imagine tackling any MacGyver situation you find yourself in.

OK, I think we’ve talked enough about the weight, let’s look at the size. The closed length of the Surge is 4.5 inches (11.5 cm). Width is 0.8 inches (2 cm). As a comparison, this makes the Surge the same size as the Leatherman Signal and 0.7 inches (1.8 cm) longer than the Leatherman Wave.

Multi-Tool-Set

The Leatherman Surge has an impressive 21 tools in its arsenal. It has full-sized versions of what I call the main tools – pliers, knife and scissors. In fact, it has two knives, a straight bladed knife, and a serrated knife. The knives are outside accessible, as are the spring loaded scissors. There’s an outside accessible tool holder that holds either a saw or a file – both are included in your purchase. The file is double sided, one side a diamond coated file and the other a metal/wood file. So that’s 4 tools accessible without unfolding the Surge. Nice!

Like most multi-tool pliers, the Surge’s pliers can do a number of jobs. The plier head comes to a point giving you needle nosed pliers. On the way to becoming a point, there’s a flat section that does the job of standard pliers. And before the flat section, there’s a hollowed out piece to allow you to grab and twist nuts and bolts. But wait there’s more! The plier head also has my preferred style of wire cutters – replaceable ones. These wire cutters slice through ‘standard’ wire in one section and in another section you cut ‘hard wire’.

I’ll admit that I actually don’t know how to decide which part of the wire cutter to use for a length of wire in my hand. I can have a guess but whether I would always use the right section of the wire cutters for the wire I want to cut is far from guaranteed. It’s just another reason to have replaceable wire cutters on your multi-tool. If you get it wrong at anytime and ruin your wire cutters, it’s a few dollars and a couple of screws to set it back to right. Finally, the wire cutters also include a stranded wire cutter, wire stripper, and an electrical crimper. So the pliers alone, count for 7 functions. That’s a third of the Surge’s total 21 functions. Handy!

The secondary tools you can get to by opening the handles (some people call these the ‘scales’). Inside the plier handles are a small flathead screwdriver and a large one. There’s also an awl with a thread loop and the multi-tool ‘compulsory’ can opener and bottle opener.

Leatherman have included a bit driver with a double ended bit – one end a Phillips screwdriver, the other a medium

flathead screwdriver. Given you already have a small and a large screwdriver, the only additional tool you’re adding is the, admittedly commonly used, Phillips screwdriver.

I know you’ve been counting the number of tools so far and know that I’m one short. Well, to make it to the 21 total there’s a ruler to measure inches and one to measure centimetres.

Use-ability

21 tools are a lot of tools so that at least goes some way to justifying the hefty weight you need to carry around to be able to use them. But how good is the Surge to use really?

Let’s start with the pliers. Multi-tool pliers don’t get any better than these. Because they come to a point you can use them for some finer work like holding onto smaller items. But if you need to clamp something together like you do with a standard plier, you can do that too. Then, of course, there are the nut grippers that are useful when you don’t have a wrench in easy reach. Finally, there are all the wire handling tools to cut, splice, bend and crimp. If you get it all wrong and wreck the cutters, relax and buy another set. In fact, buy another set as well because you’ll probably have your Surge for a long time and you’ll ruin another set of wire cutters sometime in the future.

I’m a fan of multi-tools with outside accessible tools. I think at the very least the knife blade should be accessible without

opening up the handles. The Surge has 4 outside accessible tools. If you use your right hand, you can open the straight blade one-handed with your thumb in the cutout. Flip over the Surge in your hand and you can open the serrated blade one-handed as well.

You’ll need two hands to get to the scissors even though they are outside accessible. I couldn’t work out how to lock the scissors into position at first. You need to pull them as far out as you can, slide open one of the scissor handles and then they lock into position. Doing this also activates the scissor’s spring mechanism. It all works well once you have a couple of tries at it. The scissors won my multi-tool nail cutting test for their sharpness, size, and ease of use. So they’re a good pair of scissors and fold away easily.

You’ll also need two hands to deploy the blade driver. The driver deploys by a fingernail ledge. In the blade driver, you have the choice of inserting the saw attachment or the double sided file. One side of the file is the pretty standard issue metal/wood file and the other is a very handy diamond-coated file. I wasn’t sure how the exchanger worked but it works by sliding a cover sideways at the base of the exchanger. It was so stiff at first I had to use another set of pliers to grip it and move it. In typical Leatherman fashion, after a few goes, it loosened up enough for me to just use my hand.

Standard files work using small ‘teeth’ on the surface, the finer the teeth, the less aggressive the results. And they only work in one direction so you use them like a saw rather than like sandpaper. The diamond coated file, however, does work like sandpaper and can be used backward and forwards or in a circular motion. Because it is more like sandpaper, it can give you a much smoother finish than the metal/wood saw. So this combination of files is a good choice for a versatile multi-tool. Sometimes diamond-coated files are described with a grit number. Except I can’t find any grit number from Leatherman for this file to give you an idea of how coarse or fine it is.

That’s all the outside accessible tools and they all lock into position and are released by a liner lock.

Opening up the handles exposes not only the pliers but the remaining tools stored in each handle. All these tools are accessed by a nail ledge and lock into position. I couldn’t get my nail to just pull open one of the tools so you end up pulling all of them out in one clump. Some users don’t like the clumping and I don’t think it’s great either but it’s also not a big deal. All brands seem to have the same issue so it’s probably an unavoidable side effect of the tight space available on multi-tools.

All these inside accessible tools lock into position so that gives you confidence when using them. And they release easily by putting pressure on an outside tab. The small and large screwdrivers are sturdy and engage as you’d expect. There’s also an awl with a thread loop. The awl has a sharp point and is useful for tasks you don’t want to risk your knife tip on. If you’re interested in what else an awl can be used for, I’ve written a list of great ideas. The can opener and bottle opener are standard Leatherman fare and do the job. Nothing much to report here.

The bit driver holds a reversible Phillips screwdriver bit and a flathead. As I said earlier, the flathead is a waste because you already have a dedicated small and large screwdriver. Having a bit driver makes it worthwhile buying the optional bit kit. You can then carry the bit that suits you best and if you use the sheath to carry, you can store one row of bits in the sheath.

Besides the ruler, that’s all the tools the Surge has to offer. So what’s the verdict?

Pocket It or Pawn It?

This is an easy one for me. The Leatherman Surge is my go-to multi-tool for jobs around the house and yard. It’s got such a great feel in the hand because it feels so sturdy. The weight actually works to its advantage here and gives you confidence that it will handle just about anything a reasonable MacGyver can throw at it. All the tools lock and release easily, it’s got a full straight bladed knife and a full serrated knife, great pliers with replaceable wire cutters, reasonably sized sharp scissors and a bit driver.

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What would I change? The steel Leatherman are using for the straight and serrated blades is 420HC which on my scale of knife steels is good but it would be great if Leatherman could upgrade the steel to 154CM or a similar grade of steel. I’ve researched what steels multi-tool brands are using in their knives and how they rate here.

I’m not a huge fan of having to choose between interchangeable tools. You have to make a decision about which tool or bit you carry or otherwise carry the extra stuff with you where ever you go. With the blade holder, you have to choose between either inserting the saw or the file. My luck would be that I have the saw inserted and I find I need the file and vice versa. Same goes for the bit driver if you buy the bit kit and don’t carry it with you. I guess having a choice is better than no choice at all….

I have the current version of the Surge but the original version of it came with a jewelry driver. I really like jewelry drivers on a multi-tool because they are good multi-purpose tools, much like an awl is so versatile. Leatherman swapped the jewelry driver for another flat screwdriver which doesn’t seem to make sense. Particularly as the standard bit that comes with the bit driver means the Surge comes with a total of 3 flat screwdrivers.

I’m not the only one who is a big fan of the Surge. Feedback from other private and commercial longtime users of the Surge rave about it as a sturdy versatile multi-tool that can stand a lot of use. The Surge is actually my favorite heavy duty multi-tool and I gave it the heavy duty crown on my Recommended Multi-Tools page.  We’re all agreed and it’s an easy decision…..

MacGyver says POCKET IT!

Check out the current price on Amazon.

What’re your thoughts on the Surge? Do you own one? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Multi-tools – don’t leave home without one