Let me try this again: Dry grass and wood chips cannot go IN the fire piston. You need a small about of a very combustible material to go into the fire piston. Some places that can be fugus et cetera.... that is the liability of the piston, something to make an ember with.i was watching survoir man and he just used dry grass and wood chips
I think if you can find something local and common to use a fire piston is excellent. Otherwise it is an affectation not a tool.the absolute best is chaga or tinder fungus, second best is false tinder fungus also called horse hoof I believe, then char cloth both are great but must be kept quite dry to work. 1 oz of chaga will last a long long time its available all over the internet, its a fungus that mostly grows on Birch trees that are wounded.
yes you can put wood ships in there you just break them down smaller.. almost anything will light just it takes a few more pass to generate enoff heat to turn it into an ember you can use bark grass wood and stuff like that just if its wet takes lots more work to get started been expermenting with diffrent stuff and most of it i got to light the problem is it takes longer with diffrent material and more work have to push on it harder and faster ect but you can stick anthing that will fit in it and it has potential to work just loads more work to get it started i used wet grass to see if it would work took 15 mins i think most of the time it was helping it dry out but it would light after some hard workLet me try this again: Dry grass and wood chips cannot go IN the fire piston. You need a small about of a very combustible material to go into the fire piston. Some places that can be fugus et cetera.... that is the liability of the piston, something to make an ember with.
you can use waxed string its wears out faster then an oring but works well i made one took me like less then 1 miniter its cool to play with and see what will light and what wont yes useing stuff you find wet on the ground can work but its not easy takes more trys because it has to dry out for example i took a branch from a tree cut it off cut the center out then cut it to a small peice and it took me 15 trys to get it to light use char cloth you can do it in like 1 so it depends on what you put in there then i tried it with gas just fumes that was cool shoots it out like in a real car..The o-ring is the weak link and will wear out at some point in time.