If you all remember I had asked about experiences with fire pistons and received the web site of Wilderness Solutions (www.firepiston.com). I decided to purchase one, not so much for survival use, but because well, it looked cool and besides my wife will often ask me to demonstrate various skills to her Girl Scout troop and well it looked cool. The piston was pricey, but my experience is that things well made, especially by hand are worth the cost. Yesterday, Wednesday is my night on the Medic unit, so I am generally rushed coming home from my regular job, getting cleaned up and heading on over to quarters for my shift. When I came home there was the box from Wilderness Solutions with the fire piston. I knew I did not have enough time to really play with it, but being a boy with a new toy I just had to check it out. It is very well made as I had expected. Well to make the story interesting and long: We keep an old synthetic blanket on our bed, since our dog (lab mix) likes to sleep there when he is inside. Now, I just wanted to test the action on the fire piston, with no expectation of really testing it out or making a fire. So, I pushed down on the plunger, pulled it out and low and behold there was a piece of glowing tinder that proceeded to pop out onto the bed. Needless to say the blanket started to smolder. I attempted to smother the glowing ember, which just caused it to break up into several pieces, further burning holes in the blanket. Fortunately the underneath blanket is wool; so no further damage other occurred. When I get the chance I will really check it out (outside) and repot back to the group. Pete