I have one lexan piston and it does not work well at all. Mine has about a half inch (maybe a little less) shaft...this makes the compression chamber quite large in comparison to the smaller cavity wood pistons. I can only get a flash maybe once in 20 hits with it, and very very very very infrequently do I get a coal. Mine is all flash and no fire....lots of work and ugly to boot.

I have no idea who made this lexan piston or if the others out there have such a huge cavity, but if they do I would avoid them like the plague.

I think you can get a flash in a dark room with them which is sort of cool but children are much more impressed with fire than flash in my view.

Check out the piston body diameter, cavity diameter and depth, and shaft diameter of any plastic one you are thinking of buying. I think these wood pistons have 3/8" shafts and the volume of the compression chamber has to be quite smallas the shaft nearly bottoms out. I would guess my Lexan version has a compression chamber that is 8-16 times greater than the wood pistons.