The folks at CRKT have teamed up with a seasoned green beret, Jeremy Valdez to bring a dream of his to life. Jeremy is highly decorated, he’s been recognized with two purple hearts, six bronze stars, one for valor, and the Special Forces Philip Neri award. Well known knife designer Bill Harsey stepped in to help Jeremy fulfill his dream of designing his own knife, and the result is the Septimo multi tool.
The Septimo is a strange beast, it features an adjustable wrench, screwdriver, bottle opener, glass breaker, and a knife. I've handled a lot of strange and interesting tools over the years, some good, some bad. The Septimo kind of rides somewhere between those two categories. Let's do a breakdown of this agglomerate of tools.
Firstly I'd like to talk about the wench, seeing this is probably the main function of the tool. The wrench is of the adjustable variety, and is opened with a worm gear similar to other adjustables on the market. As a wrench it performs pretty well, I didn't encounty as slippage from the teeth, or any movement of the gear once I tightened to the desired width. The glass breaker on the end of one of the jaws is rather funky, having one on the tool is a neat idea but I think it's a poor choice of location. I found that depending on what I'm using the wrench on, the breaker can kind of get in the way.
Having an in-line screwdriver is a nice function to have, it certainly has come in handy. The driver is standard 1/4 hex, and the Septimo has a double ended bit on board. There's a neat little door that's made out of nylon, you push from one side of the tool to rotate out the bit holder. The only complaint I have is the bit included is a #1 phillips and small flat. Sometimes you just need a #2 or a larger flat, and this means I would need to carry additional bits on my person.
The knife is a 2.86" in 8Cr13MoV, its tanto style and it has one Veff Serration. I'm not a huge fan of tanto style blades, but considering this designed by a green beret, I couldn't see anything else being on it. It's not the best blade style for general purpose, but it'll work for most of what you need a knife for. The Veff is a nice touch, CRKT has been using these serrations for years and they seem pretty popular. The Veff has a nice deep arc compared to a traditional serration and it makes short work popping things like zip ties, cutting cordage, etc.
The bottle opener is an interesting choice for this tool, I know it's standard on so many multitools, but it just feels out of place like the glass breaker. I didn't get a chance to test out the function of it, but I'm sure it'll function as one just fine.
The whole tool is black oxide coated, giving it a tactical feel to it. All the black feels kind of one note, but if your behind enemy lines, you most certainly don't want a glint from your tool to give you away. The Septimo does have these nice textured scales on either side to improve grip on what would otherwise be a very slick tool. Lastly we have the pocket clip, it's a loop over deep style clip, but this does not make the Septimo deep carry. The clip is positioned in a ways so the wrench and glass breaker poke out of your pocket like Ness peeking from the depths of the Loch. I would have preferred the clip be on the other end with the wrench facing down, this would have allowed higher placement of the clip, and true deep carry.
The Septimo doesn't hit the target on all of its functions but it's not horrible. I'm sure we have some of our service men who carry one or maybe even some civilians, it just isn't something I gravitate towards. I would love a version 2.0 that addresses some of these issues, and maybe they'll knock it out of the park.
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