I thank you for the pics! I will post some pics of my stuff after some gear I ordered arrives. I see you have some mischmetal ferro rods from Firesteel.com. Those are my favorite.
When I talk about fire starters on a survival forum, I like to talk about products that will be reliable in extreme conditions. Realistically, there is likely to be at least one person to read this thread and actually need a fire starter for a life or death situation.
The following is my unsolicited opinion to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't have confidence in matches of any kind. I don't want them as part of my three essential fire starters, but matches are so common because everybody knows how to use matches, right? The piston devices that you displayed seem a little gimmicky and overpriced to me, in comparison to ferro rods. The Metal Match that you displayed is cool and fun, but seems like the biggest toy of them all. The Survival Spark (not shown) was appealing to me for awhile, but now that also seems gimmicky. Lighters like Bics and Zippo (not shown) are OK to carry along for starting fires in nice conditions, but they don't inspiring high confidence in the reliability department. Again, my mindset is extreme conditions.
Ferro rods, which I own and use, seem to be the best combination of ruggedness, reliability and versatility. Generally, for any situation, I have high confidence in carrying the following: 2 Peanut Lighters, 2 ferro rods, 2 scrapers and some pre-made tinder (e.g., cotton balls and petroleum jelly). I also have confidence in flares, but I realistically don't imagine me carrying flares on my person.
I agree with almost everything you say here, with one exception; the lighters. I tested some lighters in the dead of winter by leaving them out in my unheated shed for weeks in very cold weather. As expected, they sparked but did not light at first. After about five minutes inside my glove, they worked just fine. Although I have never had a lighter fail due to cold, snow, or rain, I realize that it could happen. I also am unsure of the effects of altitude on them if any. I have no hard stats, but even if you figured a 5% failure rate for lighters, two of them would bring it to under 1%, and three of them would require some technical calculations above my pay level. Even a dead lighter still sparks. Total investment? $4.00 for 3 lighters and $3.00 for a military surplus ferro rod for that tiny chance.
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