This is how to use a magnesium firestarter. If you cant use the back of your knife to scrape the magnesium then you probley have a stainless steel, you need a carbide steel knife but you can use the blade of your stainless steel knife. I just noticed i forgot to edit my cat out of the video oh well.
Or if you have a stainless steel and don't want to buy another knife just to make sparks, you can use a separate flint steel. I like to carry several different fire starting tools, to cover my bets.
I think the flint in the magnesium is the same as a normal flint. Also you can use the blade but that would probably dull your knife. Id rather carry magnesium its cheeper than a flint and comes with something to catch the flame.
I should add some of that incase i lose my knife or somthing. Also you should add a p-38 can opener to yours I have one on mine a bit slow for opening cans but it works.
i just have a flint rod and itll eat up the rod pretty good..so i use the flat side! i would guess that the mag stick would work really well to scratch the magneisium
Armyranger10, I have several Magnesium fire-starters myself and would always stand by them as the easiest way to start a fire without matches or a lighter or sunlight and a lens. Magnesium fire-starters work in wet weather as well as dry and can be used literally thousands of times, and goodness knows they beat the Hell out of rubbing sticks together.
People on another Forum actually made fun of me, not simply for preaching and practicing Survivalism and Disaster Preparedness, but in particular for having a Magnesium fire-starter block.
The mere mention of the word 'Magnesium' set them off (they must have a deficiency of minerals needed for the brain)..and one of them actually was (or claimed to be) a Navy flyboy. I wonder if this jerk realizes that a Magnesium fire-starter is standard survival equipment for pilots in the U.S.A.F.?
Oh well, their loss...or it will be come the next blackout or shortage of matches.
I put my magnesium bar in a vice, and scraped a huge pile of shavings using an old carpenters plane, put them in a medium sized pill bottle, then thru it all back in my ATV survival kit.
There is no reason you cant spark with stainless steel. Also no reason you cant shave magnesium with the back of a stainless blade. Stainless steel (even the cheap stuff) is harder than magnesium and will shave it. The only time striking a spark with the back of the blade would be difficult is if the gride on the top of the blade does not include edges. You can strike a spark with a ferro rod with just about any hard material such as steel (of course) copper, Iron, Glass, Rock, and my head (just kidding)...
One thing you might want to do differently than the video is the amount of magnesium to shave. you will be far more successful if you shave off a larger amount into a pile about the size of a quarter. I use an old beer cap to hold the magnesium so that I can lift it up and set it under the tinder I plan to light. This does two things: one, it makes it portable and two, the magnisum shavings are less likely to be blown away by an errent gust of wind due to the sides of the cap protecting the shavings.
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