Coghlan's Magnesium Fire Starter - Portable Waterproof Survival Tool for Camping, Hiking, Bushcraft, and Emergency Preparedness – Durable and Reliable Outdoor Firestarter with Built-in Flint

Works great

When you find yourself in a survival situation the ability to make a fire to signal for help, boil drinking water, or warm your food or yourself, even after being soaked to the skin, this little tool can be the difference between fire or no fire. Produces lots of sparks, and the magnesium shavings are very flammable to help ignite a hot tinder bundle asap. You can carry it easily and have it when you need it . I can recommend this.

Good

I now have several of this type with different company names. So far I have been lucky in not having one of those that don't work at all. They all perform about the same. That is the reason for the five stars - the Coglans works as well as the one with a Federal Stock Number or the one from the Friendly Swede. It is an effort to remove shavings from each. Most of the strikers/scrapers you get with magnesium bars and ferro rods are not very effective. The effectiveness of removing shavings depends on how good the scraper is. That depends on how sharp a flat edge it has. How big a pile needed depends a lot on the tinder being used with it and weather conditions. A few shavings will ignite and burn in a flash with only some ash and soot remaining. A "pile" will burn into it's center, staying hot, and will work much better. It takes an effort to learn what is needed to start a fire, particularly in bad weather, with this or other means.Magnesium is available which works well. It comes in different forms. Magnesium fire starters which come in cylinder form rather than bars work much better for me than the bars. The cylinders I have are softer and easier to get shavings. I have one called Survivor which works well and the one I prefer. If all else fails, magnesium can be bought in shaving form - quality will still be an issue as most is not by a name brand.I read some prior reviews which said this was put with other prepper stuff, and another said it was a must have. One said it wouldn't be good in a boy scout kit. Others were unhappy with the preformance of the bar or the way the ferro rod was stuck to it. Consistent quality is problem in the day of foreign junk.I feel fairly safe in saying the folks in Puerto Rico who just lost all their belongings and using wood from their furniture or the tree in the yard aren't looking for a magnesium bar to start a cooking fire. Maybe after all the lighters run out of fuel, this would be handy- otherwise I would be reaching for some matches or a lighter.These are good as a training devise for adults as well as boy scouts. They help teach how to prepare tinder and combustables to make fire in a more basic way. This carries over to making fire in a more technically modern way. Waterproof matches or a lighter are far better in a have to situation and should be in your pocket, your 72 hour kit, your car or where ever. For hiking/camping, take more than one lighter - they weigh very little. If you really want a ferro rod & magnesium kit that works well, spend the extra money and buy a Survivor one or one from FireSteel.com or other really good source. Then put the effort into learning how to use it.

i mainly bought this as a backup in case i was stuck in the woods somewhere and was too far from camp to be near a fire source. i didnt have too many magnesium strips in my time, but i am guessing they all work the same way.now the instructions say that you need a back of a knife to get it to work, but pretty much anything metal will do the trick. thats right, you can use your keys are even the zipper of your jacket to get it going. its just so easy to use. altho, i guess the cons of it would be if you left it dangling out for whatever reason and it hit something, you'd start a fire. unintentionally.

I can see that a number of people are having trouble starting fires with this so I thought I should chime in.The firestarter works as advertised but it does take some effort to use. If you're having trouble you might just need someone to show you how to use it as the directions on the back aren't the greatest.You want to pare off shavings from the flat side of the firestarter similar to how you would pear off shavings of an apple or some kind of produce. Slow but very firm pressure against the starter. You may have to work a little harder the first time as it looks like there's some kind of coating on the outside, scrape until it's shiny then start paring. The box says to make enough shavings to cover a quarter. That's probably a little more than you need. Try it on a paper towel in the sink and fold the paper towel so the shavings are concentrated in the center.Then strike the tube-shaped side of the firestarter to make sparks. But hold it very close, only about 1 inch from the shavings. It may take a few strikes, you'll have ignition.It takes several minutes to start a fire with this, maybe a little quicker after some practice. It's not the most convenient way to start a fire but I probably wouldn't bother to bring matches or a lighter to the camp site if I had this but if you're looking for the simplest and quickest way, this type of fire starter isn't for you.

Great buy especially when you can’t find it in the stores