I am looking into getting the two basics for my survival kit. I don't currently have a compass and would like to get an inexpensive one for the time being. I found the brunton 7DNL on here and was wondering if that was an OK starter compass. Also for firestarting, should I go with the spark-lite or a Firesteel and use the medicine bottle/cotton ball method?
Thanks

7dnl works fine for me. the sparklite is fine for tinderquik but its hard to start much else except for the most superb tinder. a ferrocium firesteel will work much better for starting fires with natural and artificial tinders.

if you search this forum for firesteel you will find plenty of existing information.

For fire steel, I'd recommend you get a Lite My Fire. They are great quality, and relatively cheap. I like them better than the gadget type sparkers, and you can find them at most gear shops.

For a compass, I'd look for magnetic declination adjustment and a sighting mirror. If it has these, it'll likely have the rest of what you need.

I found the LMF firesteels significantly lacking (piece of crap). It is essentially like striking a BIC lighter with no fuel over and over again. Why anyone would choose to use one after trying a ferrocium rod is beyond me, but opinions vary. :)

Give them both a shot.

"For a compass, I'd look for magnetic declination adjustment and a sighting mirror."

Just out of curiosity, how often does anyone actually take a precise bearing with a compass in the wilderness? I cannot recall that I ever have, including when running Army compass courses.

The one thing I would suggest is having is a liquid filled compass -- non-liquid-filled compasses are just too jumpy to work well.

--MV

Jake,
I recommend the Light My Fire Firesteel, I've been using it a long time and it's very dependable. As for a compass, I use the Silva Forecaster 610, which also has a thermometer and weighs only half an ounce.

Dustin,
Actually LMF Firesteel produces sparks of 5,500 degrees (F); the sparks produced by a bic lighter are nowhere near this hot, thus, not nearly as effective. Like I said, I've been using LMF Firesteel for a long time and I find it extremely easy to start a fire with them, even in wet conditions. Most of the time when people have trouble starting a fire with firesteel, it is because of poor choice of tinder. With the right tinder, firesteel will get you a fire started in almost any condition.

For the compass, I'll agree 100% with the advice on the adjustable declination. Be careful not to confuse "declination scale" with "adjustable declination".

The Suunto M-3 Leader is a very nice baseplate compass for only about $20+.

The choice of whether or not to get a sighting compass is tougher. Their accuracy is very helpful if you are triangulating your location. Then again, these days that's easier done with a GPS and UTM coordinates. I personally like mirrored compasses because they are more accurate, the mirror protects the topside, when opened it provides a longer edge, and the mirror has multiple uses (signal, applying makeup,...) BUT they are much more expensive - usually more than twice the price. My favorites are the Brunton 15TDCL (the REAL original Silva) and the Suunto MC-2, in that order.

Jake, what the others have said, especially the parts about a liquid filled chamber and adjustible declination...then you won't have to make any adjustments when transfering coordinates from map to terrain and visa versa. As for the LMF, it's always worked for me!

I prefer simplicity so I carry ferrocerium rods with me whenever I hike. They are very inexpensive so you can buy them in quantity. Be sure to practice using it. The rod is accompanied by dryer lint bathed in vaseline nestled in a prescription bottle.

I also carry a magnesium fire starter from which I could take magnesium shavings although I am much less likely to need that.

http://www.usaknifemaker.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=69&zenid=c056bff19e99f58187d3c6901195fd1c

Any problems with a LMF firesteel is likely user error. I have no problem getting an impressive shower of hot sparks that will easily light dead grass. With a firesteel, technique is important.

For a compass, I use the Silva Guide: liquid filled, mirror sighted and less than an ounce. If you work with magnetic bearings only, there is seldom a need to correct for declination.

For starting fires, I presume you are talking about "that one fire that absolutely, positively, must be lit or you will die". For that purpose, I always take along a half-ounce, vacuum-sealed packet of lifeboat matches and several wax impregnated cardboard and sawdust fire starters similar to the old "C-ration" heaters used during WW-II and Korea. Lifeboat matches produce a flame, not sparks, and they will burn under water (literally). The fire starters will burn about five minutes individually and 20 minutes collectively.

I guess I have never seen much point in messing around with a derivative of flint, steel and tinder when what you need is the moral equivalent of a cup of kerosene and a good match (or a thermite grenade). Sure, the sparkers can give you the feeling that you are an accomplished woods-person but, for me, when my life may be at stake, I am more than willing to forgo that pleasure.

Edited by Rincon on 04/22/2009 13:08:37 MDT.

Is the 7dnl liquid filled and does it have adjustable declination? if not, does anyone have any suggestions for inexpensive liquid filled compasses besdies the M-3? Thanks

Edited by jakehill on 04/22/2009 16:46:57 MDT.

Well, I use a Silva Landmark. It's liquid filled, but it uses a declination scale instead of an adjustable declination. It gets the same job done if I mark the area's decination with a tiny piece of tape.

I recommend a compass with a sighting mirror. Unlike a flat compass (which is easy to read but hard to aim when you hold it low/hard to read but easy to aim when you hold it high), you can use a mirrored compass to take accurate readings at eye level. Just hold it up with the mirror opened at 45 degrees, use the centerline in the reflection to make sure all the compass's readings are lined up, and use the sight to pick your landmark. No guesswork or estimating involved; everything's precise.

As another opinion...I find compasses with a sighting mirror to be most useful when you are in clear view of major landmarks.

Unfortunately, this is not usually the case in situations below treeline. If you have ever tried to follow a strict bearing for a period of time, it's simply not as easy as it sounds.

Unless you have, or care to develop quality navigation skills and use them, almost any compass will do.

If you can always find North, the rest is just semi-accurate generalities

example: I'm really freakin' lost, the trailhead according to the map (you did bring a map, correct?) is West of here. I need to go in that direction according to my compass.

A good quality Suunto, Silva or Burnton baseplate compass with an adjustable dial will take you pretty far.

An LMF firesteel produces sparks that are 5,000 degrees, they also dissapear almost instantaneously.

A ferrocium rod produces the same shower of hot spark but the sparks stay lit on the ground for a few seconds after.

They can both weigh the same (you have size options with ferrocium rod), you strike them the same. They can both be used with or without a handle. Ferrocium rods are typically cheaper than LMf firesteels.

So the major differences are LMF firesteels are more expensive and the sparks do not stay as long as a ferrocium rods sparks. Ferrocium rods are not as easy to find as LMF steels and you have to use a striker with a flatter edge than an LMF striker.

You can argue that user error is my reason for calling them crap all you want. But facts are facts, a ferrocium rod is better than an LMF steel by cost and usability.

I can start fires using an LMF firesteel, I can start fires using a bowdrill and by spitting into the wind on a summer day pointing a sheet of ice at a 35 degree angle to the sun while rubbing chocolate on a pepsi can but why would I when I can just use a ferrocium rod? :)

Dustin,
I never argued that Firesteel was better than Ferrocium as I have never used Ferrocium and cannot make such a statement. However, to say that using Firesteel is the same thing as using the striker on a Bic lighter is absurd since Firesteel is much more effective.
What I was arguing is that Firesteel is very easy to start a fire with IMO and I personally would not say Firesteel is a "piece of crap" for that reason. It takes me 2-3 strikes on average to get a fire going with the right tinder when using Firesteel. I don't see Ferrocium being that much more effective unless you can consistently get a fire going with a single strike every single time. That said, I'm sure Ferrocium is also a fine product.

-Sid

Edited by Red_Fox on 04/22/2009 21:57:49 MDT.

LMF & ferrocium

and been able to get both to work well

actually i didn't know they weren't the same material - isn't LMF rod made of ferrocium?

According to Wikipedia...

Ferrocerium is a man-made metallic material that has the ability to give off a large number of hot sparks when scraped against a rough surface (pyrophoricity), such as ridged steel. Because of this property it is used in many applications, such as clockwork toys, strikers for welding torches, so-called "flint-and-steel" fire-starters in emergency survival kits, and perhaps most commonly in lighters as the initial ignition source for the primary fuel. What is commonly called "flint" in modern times is actually ferrocerium. Also known as Auermetall after its inventor Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, it is sold under such trade names as Blastmatch, Fire Steel, and Metal-Match.

Basics.

You don't need a sighting compass in a survival kit. If you find yourself in a survival situation, precise navigation probably isn't necessary. I'd also argue that a compass expressly intended for a survival kit should be small and light enough that it is always in the kit and on your person.

For firestarting, I probably would go with a ferro rod/Firesteel and the cotton ball trick. I don't use medicine bottles because they're relatively bulky and heavy, and I try to keep my survival kit pocket-sized so it's on me all the time. Secondly, there's a great little tip that if you ensconce a vaseline-soaked cotton ball in a small piece of aluminum foil you'll get far better burn time with it. So I wrap my tinder balls in two small regular pieces of aluminum foil, multifunctional and very light.

> Just out of curiosity, how often does anyone actually take a precise bearing with a compass in the wilderness? I cannot recall that I ever have, including when running Army compass courses.
 For cross country travel, I've taken sightings a lot. It's saved me wasted miles on more than one occasion. There are times when on rock that one has to stay exactly on route or one will get in over one's head. I've (literally) seen the bodies flown out. A precise sighting can save your butt.

> The one thing I would suggest is having is a liquid filled compass -- non-liquid-filled compasses are just too jumpy to work well.
 Absolutely.

I also like the declination adjustable compasses, but if you're sticking to well travelled, well defined trails where all you need to do is orient your map and then terrain associate (i.e. correlate what you see on the map to the terrain around you), then they're not strictly necessary.

If you don't know how to use a sighting compass, then there's no reason to get one even if they are "better."

I like having a clear baseplate so that I can see the map when I'm using the compass directly on the map.

> I guess I have never seen much point in messing around with a derivative of flint, steel and tinder ...
 Yeah, I hear you. I usally carry life boat matches too (make sure you know how to light them; there's a trick to it). The vulnerability of the life boat matches is their striker which is typically on the outside of the container. If the striker gets wet or damaged, you're S.O.L. On the other hand, a firesteel is pretty darn failsafe. Even if it breaks off of the handle, it still can be used. If it's wet, wipe it off and you're good to go. I agree the the first choice in an emergency would be matches or a lighter, but if you fall in a creek on a cold windy day and everything is just absolutely sopping wet, that firesteel might just become your all time favorite piece of equipment.

Edited by hikin_jim on 04/24/2009 18:36:05 MDT.