I don't know much about the magnesium fire starters (I have one but have never used it). But I do have some experience with char cloth.

Char cloth is a luxury item that you can create once you have fire. It is not designed to catch and hold a spark from your flint & steel or other primitive fire starting method, but it is instead meant to be hit by the spark and become a much larger ember. It is only meant to be used once. That is the drawback of it. On the up side, though, it is very good at catching a spark and then turning itself into a much larger ember.

For my char cloth I use 100% cotton 50-caliber cleaning patches. While they do shrink a little when I turn them into char cloth, one patch is enough for me to get a fire going. But, it all depends on the material you are using for your tinder bundle! The tinder bundle is very crucial. It doesn't matter how good of a spark you get or how good of an ember you get, if your tinder bundle is too damp or not fine enough or a bunch of other things you won't get it lit. I suggest that you do some google searches for "tinder bundle" and see if you can find information on good materials for the area in which you live.

As for me, I try to use a combination of cedar and birch bark. And, as others have mentioned, tinder fungus is a GREAT material, especially if combinded with other tinder materials in your tinder bundle. A friend of mine likes to make a "taco" out of a large piece of birch bark which he then fills with shreded, dried birch bark, tinder fungus, very fine, very dry wood shavings and some "sawdust" that he createds by scraping his knife blade across the wood he is getting his shavings from. Your tinder bundle should look like a bird's nest with the easiest lit materials in the middle, which is where the ember is placed. You will have to experiment and find the best way to place your ember or char cloth into the bundle so that it will easily ignite the material. When I use char cloth I reserve a bit of the finest tinder material, place the char cloth in the middle of the nest, and then put the reserved tinder material on it. As for my friend's tinder taco, the material is still in a nest shape, though oval, and the outer layer of birch bark (the taco shell) just makes it easy to hold.

As I said, you have to just find the best materials in your area and practice. For this, char cloth is great because you can cheat. To get used to using char cloth I would prepare a tinder bundle and then light the middle with a match and get it burning. This was just done for practice and was usually done on my back porch or while out camping. I was already good at getting a spark through various methods, but I felt this was just the easiest way to get used to using char cloth. Once I got down the proper tinder, then it was much easier (and a LOT less frustrating) to get a spark and ember using flint and steel and a char cloth and then ignite my tinder bundle.

Good luck and don't get discouraged!


Take care and have a great day....



ciao,
john.


PS I've found the easiest way to make char cloth is to simply place your material loosely into a tin can, cover tightly with some heavy duty tin foil, and then poke a hole in the tin foil with a push pin. Then, place on the coals of your fire, bank some coals around it, and then let is sit for 6-8 minutes. That's it.

PPS You should check out fire pistons! They are really cool, fun, and by far the easiest way to get an ember.