I carried one around in a kit for about 10 years w/o using it, until the fisrt time I did and it broke on the first stroke. In fairness, possibly because of being kinked by all the packing and repacking in that 10 years.

BCB has come out with a new model which they say (and they are pretty good) is a dramatic improvement over the old ones. I have one on order, but the new US distributor is just coming on line, and I am not holding my breath.