The Big Blue Mtn Magnesium Flint Steel Fire Starter Ferro Rod Striker Stick for Survival and Emergency Tool - 5 Pack Kit

I purchased a set of these and the cheaper magnesium bars with the flint insert for comparison purposes. These were used to create fire starting kits to award to my staff who assembled their 72 hour kits for Preparedness Month. I strongly recommend making a batch of char cloth in an Altoids or similar tin to complete your kit. I appreciated that these fire starter rods created a hotter spark that was visible in daylight hours. The magnesium bars did not. I look forward to purchasing more to give away to others. My only suggestion would be for these to be made shorter so they can fit in a small tin.

I bought several types of fire starter sticks in the same order. All of them were fine except these. These simply do not work. The striker toothed edge is very small and awkward. But most importantly, even on the magnesium rod, a spark is nearly impossible to generate. I tried many, many times with each of the five enclosed sticks using various strikers without success before giving up.I bought the "Survival Spark" at the same time and it works easily throwing big sparks with normal effort. These "Big Blue Mtn" sticks seem inert by comparison. I think you'd have better luck taking two of them and rubbing them together.

These work very well. They are coated with a black paint on the magnesium part. You need to scrape it with the tool to get to the silver part of magnesium. The fire striker worked well as well, it’s the then round bar that bumps out.I used on of these to start a little cook fire at home with nothing else. I do doubt that you can get 1000+ strikes out of the ferro bar, more like each stick would be suitable for about 12 fires.You would use the magnesium shavings especially on damp tinder To get the fire going. If you use it in dry tinder watch out for flare ups.

This “flint” is a thinly coated rod that gives off almost no spark. After about 15 strikes the rod separated from the plastic handle, I can see why - it’s glued in place with only about 3/8” of the rod recessed into the handle. I’m glad I tried this over my sink at home before giving these to the Cub Scout den to practice with. You would get nowhere fast with this in the field... Just spring for a better made setup.

These take forever. I tried to light a candle with it and these were just not sparking. So, I watched the video and I realized that the guy basically took about 30 minutes of scraping magnesium off on a bowl shaped leaf just to get a spark going that he then had to nurse into a fire. I guess these will be great whenever I have a few hours and nothing better to do. In the meantime, I am going to find something like the sparkers we used in science class with the Bunsen burners. Those sparked every time and were dirt simple to use.

Looked almost like fire steels I've purchase in the past but there was no sparking from these hence no fire. The rod appears to be solid magnesium and its shaving will ignite when a flame is applied. Tried 3 of the 5 with the same result. Had given the other 2 out and had to let friends know that they might be in for a rude awakening if they're out somewhere thinking they have a fire starter at their disposal.

I bought these to teach the families in our microschool to light their own fires. These were a great size for kid fingers, but not too small for an adult. Our group has kids as young as 3 and with training, everyone was able to strike a flame.

These turned out to be the ideal size for Altoid tin fire starting kits I'm putting together as prototypes to market. They fit, work wel on e the paint is removed with Acetone and strike super hot! A bit expensive but they will work EVERY STRIKE when starting a birds nest or other tinder (birch bark, crushed grass plant, dry leaves or fatwood shavings). It can, literally be a lifesaver if you know how to use it!