Gerber MP600 DET knockoff 'Anti-explosion Plier' (Lynn's $5 MT Challenge)

[Lynn LeFey]

This tool review is part of a challenge, to see what the best Multittol was that I could get for $5, tax and shipping included. Here's a link to the main thread of the challenge, so you can see other contestants.
https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,75094.0.html

I purchased this tool new from Forum member, gerleatherberman for $5, who in turned paid like $12 for it. In essence, he gave it to me cheap to test. He mentioned he had a beat up one of these, and i offered him $5 for it, and instead he sent me a new one. So, first, thank you gerleatherberman for the tool. And second... I guess 'mooching' is an acceptable strategy to acquire cheap MTs. To be fair, the tool currently lists at about $7.50 shipped from China, so it's not too far of a reach to think it could be had used in decent condition for $5. This is me excusing my bad behavior.

The 'anti-explosion pliers' in the thread title is from a hilarious bit of marketing used by the seller, where it's called the 'Multifunctional Anti-Explosion Plier' 


So, what have we got, here?


As received, this thing was a good deal beyond 'stiff'. It tool a bit of oil and some working the tools to get it to open and close smoothly. The reason I think it's so stiff is that while it looks like a black oxide coated tool, it is in fact just painted black, and I think the thickness of the paint messes with the tools tolerances. That's my assumption. I think it's made pretty faithfully to the size of Gerber tools, but no one took into account the thickness of the paint layers.

It comes with a not-terrible sheath.


The material of the sheath is not as durable as that from an actual Gerber sheath, but the velcro patches securing it closed are pretty big, and the belt loops (which allow either vertical or horizontal carry) are pretty well stitched on.

Review of the plier head to follow.

[Mechanickal]

That looks scary close to the real deal by pics alone...

[Lynn LeFey]

It seems like every cheap tool, no matter how well made otherwise, has some absurdly glaring error.

So, let's talk about the pliers.

These pliers are... compromized, Virtually every other plier based multitool have needlenose pliers at the front, regular pliers in the middle/back, and sometimes wire cutters at the very back.

These have neednose in the front, and wire cutters in the back, and... What in the name of Tim Leatherman is that monstrosity in the MIDDLE? Ok... well, in the Gerber MP600 DET name, the 'DET' stands for Demolition Explosion Tool. The 'anti-explosion plier' in the advertising above comes from that. And that stupid thing smurfing up the plier head? That's for crimping blasting caps.

No. Really.

I think, and I'm maybe going out on a limb here, but I THINK the only tool that is possibly more worthless to me than a fish scaler is a blasting-cap crimper. 

So... crap. Okay, how do the needlenose pliers work at least?

'Badly'. This is the tool with the plier handles closed as far as they'll go, and the stupid spike folded out of the way to prevent them from screwing up the handles closing.


See that gap in the jaws? See how the tools in the handles are touching, so the handles can't close any further? Yeah. A close up of the jaws...


That is a pretty significant gap. You are not grabbing anything fine with this. Nothing like sheet metal or thin gauge wire. I'd be shocked if you could get a firm grip on 12-gauge house wire.

How do they work on bolts?


They are pretty terrible. They only get a hold of the bolt on two corners and the fine dentition of the jaws, coupled with being painted, means grip is bad. The UPSIDE is that the handles are very comfortable, so you are free to grip as hard as you like (and still fail to get traction).

On smaller bolts...


Okay, here, the lower turning force required makes these not-bad for light duty small bolts.

In general, though, these things are utter dogshi.... uhhhmmmm...utterly bad.

For working heavy wire, I pulled the bail from an old paint can, and...


Okay, pretty good. This wire i about as thick as coathanger wire to give an idea.

Next, the wire cutters...


Okay. No problem. While it seemed like it took a lot of force to cut that wire, it didn't damage the wire cutters, and as I said, the handles are very comfortable, so applying the needed pressure was no big deal.

As a bonus, I then folded out the file to see if I could knock down the sharp edges of the wire.


To my absolute amazement, it actually worked. There is a file on a budget MT that will do something besides file nails. Huh.

Pliers for fine work: FAIL
Pliers for big bolts: FAIL
Pliers for very, very specific tasks: half-hearted PASS
Wire Cutters: PASS

Overall, for a tool that wastes so much mass and function to the plier head, this thing is a massive failure. But then, I'm not in explosive ordinance disposal, so what the smurf do >I< know?

[Lynn LeFey]

That looks scary close to the real deal by pics alone...

The 'tell' to determine that it's a fake is the paint. It was painted black, it's not covered in black oxide.

Cue Rolling Stones music

I see an MT and i want to paint it black.
To sell this fake thing I just have to paint it black.
I see the jaws on this thing don't bother to close.
They call it DET because this thing just blows!

Thank you... thank you. I'm here all week folks. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

[Mechanickal]

The anti explosion tool.

Because smurf ain't going down when you crimped the blasting caps with this one

[ThePeacent]

well I can comment on this one sicnce I've had it for abit already. 

- My tips were perfectly aligned and closed at the very point, no gap. But I bent them applying force and now they are misaligned side to side 



- The paint does interfere with the action, my tool was like gritty and hard until after months of light use, opening and closing the paint went off and now most implements are smooth(er)
As you can see I put them through some sandpaper to thin the edges and taper them, and now they did decently on screws



- The edge on mine came deadly sharp, like shaving, thin paper slicing sharp, but lost its edge real quick. The serrations snagged, though, unlike good SE from for example Spyderco or Victorinox . The lanyard hole, well, that's a thick honkin' protrusion with horrible buildup, position and design.
It's a truly shameful part of the tool 



- The DET spike, well, i can't speak for them all, but just be careful. oft wood stabbing? Ok. Anything with minimal alteral pressure or horizontal lock stress? watch out for your hands, and hope to end up the task without any additional hole in your body   



- And finally, I found one use for the crimpers, which then puts them at the same height as the fish scaler which i had use for in one particular situation (improvised fork)
You can grab caterpillars safely applying minimal pressure on their thicker part with the james, and letting the soft squishy organs move frely inside the crimper's hole. Doesn't work for all sizes of caterpillars, though   



on the sheath, mine also seemed good. After 2 months of carry (I don't usually carry tools on their sheaths, I swap them to a better one) these deadly pokey needlenose tips made a nice hole through them, and I feared the tool might finally slip out of it and poke through inadvertently


.
One of the belt loops also ripped apart pretty easily. Real MP600 Blunt Noses are way more forgiving   

[Lynn LeFey]

If you've read any of the other $5 challenge entries, you all know how this blade test goes.

Out of the package, as received, it was JUST able to cut regular paper along it's plain edge portion.


After sharpening, which just required 20 strokes on each side on ceramic rods, it was up to cleanly cutting thin receipt paper. I also used a diamond rod on the serrated protion, if for nothing else, to remove the PAINT from the cutting surface. 


Then, off to cut some cardboard...


The good news here, I guess, is that the handles are very comfortable, and the lock on the blade works, and made me feel secure in hard use of the tool. The BAD news is that the serrated portion SHREDDED the material more than cut it, and unless I was extremely careful, the serrated portion of the blade was pretty certainly going to get involved.

For those readers who know me, this is going to be no surprise...
I HATE combination blades. I DEEPLY, from the bottom of my soul HATE them. They are the worst idea ever. Worse than that, the mechanics of the Gerber sliding head system already force the blades to be short in comparison to the tool's overall length. Then you go and screw up a blade by taking away half it's useful cutting surface for... for WHAT? A portion of blade that's rediculously hard to sharpen, and won't chew through 550 paracord?

SMURF YOU, stupid blade makers! Die in a housefire! 

So... I'd LOVE to go try some whittling with this thing, but... yeah. It doesn't work for that. BECAUSE SOMEONE PUT SERRATIONS ON THE BLADE where I'd normally be choking up for fine work!

 

This is not solely a function of THIS tool. I have an actual MP600, and it has a virtually identical blade design. And IT sucks, too.

Blade for small tasks or mulching cardboard: reluctant PASS

[Lynn LeFey]

You can grab caterpillars safely applying minimal pressure on their thicker part with the james, and letting the soft squishy organs move frely inside the crimper's hole. Doesn't work for all sizes of caterpillars, though   

I'm assuming you have METRIC caterpillars over there, and they wouldn't work as well with our English sized caterpillars.

[Lynn LeFey]

Test of screwdrivers

Phillips
I tried the phillips in a hinge screw, and it seemed REALLY solid. So I took it to THE test, the one no other tool in this challenge has yet faced. A woodscrew in a bench. I've broken multitools on these screws before. It's as far as I ever push tools in testing.

And...?


Success. It wanted to cam out of the screw, unless I applied considerable pressure, but the locking tools ALLOWED me to apply as much pressure as I wanted. Solid tool lock-up, solid performance. I'd like to see the head formed a little better, slot into screws more securely, but it did the job, along with about 6 other much less difficult screws.

The flathead got to go against a paint-crusted screw in a latchplate.


It did fine. One scrape of the flathead's blade against the old paint to clear a groove, and it turned the screw easily.

On to the crusty paint can pry test.


Maybe the most solid performance in this task so far in the challenge. This tool just generally feels like it's up to WAY more hard-work tasks than the others. The locking mechanism lends to some of that, but it's also really solidly constructed. 'Borrowing' a proven design helps, I'm sure.

I actually didn't test the small flathead on the cap lifter, other than on a few very light screws, like faceplates of outlets and light switches. It's small enough that I don't think it'd ever be put to hard use.

Drivers: PASS with distinction

[gerleatherberman]

Nice write-up, Lynn! 

The steel on the tools is no joke. I had a 600 with a broken file and blade. Tried to drill the fake DET holes open to fit the larger Gerber pins and burned up several expensive bits. 

One cheater trick is to take the clips off that hold the pliers in and put a tiny washer around the lower clip-peg and re-install the pliers. This will make the plier tips actually meet. Did that today to mine and the pliers meet. What did I gain from that? An Anti-Explosion" POS with slightly more aligned pliers.

[Lynn LeFey]

One cheater trick is to take the clips off that hold the pliers in and put a tiny washer around the lower clip-peg and re-install the pliers. This will make the plier tips actually meet. Did that today to mine and the pliers meet. What did I gain from that? An Anti-Explosion" POS with slightly more aligned pliers.

Great tip! Thanks! 

This would probably drastically improve my opinion of the pliers.

On to cap lifter and can opener.

For cap lifting...


Success. It's a little... okay, maybe more than a LITTLE awkward at this task, but it succeeded.

Can opener?


Mmmm... No. The nearest the blade can get to the rim of the can is seen here where it dented the lid. I'm not going to bother mangling a can, trying to get it open. There's nothing inherently wrong with the can opener itself, it's just in the wrong PLACE on the tool. There's no reason it couldn't be moved into a more left-side (as viewed in the photo) position, making it hook the rim without the body of the tool being in the way. The fail here is 100% from idiots assembling the tool in a stupid way.

Just... 

I've had like three or four MTs like this. Just assembled by idiots, apparently.

And I don't feel like spending a single second more on this tool than I have to. I'm NOT taking it apart and fixing this stupid error. I did this fix on the Northern Tools 'Mountain' multitool, in this thread.
https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,44010.0.html

And I had a pretty detailed review of how to disassemble and reassemble an MP600 in 'My bargain basement ebay MP600 purchase' thread here...
https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,49504.msg827315.html

That will get you in the ballpark if you want an idea of how fixing the tool would go. A word of warning before you begin, if you decide to try 'cheap and cheerful surgery' on this: TAKE PICTURES, so you know how the parts went in before you began.

Cap Lifter: moderate PASS
Can Opener: FAIL in stock configuration

[Lynn LeFey]

So, there are TWO functions on this MT that are remnants of copying the MP600 DET. There's the cap crimper in the plier head, and...

This...


That's a spike, intended to punch holes in blocks of c4, so you can then insert the blast cap you crimped earlier with the pliers.

I said in the plier review that I thought the cap crimper would be the least used tool I've seen on an MT, and I stand by that. This spike, while it would never see use for demolitions, MIGHT be useful as a marlin spike.It worked okay in picking apart a knot in some 550 paracord.

I've made a lot of little woodburning cook stoves from tin cans that require a lot of vent holes to be punched. This thing easily punches through cans for that function.

I've half-jokingly referred to various otherwise useless tools as 'general pokey bits of metal'. Well, this is a specifically designed pokey bit of metal, and it's a REALLY good poker.

Lockup on my version was solid, and it would take extraordinary side pressure to tear it out of that locked position, I pressed on it with maybe 30 lbs of force, and it felt like if I WANTED to make it collapse, I could get it to, but at that point it seemed way beyond any real-world use. A downward stabbing kind of thrust with this thing into something at a full swing MIGHT be able to produce that kind of force.

Spike for spiking things that need to be spiked: PASS

[Lynn LeFey]

Okay, some thoughts to wrap up.

This tool is 225g (about 8oz) where another plier based competitor, the Ozark Trail 12-in-1 tool is 161g (a bit over 5 1/2 oz)

That's not a small difference. The DET knockoff is capable of more HEAVY work, but fails in some really basic functions. The plier fail is a BIG issue. I'll have to see if i can get some thin brass washers to improve them. If not, I'd almost call this thing a straight up fail. The two BIG functions, pliers and knife, don't stack up to the Ozark Trail tool.

If I were stuck with this tool, I'd reprofile that blade, to get rid of the BS semi-serrated crap, to make that blade USEFUL, shim up the pliers, and... honestly... this would probably be a really good medium duty tool. Oh, right... and take it apart to move the can opener. That's starting to seem like a lot of work for a cheap tool, to make it 'tolerable'.

I can't knock it out of the competition yet, but as it comes it's not as good as the Ozark Trail 12-in-1 tool, IMO.

[ReamerPunch]

Having a big tool like that might give it an edge over the keychain ones in the competition, but then again, if it's this bad, I won't hold my breath. 

[Sam Lim]

I have got one of this. This is a very common MT from where I am. Sadly, most people know they are Chinese knock offs but they doesn't seems to care.. To me, it's good for one thing. The cloning of this tool is rather good. Parts are even almost 1 : 1 ratio. I scrutinised the plastic lock tab to fix my mp600. It fits almost perfectly. Yes, the file is quite decent as well.

[ThePeacent]

good thoughts and most I share.
The drivers are good and they've proven sturdy to me, but as I said I felt the need to remove the paint on mine so they could fit my most commonly found screws. The can opener was especially bad in that regard   



My spike failed but I admit it was after applying excessive force and twisting in both directions, during the previous year of poking and stabbing it never failed once. 
No comments on the lanyard function, that horrendous and badly implemented thing?

[gerleatherberman]

Thank you for the excellent work, Lynn! Very cool stuff, since I never use a can opener, I never knew how terribly it was placed!
As Sam Lim said, the tool overall is close to the real thing sort of, except the tool pivots are much smaller around and poorly fashioned compared to Gerber and a few other things. This makes tool swapping difficult. You cannot install Gerber tools into the handles, and you have to drill the hole in the fake's tools bigger to fit a Gerber. I did manage to get the file(removed from older det fake with broke parts. Not my new one) drilled out bigger for another MP600BN I use as a beater and it works great, but I burned up some expensive bits doing it. Not worth the time or money to swap handle tools over. The fake DET steel is also notably softer and more poorly stamped as well. The lock slides lift off nearly a 1/4" when you pull back on them. This tool looks and acts like a Gerber, but in the end, would never last as long as a real MP600. Sorry Sam.

Now, with that being said, I was able to salvage something out of mine with something I picked up for a few bucks a while back
What is it? Only the easiest way to make this tool useful.
Boom. 1..2..3.. real Gerber plier head fits perfectly

[Lynn LeFey]

I wondered about that myself. Having disassembled the MP600 I have (that was itself a beater), I considered trying a plier head swap to the fake with a genuine Gerber one. It's not that hard to slide those clips off.

Then I remembered.... there is NOTHING in the fake that works better than in the genuine one, so why bother? Still if you have the spare head lying around, or in my opinion a better option, a plier head without the Crimper (as you've done).

THEN... then this tool would be pretty serviceable.

[gerleatherberman]

I wondered about that myself. Having disassembled the MP600 I have (that was itself a beater), I considered trying a plier head swap to the fake with a genuine Gerber one. It's not that hard to slide those clips off.

Then I remembered.... there is NOTHING in the fake that works better than in the genuine one, so why bother? Still if you have the spare head lying around, or in my opinion a better option, a plier head without the Crimper (as you've done).

THEN... then this tool would be pretty serviceable.

Indeed I had a spare plier head laying around. Kind of a neat tool, but mainly a toy more than a real 600. 

[Sam Lim]

There. I got the Mp600 frame with one side of the lock gone. Used the fake to replace the missing lock. Works perfectly. Left is the original lock tab, right is the transplant from the fake.. The original was riveted. I have to use screw and nut, but it works. See how similar in size the cloned parts are.

[Lynn LeFey]

Nice! 

I thought I'd used this picture in the write-up, but I didn't. I have an actual Gerber MP600, and compared the two VERY closely.



It's good to know the knockoff is at least worth a couple donor parts.

[Don Pablo]

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The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

— Plutarch, Theseus

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So if you gradually replace the real MP600 parts with parts from the fake one, when is it no longer a real MP600? 

[gerleatherberman]

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The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

— Plutarch, Theseus

Show content

So if you gradually replace the real MP600 parts with parts from the fake one, when is it no longer a real MP600? 

OR. Since Gerber just assembles the 600 in the US, and presumably the parts are made overseas, do the knock-off parts become Gerber parts when installed into the MP600?

Note: I am no philosopher(or study thereof),  but I do like multi-tools. And that was a great philosophical quagmire to contemplate that you quoted, Pablo. Thank you!

[Lynn LeFey]

I don't think I linked it before, but here's Chako's great comparison of this tool versus a real Gerber to help spot it as a fake.
https://forum.multitool.org/index.php?topic=18527.0

[ThePeacent]

to add to this excellent overview, I decided to put a side pic with other cheapos and a good SAK PX in ase anyone in the future wants to have a size/looks reference when considering buying this tool 




hopefully you don't  mind Lynn, I took the pics today and considered it possibly useful information to add to the archives of this great forum   



I'll edit it out if it is not the place

[Lynn LeFey]

Seems like a fine place for it to me. 

Yeah... if this thing had regular pliers instead of the cap crimper nonsense, I don't think it'd be bad at $5-10 price range.