SharpSurvival Spark Fire Starter Kit - Magnesium Ferro Rod Fire Starter Kit with Compass and Whistle - Emergency Fire Starter Survival Multitool for Camping, Hiking, Hunting and more

Works perfectly.

I like the strength of this design and small enough to carry in your pocket, as well as have given one to each of my children as a gift (we all love camping).

This makes tremendous sparks, started a fire within 10 strikes, and that is only because I had crappy tinder. No need to shave magnesium into a pile, just shave off with saw side until stick is silver instead of black, then use flat side to create sparks. Note: Use jagged side to scrape off black Magnesium, then use flat side to strike for huge sparks. I didn't know this originally, and was shocked at how difficult it was to create a spark, nonetheless one that would reach the tinder pile, lol. This is a solid item I just hope it really is good for thousands of strikes. Also compass was frozen at first, but started working after a couple of minutes. For the life of me, can't get the whistle to work, but the compass and fire starter get a solid 4 stars. Going right into my survival cache.

I am to the point in my quest for survival gear that when I see anything with a "compass included" I almost automatically count it off as Chinese novelty junk. (Almost always) until I stumbled across this spark stick with nearly a 5 star rating and over 1000 customer reviews. Customer reviews are a valuable indicator of product quality. Here's the deal: As far as add on compasses go, this one is pretty good (I have seen little add-on compasses that are absolutely useless) but this one will keep you headed in the direction you want to go. The whistle is a little tricky to figure out, but with practice you can make it scream. The most important point of this review is the fire starter itself. If you don't know how to use it you will scrape out sparks until your arm falls off without starting a fire (unless you get really, really, really lucky). So, the key is to gather your dry tinder into a small pile, then use the saw tooth part of the scraper to shave off the magnesium (off the stick) on to the top of the tinder pile. Concentrate on getting the magnesium dust to land nearly in one spot (on top of a leaf, for example) and be generous... then use the flat side to scrape the spark rod toward the magnesium in the tinder pile. It may take practice, but it will light dry tinder. Make sure you have twigs and larger wood on hand to build your fire! This is a cool addition to any survival/emergency kit. Seriously, If you get lost in the woods you want this, a bottle of water and a knife to survive.

I don't normally use a firestarter, opting instead to include a fresh Bic in my bag in case the normal one I use runs out of fluid when needed. I purchased this more out of curiosity than anything as I haven't used one since I was in the Scouts. It took a bit of work to remove the coating, but once removed I was treated to a pretty impressive spark. I was able to catch a small amount of dry grass on fire without needing to scrape off any of the magnesium which is definitely a bonus since this is more of a last ditch item in my bag. The included lanyard is appreciated as well, since it allowed me to secure it within my bag without having to worry about things getting too spread out. The included compass seems to work pretty well, judging by the orientation of my home but it required me to tap on it a few times. I won't knock off any of the rating for that as I had honestly forgotten it was included on the device until I received it. The whistle took a bit to figure out but it was loud enough I'm worried that I may have irked the neighbors when I got it to work at around 11pm. Mostly what I appreciate is the fact that the seller e-mailed me with instructions before I received it and the instructions included stated pretty much the same thing. Little stuff like that is definitely something that I appreciate from sellers as often the process of purchasing on Amazon feels quite impersonal. I'd recommend it to anyone who needs a firestarter for whatever reason. It takes up virtually no bag space and works amazingly well.

I'll keep this brief, because this is all you need to know......first, this wonderful ferro rod with a built in compass and emergency whistle. It also has a striker that doubles as a mini hacksaw blade. Alot of cool options for the very fair price point! All can be useful in certain situations.....however, I digress....I bought this strictly for the high quality spark striking machine that it is! The rod is longer than most other ones that are comparable and the grip is very nice, giving confidence that I can place a hot spark into the tinder with ease, get that fire roaring! Seriously, I own a few different brands, tried several over the years and this is probably my favorite so far. Great product for the money. It just works. Don't mess around with inferior magnesium when your life and health could be dependent on getting a fire started....you can't go wrong with survival sparks! Works everytime. Don't take my word for it though....Get yourself one and find out! Great product. Highly recommend and will purchase again for a backup, as well as gifts for family and friends.

I've had this for awhile now but haven't used it until today. I bought it to start my fires so I could learn the skill of fire starting without matches and also to cut costs of buying matches. I bought this because of all the good reviews and its appearance of multi functionality. However I just tested out the whistle and it basically sucks. It barely even works! It's more of an annoying loud shushing sound and the little bit of whistle that does come out isn't very loud and not very clear and doesn't last more than a second. Definitely not gonna be helpful if you actually needed it which completely defeats the purpose of having it. The compass seems like a good tool to have but it doesn't seem very high quality so I wouldn't want to depend on it if I needed to. It might work enough but if you were in a survival situation it's be better knowing 100% that your tools ARE working properly. My recommendation would be for them to either make the additional tools functional and high quality or just remove them and lower the price because I'd much rather just have a simple useful tool then one that's supposed to have multiple functions but really only works for its original purpose which is for fire starting. Now for the actual fire starter itself it does work well. You do need to scrape the paint off first and then you can throw sparks. It does recommend that you shave a quarter size amount of shavings and then spark that but like other people have said if you have good tinder you can just spark your tinder and be good to go. I've never used a fire starter like this and I managed to start a fire in under two minutes using this so the Sparks work quite well. And I didn't have to have this facing directly down at the ground since I was using this to start a fire in my fireplace I had to use it sideways which was a bit awkward and I almost thought it wouldn't work but it did. My next point about the fire starter itself is that the saw although I'm sure it might be useful I'd prefer it either not be there at all or have an optional flip cover to cover the saw because it's a bit painful trying to start a fire with the saw poking into your hand. I don't know why no one has mentioned this before but be aware that the saw will make it uncomfortable to use and handle when starting a fire since to get a spark you have to apply decent pressure and force means you are pressing the saw into your hand which to me didn't feel good. So all in all its still a good and useful tool but only as a fire starter. It does seem high quality in regards to the fire starter but if you're looking to use the whistle or compass don't depend on this. I like this and it works for starting fires but I might've bought a plain ol regular fire starter without a saw on the striker because I plan on using this daily and don't like that I'm getting hurt while using it. It doesn't draw blood or anything but it's certainly not painless. Anyways if this review was helpful please vote yes :)

This thing is so cool. I have never used a fire starter like this and I started a fire in less than 5 minutes. Breakdown: The instructions say it should take 3-4 strikes to remove the black paint, I think it takes a bit more than that but still it's very quick and easy. I have somewhat large hands and I found the flint block pretty easy to hold. The scraper is perhaps a little small but easily manageable and one nice thing about this is that it's so small a packable. I may also replace the lanyard with 550 cord, no problem there. The instructions also state to use about a quarter size amount of shavings, I've been getting a good flame with much less than that, just using good kindling. I've been practicing with this and become much faster at getting a good flame going. I'm practicing to get better and because it's a lot of fun. No questions asked, no hesitation I would buy this again and recommend to everyone. Camping, hunting, fishing or keep it in your cold weather emergency kit for your car. In many situations if you can start a fire you will survive. This handy tool will definitely help you get there.