Swiss Safe5-in-1 Fire Starter with Compass, Paracord and Whistle (2-Pack) for Emergency Survival Kits, Camping, Hiking, All-Weather Magnesium Ferro Rod (Crimson Red)

...the first time I used it, the rod flew out of the holder, landed on the floor and broke in half. I was pretty bummed out as it's beautifully designed and I thought it was going to be my new favorite ferro rod. There was two in the pack so I will probably pull out the rod and put some super glue in this one. These are really nice, just be sure to check if you have a loose one before you use it.Update: I wrote to the seller telling them what happened. They replied immediately and shipped me a replacement box which I received two days later. Outstanding customer support!

After scraping the black coating off you can actually catch a nice strike off these sticks.I save the lint from the dryer and pack it into a zip lock bag. It's light weight and ignites easily with one strike 👍

This is probably the perfect manual firestarter. The old school magnesium firestarter used to be sold in a 1" ×2" ×0.25" slab of magnesium with a flint stick glued in a groove along one edge. They came without a scraper or sparking tool, requiring us to ruin many pocket knives while backpacking.This one represents what happens when you improve an old concept and eliminate issues with the old style.It's made with a high strength polymer. The whistle has dual cores for generating plenty of volume. The 550 parachute cord is standardized and the rod is shipped with a corrosion Protestant type coating. The big deal here is the convenience of having a small tool attached to the 550 lanyard. The scraper is essentially a chunk of hacksaw blade. The sharp teeth on the blade work great for removing magnesium shavings and the way the device is configured it sends sparks in precisely the right direction. I am able to make shavings and spark enough of them in about twenty seconds to get my fire going. Highly recommended product to keep handy, and priced well enough to stash one in every vehicle, go bag, ruck, or RV you have.

These aren't my first fire starters and I must say that the fact that these are multi purpose made me wander if the compass, and whistle would truly be of any use. Once I received these, I noticed that the construction was more than adequate. The first thing I did was check to see if the button compasses functioned properly, as many of button compasses are completely worthless. Much to my surprise, both pointed north without even having to tap on them. Following this, I tried the whistles and just as with the compasses, they also functioned well. As far as the ferro rods go, both are of a good size which should allow for plenty of strikes. I would say that being able to pick up two of these for under $10.00 is a real steal.I would highly recommend these.

Disappointed but that’s because I didn’t look closely enough at the pictures nor did I read the description or reviews. I wish I had. Would not have gotten it.First off there is a double sided blade just hanging from the Lara cord with no case. Huge cut hazard. The blade has no handle to hold it making it unusable to cut small branches into kindling.The para cord is two feel long tops so it’s too short to use for anything other than keeping the blade attached to the striker.The compass is soooo tiny I can barely read it and it didn’t really work anyway.Haven’t tried the whistle because I don’t care at this point. These are going back or going in the garbage. I got a knife that has a fire starter built into it and the knife is in a case. Will probably get a couple more of those them get paracord, compasses and maybe whistles separately. Will be more expensive but everything will be more useful so it’s worth it.