I purchased a Doug Ritter PSK a while back (at least a year ago) at a local EMS store. I bought the PSK with the intent to carry it with me when I go on hikes and backpacking trips. When I first bought it, I took all of the contents out and took a look at everything to become familiar with it. After checking each item in the kit, I was satisfied that everything was in working order, so I put it all back in the package and I've been carrying it ever since. Tonight I decided to take another look at the contents, and make sure everything is still in working order, when I noticed two things that bothered me.

First, I tried sparking the Spark-lite firestarter a couple of times to make sure it still worked. When I did so, it looked like small chunks of the flint wheel were actually falling off. After sparking it several times, my suspicions were confirmed and the flint wheel crumbled and fell off! I did a bit of searching about this, and found that it might have been from the flint oxidating because I sparked it a couple of times when I originally bought the PSK. Is this true? Should I not have tried out the sparklite until I really needed it?

Next, I noticed something with the signalling mirror. I had not removed any of the protective film, nor did I ever even remove it from the plastic package it was in. However, I noticed that there are small black marks all over the surface of the mirror. They look like they are small strands of fabric, but upon closer inspection, they appear to be INSIDE the mirror. I don't remember these from the first time I took a look at it. Is this normal? How could this have happened? I tried to take a picture of the mirror to post it here to show everyone what I mean, but I found taking a picture of a mirror with a digital camera is quite difficult. If anyone would like to see a picture of this though, I will try again and post the best results I can.

I was just wondering if any of this is normal or not. I always carry the PSK with me when I'm out and about, but now after this I'm just a little bit worried that my PSK might not be up to task if I ever do need it.