The Leatherman MUT™
Leatherman’s latest addition to their line of utility tools is the MUT™. That’s the acronym for Military Utility Tool. It was developed and designed for soldiers, law enforcement, and civilian gun owners. If you are the kind of outdoorsman who does all his shooting through the lens of a camera, your artistic side will be awed by the tool’s use of space, but you can save yourself some time by skipping to the last paragraph of this review. Everything else about the MUT™ is geared toward active firearm aficionados.
For those with a love and respect for guns, the M16/AR15 family of rifles in particular, it is quite possible that you will come to think of your MUT as man’s best friend. It feels good, it looks cool, and its 18 tools can do incredible things.
It is designed to be your one maintenance tool for bolt override malfunctions, take down and retaining pin removal, and firing pin retaining pin removal. It has several special tools for cleaning and some of the “regular” tools are adapted for use on guns. For instance, while all utility tools offer a screwdriver, most have only Phillips and flat head bits. This one includes two common sizes of each of those and adds a hex 7/64” and a Torx #15 for adjusting scopes and optics. The T-15 also happens to be the standard size used on adjusting recent model headlights, which might be good to know if you are stuck out in the boonies and want to see where you are going.
It has all the other features that would be expected on a good utility tool: knife, pliers, wire cutters, saw, and bottle opener. And then it adds its specialty features. One of these is the bronze carbon scraper tool. The hardened bronze is able to safely remove carbon build-up without leaving scratches on the gun, and like many other tools, it is replaceable.
The modularity that allows for replacement of parts is one of the outstanding things about the MUT™. The cutting hook, the disassembly punch, the hammerhead and other commonly used parts can be replaced in the field with a torx #8. That size is not included, however, which leaves us with a case of the physician unable to heal thyself.
The easy remedy is to stick a T-8 in your cleaning kit because the MUT™ has places that are threaded to accept those brushes and cleaning rods too. It is apparent that a lot of forethought was given to making a toolset that will be useful in the field and will save the downtime of having to come back to base for spot maintenance and repairs.
When not in use, it packs into its MOLLE sheath that also happens to hold a wrench sized to fit most scopes. It comes with a 25 year manufacturer’s warranty.
For the average outdoorsman, the MUT™ gets a ranking of 3.5 on a 1-5 scale. It is not the craftsmanship that drops the rank; it is the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $179.00, although many merchants are advertising a price near $150.00. Even so, the average outdoorsman would be paying for a set of 18 high-quality tools but probably use only half of them. For those who don’t need to service a firearm, the Leatherman’s website has a “find your utility tool by activity” section. The more your work or hobbies put you in contact with assault rifles, the higher the personal value will climb. If you are in the target market for a MUT™, you can give it a 5.