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I have to admit I don't own one. Tried one out many years ago but stayed with kitchen matches in a waterproof container and a good lighter.

Should I reconsider? What brand do you prefer?

Thanks

They are one more thing to carry but they work well for some tasks. I have one on qa couple of sheaths.
Lite My Fire is the one I like best. The mid size Scout model makes the most sense to me. Long enough for lots of sparks but not as heavy as the Army. The newer ones come with a whistle and striker combo attached. The whistle isn't worth much.

Carried them for the last 45 years but have never had to actually use them in anger. Still start a fire occasionally using the steel just for fun though. My limited experience in trying to start fires using a steel in wet, windy Northwest weather, is that your prep must be painstaking to be successful. During dry, calm conditions they seem to work pretty well - say inside your teepee starting the wood stove.

Given enough practice I am sure you could get pretty good with steel.

Fortunately, the weight and bulk penalty is minimal unless you opt for one of those big, bulky units ... kind of like carrying a 6" sheath knife - all for show.

Bought mine from firesteel.com. It's all I use anymore. Use it with shaved pitch wood or cotton ball with vaseline. Nothing is easier.

I am going to get one and "play" with it this Fall. I started looking at them and saw that firesteel brand offers one package with a magnesium rod. I think I'll go with just the steel, no need to complicate matters. Need to check out the Lite My Fire brand as well.

firesteel.com is good stuff.

They're pretty neat, but short of trying to throw a spark into a stove, Bic lighter seems to be better for me. One that comes in my light my fire knife handles my fire steel needs.

Heretic^

I'll always try the bic or matches first for convenience. But both can fail. I use the one this guy sells, he taught AF pilots survival skills, and his stuff is functional. Called the metal match:

www.outdoorsafe.com

might even be the same steel.

They say the Bic can fail but I've never seen it. I leave one out in the elements by my grill at home and after 5" of rain the other day I walked out and it lit like always.

Trust me, they can and do fail. If nothing else, they run out of fuel.

Looks like the old adage of... always good to have a back up plan might include a fire steel.

I'm not anti-fire steel by any means. I carry them, but even I have to admit a second Bic is probably lighter, cheaper and easier to use.

It's something that could save your life, so a plan B is a good idea. Just as important iswhat you carry to drop the spark in. Butane is not so good in extreme cold either.

I like them and pefer the "Swedish" ones that seem to be harder and only need short strokes that seem more controlled and thus accurate for me. The ones from LMF and StrikeForce seem to be the same type.

They need strikers though and it makes them less self contained. They do need practice on technique to be used effectively - at least I know I needed practice to figure out what works. My kit also has lighters and matches and Wetfire tinder.

A plus for them is you can fly with them

I did a test between the Swedish Light My Fire unit and a low cost one from Big Five Sports. Rods were the same size length and diameter, with the biggest difference the color of the plastic grip handle and the striker. Light My Fire has an ergonomic grip on a special shaped striker. The el cheapo provided a 3 inch long piece of hacksaw blade.

Conclusion: the rods produced the same amount of spark when the same striker was used. The Light My Fire striker provided far better grip. I could detect no difference in material but a huge difference when I used a striker shaped to fit my hands and fingers so that it delivers a quality striking stroke.

I took a few minutes to shape a "handle" out of red cedar and taped that onto a piece of hacksaw and now it produces a shower of sparks visually identical to the Swedish one-- at 1/3 the price.

Ok, I'm a cheap skate.

I carry a Strikeforce but I've never used it except for starting a camp stove when my POS butane striker failed (it's hard to beat propane for tinder). I've practiced with it and it works very well, putting out a serious amount of sparks. It's probably bigger and heavier than most backpackers want, though.

I carry a Gobspark Armageddon steel with scraper, always.

http://firesteel.com/gobspark-armageddon-firesteel/

And I have a couple of Altoid tin "firestarter kits" with the light my fire steels along with some Vaseline cotton balls, birch bark, fatwood slivers, etc.
But rarely do I start campfires and if I do, I'll likely use a fire steel just for "practice". I mostly carry the steels for the unlikely event of actually needing a fire. Just easier than carrying matches and will light a Vaseline cotton ball just as fast.

All kidding aside, I usually use a Bic lighter to light my stove...which is about the only thing I "light" when on a backpack hunt, and usually have one on my person.
And though I've never had a failure of a Bic it could fail and thus I carry the firesteels. I don't dink around with matches much since finding true strike anywhere matches is difficult. And you can't fly with them.

Not if you're carrying the fuel on your back.

We do a fire-building demo for the survival part of our hunter ed class. Using cotton balls with vaseline and the metal match, with no practice beforehand, it usually lights on the first strike, and almost always by the second.

Perfect conditions, but still it's pretty foolproof.

That's true. But the "backs" he uses for packing are attached to four legs. And there's 4 of 'em. Heck that's 20 legs not counting his own 2!