What to get???

[Gareth]

The upside of the Ranger is that it's barely thicker than your Huntsman, but packs in a good few extra tools.  Personally I wouldn't miss the small chisel, but the small screwdriver has been useful and the metal file is excellent.  The only downside is that you might never carry your Huntsman again.

[matty78943]

The upside of the Ranger is that it's barely thicker than your Huntsman, but packs in a good few extra tools.  Personally I wouldn't miss the small chisel, but the small screwdriver has been useful and the metal file is excellent.  The only downside is that you might never carry your Huntsman again.

we will have too see about that! 

what downsides are there to the swisschamp?

[magentus]

The upside of the Ranger is that it's barely thicker than your Huntsman, but packs in a good few extra tools.  Personally I wouldn't miss the small chisel, but the small screwdriver has been useful and the metal file is excellent.  The only downside is that you might never carry your Huntsman again.

we will have too see about that! 

what downsides are there to the swisschamp?

If you can cope with the bulk and the scaler (  ) there are no downsides.

[Gareth]

The upside of the Ranger is that it's barely thicker than your Huntsman, but packs in a good few extra tools.  Personally I wouldn't miss the small chisel, but the small screwdriver has been useful and the metal file is excellent.  The only downside is that you might never carry your Huntsman again.

we will have too see about that! 

what downsides are there to the swisschamp?

I have to say I don't have a lot of use for the pliers, but that's perhaps just me.  It's also quite a bulky thing to use, rather fat in the hand, but not so much that it's impractical IMO.  All this chat about it has prompted me to pop mine in my pocket.

[matty78943]

The upside of the Ranger is that it's barely thicker than your Huntsman, but packs in a good few extra tools.  Personally I wouldn't miss the small chisel, but the small screwdriver has been useful and the metal file is excellent.  The only downside is that you might never carry your Huntsman again.

we will have too see about that! 

what downsides are there to the swisschamp?

I have to say I don't have a lot of use for the pliers, but that's perhaps just me.  It's also quite a bulky thing to use, rather fat in the hand, but not so much that it's impractical IMO.  All this chat about it has prompted me to pop mine in my pocket.

i am thinking the pliers would be good as the tweezers are good at what they do but the one problem is that sometimes the tweezers do not have enough grip so i think the pliers could work as tweezers on steroids

[Gareth]

The upside of the Ranger is that it's barely thicker than your Huntsman, but packs in a good few extra tools.  Personally I wouldn't miss the small chisel, but the small screwdriver has been useful and the metal file is excellent.  The only downside is that you might never carry your Huntsman again.

we will have too see about that! 

what downsides are there to the swisschamp?

I have to say I don't have a lot of use for the pliers, but that's perhaps just me.  It's also quite a bulky thing to use, rather fat in the hand, but not so much that it's impractical IMO.  All this chat about it has prompted me to pop mine in my pocket.

i am thinking the pliers would be good as the tweezers are good at what they do but the one problem is that sometimes the tweezers do not have enough grip so i think the pliers could work as tweezers on steroids

That's definitely the best way to think of them I'd say.   

[matty78943]

if i really need pliers i have a gerber mp600 bladeless and a leatherman skeletool but am more of a victorinox guy tbh

[Swiss Guy]

I carry my Swiss Champ daily and I went through the same thing as you. However, I picked up the Climber, then the Huntsman, Ranger, Handyman, Champion and finally the Swiss Champ. I had thought, in the beginning, that the Swiss Champ would be too big and heavy and there were too many tools I wouldn't use. However, I have used everything on the Swiss Champ at one time or another. The pliers come in very handy for getting in to tight spaces where I can't get my fingers. For example, the other day I had to pull a battery out of a quadcopter and the wires were behind the battery and my fingers were unable to get a grip on the battery since the battery compartment was so small. The Swiss Champ pliers grabbed ahold and pulled the battery right out. I don't think of the pliers as "tweezers on steroids" but rather as metal finger tips.

[Oxford_Guy]

i have been looking into the ranger which does look like a good choice but i would like the pliers exept the handyman is out of stock from my local website i buy from.

convince me to get a ranger anyone?

The Master Craftsman I posted is bascially a Ranger, but with a Phillips driver on the back instead of a corkscrew. Most of my comments apply to both. For 5 layers it's remarkably compact, as none of the layers are that thick. It lalso has both a fine flat driver and wood chisel on the back layer, which not many models do, even those with saws/metal files (the Huntsman and Fieldmaster don't, or example). Unless you need pliers, it has pretty much everything most people would need.

The Ranger is easily available everywhere, the Master Craftsman can only be purchased from Japan (I ordered mine from Amazon Japan, only took 4 days to arrive in the UK!) and will be a little more expensive, but it's more compact, due to lack of corkscrew, and arguably more useful, if not needing it for wine opening duties, due the #2 Phillips driver. I also like the funky inlaid Space Shuttle on the scales (it's because the Master Craftsman was taken on the Space Shutttle missions).

[Oxford_Guy]

if i really need pliers i have a gerber mp600 bladeless and a leatherman skeletool but am more of a victorinox guy tbh

If you use Pliers a lot but want to go Victorinox, then the Swisstool Spirit is hard to beat!

[FiL Wisneski]

If you don't need the saws, the MiniChamp/Deluxe Tinker covers a lot of ground with limited redundancy.  I'm currently carrying a Midnight MiniChamp/Deluxe Tinker combo, which reduces redundancy even more and gives me a little light, too.  (I would prefer an inline Phillips to the Tinker's backside Phillips, but wanted something I could pocket carry, and a compromise had to be made somewhere.  If I find I don't use the pliers much, I may replace it with an Explorer.)

The thing I don't like about the Handyman is the lack of a real Phillips.

If you need everything on the Deluxe Tinker, but also want the saws, either get the SwissChamp or get a Craftsman.  But once you've entertained the Handyman/Craftsman, you might as well go whole-hog and get the SwissChamp (assuming price & weight are not issues) or the WorkChamp (assuming price & weight & length are not issues).

  - FiL