I have no experience with these devices and personally I see them as gadgets. But I want to be open minded and I'm sure a lot of you have experience with them,and opinions on thier usefulness as opposed to matches and other methods such as fire steels etc?
The reason I got interested in this is I see they now have a piston which fits in an Altoids tin.

I tend to view it like you do, but if I was going to try one I'd be tempted to try this Numyth Vulcan v2 piston. However I don't recall ever seeing a fire piston small enough for an Aloids tin.

I use fire pistons in Physics classes to give students an idea of the power of compression. To get a fire out of it you have to have a completely dry char cloth or similar tinder, good technique, etc. They are much harder to use than any of the more modern techniques. I would even consider it below a bow drill and similar primitive fire starting methods because you have to carry something to do it with. Those techniques can be improvised in the field. The space is much better spent on a mini Bic or matches. Even a ferro rod is much better. For an Altoids tin type kit, I use the metal Spark-Lite.

Respectfully,

Jerry

Thanks Phaedrus. I saw it on Ebay. It was in an altoids tin and looks to be all metal.

Thanks Jerry. I agree that it would be a bad choice, even for a pyro like me. I like things that are like me: Simple and straight forward. Mini bic, storm matches and spark-lite. In my experience gadgets tend to fail in the field, even under the best conditions, let alone in the worst. Things break, parts get lost, etc.
I also noticed that UCO Stormproof matches in the small vial have a nifty little ferro rod, but no mention of a striker. I could assume that one is meant to use their knife. But what if it's lost or is stainless steel?

I haven't seen a ferro rod / UCO matches bundle, but with respect to the second part of your question ferro rods do not require a carbon blade, all they require is a sharp edge. I use the spine of my stainless knife all the time (I modified my sheath to carry the ferro rod & don't even bring a striker). It is flint & steel that requires a carbon blade I believe.

My understanding of this is that the material in the ferro rod is softer than steel so you are scraping material off of the rod. With flint & steel, you need carbon but this is because the flint is harder than the steel and in that case you are actually scraping the material off of the blade, not the flint.

That's absolutely right. With a flint, the sparks come from the steel of the knife -- tiny shards of iron are burning. With a ferro rod, the sparks come from the rod itself -- tiny shards of cerium are what's burning.

You do need a minimum hardness to get a decent spark with a ferro rod. The 56 HRC of a SAK seems to be the minimum. I agree that gadgets will fail at the worst possible time. The only 'Gadget' I found that was worth it's weight was the ferro rod/mag block fire starters.

heres the one I found on Ebay, Phaedrus.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Altoid-Tin-Fire-...=item27e9f01f7d

Interesting denis, Chaos and Mark.
I had been led to believe that you needed a carbon edge to use the flint rods. Hence the reason people had started to using bits of hi carbon hacksaw blades. I thank all of you for correcting that.
Yes I have carried and used the magnesium blocks and have used them. With a hacksaw blade. That's a piece I can discard now. I don't like that you must construct a windproof enviroment so the magnesium shavings don't blow away, but I understand that they have saved lives.
I saw the matches with ferro rod on Ebay. It claims brand new and sealed. I have a bid on them now.