Fire Piston...

[Guest]

I bought this fire piston on E-Bay last night for $25.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STREAMLINED-RUGGED-OUTDOOR-SURVIVAL-FIRE-PISTON-STORE-SPECIAL-/150918745084?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2323754bfc

While waiting for it to come in, I made a bunch of char cloth over a camp fire today. That was a fun learning experience. My son and I tried some out using just the striker of my BIC lighter. It worked like a charm, and got our tinder bundle alight. Anyhow, I'll do a review of the fire piston when it arrives.

[EX121]

I'll be looking forward to the review.

I've played with one for a little bit and the one lesson is you need to be quick when transfering the char to your tinder bundle. Like a lot of thngs it takes practice & preperation. Good Luck.

[Grand58742]

I bought this fire piston on E-Bay last night for $25.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STREAMLINED-RUGGED-OUTDOOR-SURVIVAL-FIRE-PISTON-STORE-SPECIAL-/150918745084?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2323754bfc

While waiting for it to come in, I made a bunch of char cloth over a camp fire today. That was a fun learning experience. My son and I tried some out using just the striker of my BIC lighter. It worked like a charm, and got our tinder bundle alight. Anyhow, I'll do a review of the fire piston when it arrives.

Best thing to do when using just the striker portion of the lighter is to remove that metal shroud around the front. It gives a lot more access to the flint portion of the lighter when you do.

My Dad messed around with fire pistons some years ago, never could really get them to work efficiently. He gave up on them after a while and I never gave them a shot myself. I'll be looking forward to your review.

[WILL]

In case anybody's wondering, here's a video on how they work...

http://youtu.be/LOgGIT4cujI

[WILL]

The fire-piston came in the mail today. My son and I were both able to make a few fires with it fairly easily. It did take a few tries and definitely wasn

[Sharpshooter]

i tried to make a homemade one at one point after seeing it on tv and tried very hard and very long and never got any sort of success. i watched it on man,women, wild with mike hawk, but honestly this is why i just have a striker about everywhere you think all the way down to my wallet lol. be interested in seeing video on it if you can

[WILL]

Well now that I've had it a while and mastered making fire with it here's where I'm at. My fire piston seems to require tinder in the form of char-cloth or a tree fungus I don't believe we have here in Florida in order to produce an ember. It doesn't seem to make an ember using any other materials. Since I don't seem to have access to the tree fungus, I'm stuck using char cloth. Char cloth is a project in itself to produce, requiring a specific man made container, cotton fabric and a fire to make. Without those ingredients, the fire piston is useless.

In addition to the afore mentioned ingredients, the piston itself requires lubricant and a proper sealing O-ring in order to work. A spare O-ring, small zip lock baggie of lube and a bit of char-cloth came with the unit, so I was good to go for probably a dozen fires before I needed some re-supply. I have no idea how long an O-ring lasts. Long story short, the fire piston requires quite an extensive list of support equipment to keep it functional.

It

[EX121]

Good objective report, thanks.

Here is my 2cents worth on all primitive fire methods and the reason to learn them. If you take the time, effort, & preperation necessary to get good with various primitive methods then hopefully when the chips are down and you do have your pocket thermonuclar starter you will be successful in getting a fire going.

So consider it a good investment and thanks again, for the report.