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I Review The Things
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2025
They work! It took us a few tries to get it down, but after you file off some of the coating and get the angle right it can make a lot of sparks!These are great for my emergency supplies and ready bags just in case I need to start a fire and don't have anything else. They also have other functions like a bottle opener and mini wrench so that's nice to have as well. This it a great price for two high quality fire starters!!
bigdogone1
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2025
Pretty good for the price and will do what they're advertised as being able to do.You need to scrape the black coating off the rod to get a good spark...I'm not sure about the cotton balls...they don't really seem to add a lot of value and would be useless if they got wet.Good for the price...not really high end or made well...but two for a little under 6 dollars is a good value.Put one of these and a lighter in the glove compartment of your car and you should be able to get a fire going in a lot of different situations.Good...especially for the price.
Donald Wilson
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2025
Piece of junk barely works waste of money
T451
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2025
I've taught survival and outdoor skills for decades. My biggest gripe is always with fire starters. Personally, I prefer a chunky fire starter like a blast match. Unfortunately, that isn't in everyone's price range.These fire starters are very good. They are big enough to produce lots of sparks and make starting a fire easy to do. Much better than the pretend thin little ferro rods you get at the big box store.Their smaller size will even satisfy some of the gram counters who go for super light load outs.
RC
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2025
Liked this version of ferro rod since it comes with a small handle that provides for a better grip on the rod. They're not super thin and there is enough length so that striking is not difficult - comes with the striker attached via a lanyard, but you might want to replace it it with some stronger Nano cord. Takes virtually no room in your hiking/hunting/fishing pack and it a great back-up if your Bic lighter and Vaseline saturated cotton balls aren't challenging enough for your developing prepper skills. Good value.
David W.
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2025
This ad copy suffers terribly in translation to English, and by what I can only call a complete misunderstanding of actual product use by the Marketing Department. These are not Magnesium rods from which small shavings are scraped into small piles that will burn with extreme intensity when subjected to a source of open flames. These are ferrocerium rods – a mischmetal alloy that when scraped by a harder metal (ideally, high carbon steel), exposes tiny fragments of the metal to oxygen that then causes the fragments to burst into high temperature sparks. When you direct the resulting stream of “flaming sparks” onto a tinder source, you create the open flames needed to help you build a larger fire. In this kit, ordinary cotton balls (no special treatment applied) are included in zip top baggies that can be fluffed out into small fibers as your tinder source. While the rods themselves are waterproof, the cotton balls are not – they won’t work when soaked in water. In this kit, you’d be well advised to coat the cotton balls in petroleum jelly and keep them in the zip top bags, so that they could be unraveled for use as tinder in wet conditions.The black coating on the rods that has to be removed before use is a protective paint layer that keeps the ferro rod from literally “rusting/corroding away” when its high iron content is exposed to open air. While the ideal would be to have very long and thick ferro rods from which long, sustained strokes with hardened metal strikers would produce large showers of flaming sparks, these smaller rods (5/16” – 8mm diameter x 2 5/8 inches - 65mm of exposed rod length) are big enough to get the job done while still being light and compact for easy pocket carry as part of your Every Day Carry gear bag. While you’ll get many strikes from each of these small rods, the claim of 20,000 is grossly exaggerated (based upon my considerable experience with this same basic type of ferro rod). U.S. Quarter Dollar shown for sizing comparison.I find these to be a very good value at listing price of $6 USD (time of writing), and concede that an argument could be made to elevate rating to 5 Stars (I’ll leave that decision to you as the reader of this review).I hope you found my comments and photo of benefit in your considerations.
Island V
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2025
They work like they should. They are missing instructions so hopefully you know how that is. There's some in the listing although they claim you should strike it on the side. Another photo labels the end as the "sparks scraping edge". That second one is the one that is correct. The curved end is for generating sparks. Also, if you feel it, one side is smooth and the other ridged. Put the ridged side down and scrape with that. It's capable of some pretty big sparks once the black paint is off.At 45g (1.6oz), it's a lot heavier than the 18g ultralight one I use backpacking. However, that one is starting to get very thin and about 4x as expensive if I can ever find one again. Fire starter puffs are nice to have. Of course, you can always make your own from cheap cotton balls. Some like to add petroleum jelly too.
Walter J
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2025
These are cheap in price and in build quality, but they work! The ferro rod itself feels lighter than some others of similar size that I have, so I was skeptical at first. I scraped off a strip of the black coating with the included scraper and struggled to get a good spark. These little standard scrapers they send are really not ideal. I grabbed a file I had on my desk and scraped the rod with the edge of that and started getting some real nice sparks, so I think these will do just fine.The included cotton balls are just that, plain little cotton balls. I don't think these add much value to the package. All the value is in the ferro rod themselves. I also kinda like the shape of the plastic handles that are glued on. I'd recommend, if for nothing other than having a couple extra ferro rods to stash around. I'm thinking about putting together some fire tins with these for the kids.
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