moreWe found the steel striker had a larger impact on the products performance than the ferrocerium rod. It was hard to tell if it’s the composition of the steel or the shape of the the contact edge, but we tested each of the strikers on different rods and found one striker in particular consistently made the most sparks no matter what rod we used it on. All new rods come from the factory with a coating to prevent oxidizing. The first time you use the rod, you’ll need to scrape through the protective coating to get it sparking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[nggallery id=87]Doan Magnesium Fire Starting Tool<\/strong> $6 PRO: reliable, inexpensive, easy to pack. CON: takes forever to scrape enough magnesium, must have a separate knife, dulls your knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [nggallery id=89]Ultimate Survival Tools Sparkie<\/strong> $8 PRO: compact, ergonomic, inexpensive, can be used one-handed on a surface or in the air. CON: plastic housing can break, small stroke length is a little awkward, need to squeeze hard with your thumb which could be tough with numb hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [nggallery id=83]Ultimate Survival Tools Blast Match<\/strong> $24 PRO: Long stroke surface, plenty of sparks. CON:Carbide blade is embedded in plastic, can fall out, difficult to use without a firm base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [nggallery id=84]Ultimate Survival Tools Strikeforce <\/strong>$24 PRO: Great handles for controlling the tool, storage compartment for WetFire tinder. CON: Short rod and scraper require a little practice to use, bulky for a survival tool. [singlepic id=1010 w=225]Light My Fire Swedish FireSteel Scout<\/strong> $12 GearScout Approved<\/strong> PRO: Best sparker of the bunch, the scraper made the most sparks when used on all every rod, easy to control. CON: Scraper lanyard secured with a cordlock that popped off during use. Ditch the doohickey, tie a knot and be done with it. [nggallery id=85]TAD Gear Survival Spark<\/strong> $20 www.tadgear.com GearScout Approved<\/strong> PRO: A metal version of the venerable spark-Lite is the smallest and lightest of the group, brass construction is tough and won’t rust, very effective one hand operation when used with easily lit tinder. Comes with a handful of Tinder-Quik. High cool-guy factor. CON: Small spark is very dependent on fine, dry tinder; uses a lighter style flint chip that will need replacement after a few hundred fires. It’s got moving parts that can fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [singlepic id=1019 w=225]ProForce Army and Scout Fire Flints<\/strong> $31\/$20 PRO: Simple, rugged, effective. Comes in two sizes. Both have a handle that’s easy to grip. The scrapers are simple the rounded edges won’t cut or snag anything stored with them. CON: Adequate performance and standard materials don’t justify the high price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [singlepic id=1002 w=225]Brunton Striker<\/strong>fire starter<\/strong> $13 http:\/\/www.brunton.com\/product.php?id=599 PRO: compact, reliable. Some thought went into the design of the scraper. Three angled cutouts have teeth to increase the number of sparks and account for wear of the rod. CON: The scraper turned out to be the least effective of the group. No matter what edge we used, the resulting sparks were unimpressive. [singlepic id=1020 w=225]SolKoa Faststrike kit<\/strong> $16 (w\/4 Fastfire tabs) PRO: Small size with excellent sparking performance and simple construction. Survival oriented design uses a hacksaw blade as a striker that can be used as a tool by itself. Comes with Fastfire tabs and makes it a decent value. CON: None.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All modern ignitor rods are pretty much the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":90,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"4":{"categories":["gearscout","off-duty"],"primary_category":"gearscout"},"5":{"categories":["gearscout","off-duty"],"primary_category":"gearscout"},"6":{"categories":["gearscout","off-duty"],"primary_category":"gearscout"},"7":{"categories":["gearscout","off-duty"],"primary_category":"gearscout"}}},"categories":[90,15,16,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1908],"class_list":["post-108212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gearscout","category-news","category-off-duty","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"M2NETHLE6BFOLGEOEF2GKXY73A","arc_canonical_url":"\/off-duty\/gearscout\/2009\/12\/11\/burn-baby-burn-ignition-sources\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n