The Fire Starter at Russell's For Men is described as having a magnesium rod, but no artificial flint as such.

Would the included steel striker make sparks against such a rod? I thought magnesium had to be shaved off, gathered into a small pile, then lit with a spark or a match.

that thing is a ferosium rod. Wenn you slowly scrape ferosium you can use it as the magnisium part of a MFS. Just scrape faster after you scraped enough, to light it.

That's the standard issue Kershaw ferrocerium rod. No magnesium in it at all. It is misrepresented in the ad.

It is misrepresented all over the place, it seems. I did a search for "Kershaw Fire Starter" in Froogle and the phrase "Magnesium steel shaft" shows up quite frequently. I did not know there was such a thing as "magnesium steel." I think the marketing department messed up.

You can indeed carefully shave bits of it off and ignite it.

I used to think that WAS the magnesium fire starters people were talking about, I remember taking a LONG time to get even a little pile....

Then I discovered the actual magnesium firestarters and I'm like "doh!"

They're mistaken, that's the "flint" rod, there's no magnesium bar there (at least in their picture), and kind of pricey at that!

Pricey? Not necessarily. The Kershaw is Swedish made by Light-My-Fire - it's their Scout Model. It puts out more sparks than this ...


(Shown is a USGI Doan Tool being scraped by an AG Russell Field Knife)

M

Survival Sheath(http://www.survivalsheath.com/fire/index.htm) offers the smaller Kershaw model, as well as a larger Firesteel for $14.95. I think I'm going to replace that huge Ultimate Survival Strike Force with something a little more compact. I was using the Strike Force in Smoky Mountains National Park one time and the bar fell right out of the plastic housing! When I got back to "syphilization", I called the company and made them replace it for me.

Yeah, I'm thinking about buying one of those "military matches" that they have on that website and replacing the ferrocerium rod in my kit with it. It offers both magnesium and the ferrocerium striker, yet It's not as bulky as the full sized square magnesium firestarters with flint in the side, so I think it'll be an improvement.

If you can't start a fire with what you've got pictured in the photo, you'd better give up. I've never gotten (or needed) that much spark off a Doan, but it's nice to know it's possible if I want to work that hard.


Troy