Who carries "survival" type fire starters?

[john fletch]

I forgot to mention that the hacksaw blade is a good carbon steel and if the edge is square and sharp and you scratch at 90 degrees to the flint; I guarantee you can get a shower of sparks.  If you have shaved a good little pile of the magnesium into your tinder, it will ignite into a good flame.

[Dave Bulla]

Delsnavely,  

If you can find your block, give it another try.  The two things I was doing wrong were:

1.  Not swiping fast enough.  Ya really gotta flick the striker quickly.  Think of the speed on a flintlock hammer.

2.  The edge of whatever you are using has to be sharp.  I don't mean sharp like a knife, but "crisply squared off".  Of course the cutting side of a blade works but I couldn't hardly bring myself to do that to my knife.  Once I got it to work with the scredriver tip, I caught on to the whole principle.  I tried a squared but not rolled cabinet scraper that had a real crisp edge, WOW!  Good sparks.  Ya may have to play with the angle a bit too.  Watch the video on an earlier page of this thread.

[ryped]

For a waterproof container you can slide and empty 16 gauge shot shell into a 12 gauge shot shell.  Can't remember where I heard that.

[tradtusker]

Nice idea with the egg carton Sammy    

[Raminshooter]

As others have alluded to already, with something like fire you always need to think in terms of 3's in that you need 3 ways to get the job done.  Nothing beats a simple Bic lighter and, like others, I always carry two of these along with those compressed wood fiber/parrafin soaked sticks you can buy at Walmart.  In addition to this I carry some cut up inner tube material just in case because it burns great wet or dry.  I also carry some water proof matches AND I carry at least one road flare.  A road flare is just a must because when the weather turns bad (wet) and you really need a fire fast nothing beats have 2900 degrees of heat at your disposal.  Plus, a road flare is simply a well known wilderness survival "must carry" item.  So, if you keep to the rule of having 3 ways to start a fire, and keep those simple, you can always stay warm when you need to.

[adkmountainken]

flint and steel.
 

[Groundpounder]

I purchased some of those military trioxane bars ive lit them easily with lighter and matches and a magnesium striker with or without the magnesium all worked well and the little trioxane bars come in little packs you can then break the bar off in three smaller pieces they burn i think right around 5-7 minutes. i also flintlock hunt traditionally in pa. so i to have the flint and steel with char cloth this can work well to especially if you find a fallen popular tree branch and get the bark just when it starts falling off on its own take strips of it and roll and cruch it up in your hands till it fluffs up like a bird nest once you ctach a spark on your char your can have fire in 10 seconds. cedar tree bark works well to. and flax and actually a whole number of things. but when im a little off the traditional path i like military issued stuff the best i figure if they make it for our boys it must be the best.

[sidebuster]

I got this for Christmas.  Sold by Duluth Trading

Works great.  I tried it just using a kleenex it starts a fire immediately.  I do want a fire piston though.

 

[JonJon1]

Magnesium Striker and some wool for me.

[ishiwannabe]

You know, after thinking about this I remember steel wool. Most of us already carry flashlights, a battery and some steel wool make fire FAST. Maybe a small piece of insulated conductive wire would help.  Either way, very light weight.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I think the primitive flint and steel idea is cool as heck, but I carry lots of butane lighters for real-life situations. I usually also have some sort of wax/sawdust product to use as tinder starter.

I make a fire often when hunting, sometimes just to see if I can. I try and scrounge natural materials on snowy or rainy days and just do it for the practice.

My wife and I were stuck once on a broken down snowmobile in Northern Michigan and it was cold as heck. It wasn't life threatening, because my buddy was with us, and went to get a truck to haul the broken down sled with....but we had to wait about 2 hours. I had a small package of wooden matches. I assembled lots of dry birch and pine, and then took a piece of fabric (from a small cloth tool bag, I think) and soaked it in gas from the tank. I had a ROARING fire in just a few minutes. When My buddy got back he laughed at us, we appeared so comfortable.

When it's the "real deal", I'm not going to screw around trying to be primitive!  

[Groundpounder]

Ishawnnabe, the only problem with that is most of the flashlights we carry have AA ,C ,D batteries ive tried those and they can be a bear to start a fire with the 9 volt battery works the best and is amazingly fast. it works best with oily very fine0000 steelwool. it only takes a light rubbing motion on the steel wool. I think ive tried starting a fire just about everyway, but th eone i still cant do til this day is get one started with stick and bow i can get the smoke but have never produced the fire. i once camped with a guy named Keith hopler he was an avid outdoors guy an vietnam vet he was awesome at this method .he could walk into anywoods and have a fire with a stik and bow made from that woods in a half an hour

[rbaustin]

I carry the Boy Scout magnesium/steel, dryer lint(in sm bagie),5-6 4" pieces of fat pine, canister of pine resin chunks, all in a double ziplock baggie.

[ishiwannabe]

Groundpounder, it can be tricky, that is for sure.
9v are by far the best, but I always end up lighting up my pack...lol.
As for the bow method, do you have a notch in your base board to gather the hot dust? I have never tried it but I did research it alot a while ago. Good luck with that, I should be making one up and trying to...interesting stuff.

[Blackhat]

:D   I carry drier lint, trioxene bars, vasoline cotton balls, magnesium bar , match safes, and butane liters.  

My grandson Kaleb and I were camping in Roosevelt state park back during the summer.  The rangers were giving demonstrations on firestarting and he was using a magnesium bar.  he was using a swiss army knife to ignite the magnesium flakes and it was putting out a weak spark at best.  I tried my hand at it with my gerber multitool.  the sparks startled the ranger.  I think the metal might have something to do with it.  just my  $.02.

[Autumnarcher]

Butane lighters are fine in dry conditions, but are as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle if they get damp. I carry stick matches, a magnesium/flint setup and use my leatherman  for a stiker instead of my good knife. Then for the urgent needs, a road flare or two.

This spring I'm planning a fishing/camping/outdoor skills weekend for me an the boys. There is an island on Sginaw Bay I just learned is public land, isolated, has good fishing. We are going to camp and fish, and I can spend some time with the boys honing their wilderness emergency skills such as fire making, shelter, food and water etc. Should be fun, as long as the fish are biting, although if we time it right we should be able to get plenty of carp shooting in too.

[DngrsDan]

I have always had great success with the magnesium fire starter. Maybe it does have something to do with the metal of your blade, not sure. I carry one on my keychain, and I ALWAYS have two pocket knives on me. One 4" Benchmade locking folder and a small Buck three blade pocket knife. I use one of the smaller blades (always the same one, leaving the other two sharp) for use on the fire starter. I put down a little pile of tinder and rest the magnesium block on it while I scrape the shavings onto it(I don't usually have to shave a whole lot off-just a little pile), then reverse it and lay the flint side on it and strike. Works like a charm. I have a stockpile of them I like 'em so much.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

bic lighter
Flint & Steel
Magnifying glass

[tradtusker]

when i was 16 decided i wanted to make a fire with the bow drill(fire by friction) and with what little information i could find it took me 3 months of changing different woods and stiles etc until i could do it, it takes some real work in soggy England where i was and would defiantly not depend upon it for fire, but its cool to know how.

[MikeC]

Link or copy and paste to the set I use.  I make my own char-cloth very easy to do.  If you hunt with a flintlock just make sure the weapon is empty, place the char-cloth in the pan, close the frizzen, cock the hammer and squeeze the trigger, tons of sparks.

  http://www.wildersol.com/FlintSteel.html