Coghlan's Magnesium Bar mini-review

Shoki

Shoki

Joined
Apr 10, 2007
Messages
7,395
After all the talk about the Doan mag bars, I wanted to try one (or something similar) for myself. I happened to find a Coghlan's mag bar at Walmart yesterday and couldn't wait to try it out.
s7_590102_imageset_02

I did what others recommended and snapped off a piece of hack saw blade to help scrape the magnesium and it works great for getting a pile of shavings in a reasonably small amount of time. Next, I tried the ferro bar and was dismayed to find that I couldn't get it to spark with the hacksaw blade. After twenty attempts, I switched to my LMF striker...nuthin. I then switched the spine of my puukko, and finally the sharp edge and got a weak spark after a few tries. :grumpy:

No amount of changing strikers, altering striking style, and swearing could get more than a tiny flash out of the ferro rod. I tried quick and short strokes, long and hard strokes, high-pressure and slow strokes and was very disappointed in the performance. I also noticed that the rod seemed much softer than my LMF rod and was getting torn up pretty bad. This was all done indoors in dry, warm conditions so I can only imagine the frustration it would cause if I was wet, cold, and tired.
Extra-:mad:

At this point I gave up on the built-in ferro rod and decided to use my LMF to ignite the pile of shavings. It took five attempts to get the shavings to catch and when they did, I wasn't particularly impressed. It burned real hot and certainly would readily ignite tinder but it fizzled out so quickly that I have my doubts about being able to start a fire in wet conditions.

On the whole, my Coghlan's Mag bar is useless to me without a more reliable way to ignite the shavings. Someone mentioned that the Doan's mag bar is, at worst, a ferro rod with a large handle but the Coghlan's isn't even that. As an emergency survival tool, I give it a big FAIL. I'm not willing to rule out the chance that mine came with a bad ferro rod and I do plan on removing it and replacing it with a better one. I certainly see it's value as a waterproof fuel source for firestarting and will keep it with my gear but I'm not leaving the PJCBs or oiled dryer lint at home.
 
Blais said:
After all the talk about the Doan mag bars, I wanted to try one (or something similar) for myself. I happened to find a Coghlan's mag bar at Walmart yesterday and couldn't wait to try it out.
s7_590102_imageset_02

I did what others recommended and snapped off a piece of hack saw blade to help scrape the magnesium and it works great for getting a pile of shavings in a reasonably small amount of time. Next, I tried the ferro bar and was dismayed to find that I couldn't get it to spark with the hacksaw blade. After twenty attempts, I switched to my LMF striker...nuthin. I then switched the spine of my puukko, and finally the sharp edge and got a weak spark after a few tries. :grumpy:

No amount of changing strikers, altering striking style, and swearing could get more than a tiny flash out of the ferro rod. I tried quick and short strokes, long and hard strokes, high-pressure and slow strokes and was very disappointed in the performance. I also noticed that the rod seemed much softer than my LMF rod and was getting torn up pretty bad. This was all done indoors in dry, warm conditions so I can only imagine the frustration it would cause if I was wet, cold, and tired.
Extra-:mad:

At this point I gave up on the built-in ferro rod and decided to use my LMF to ignite the pile of shavings. It took five attempts to get the shavings to catch and when they did, I wasn't particularly impressed. It burned real hot and certainly would readily ignite tinder but it fizzled out so quickly that I have my doubts about being able to start a fire in wet conditions.

On the whole, my Coghlan's Mag bar is useless to me without a more reliable way to ignite the shavings. Someone mentioned that the Doan's mag bar is, at worst, a ferro rod with a large handle but the Coghlan's isn't even that. As an emergency survival tool, I give it a big FAIL. I'm not willing to rule out the chance that mine came with a bad ferro rod and I do plan on removing it and replacing it with a better one. I certainly see it's value as a waterproof fuel source for firestarting and will keep it with my gear but I'm not leaving the PJCBs or oiled dryer lint at home.
Click to expand...

Get a Doan and give it another shot, apparently all mag-bars are not created equal ;)
 
Hey Blais -
Thanks for the review and I share your feelings. I have messed around with the Doan for years and was never impressed until I found the Light My Fire firesteels.

I know some people love the Doan and that's great. I'll go with the LMF's. If you don't have one - try it. They are great!
 
Hawkings said:
Get a Doan and give it another shot, apparently all mag-bars are not created equal ;)
Click to expand...

I probably will, eventually. I'll replace the ferro with a better one and give it another shot.

sawgrass7 said:
Hey Blais -
Thanks for the review and I share your feelings. I have messed around with the Doan for years and was never impressed until I found the Light My Fire firesteels.

I know some people love the Doan and that's great. I'll go with the LMF's. If you don't have one - try it. They are great!
Click to expand...


LMFs are great and mine is my primary fire starting choice. I do wish they were just a tad longer but work great nonetheless.
 
I have one of those on my keychain with my swedish firesteel. I tend to get moderate sparks with the striker on my firesteel, but I have literally broken the ferro rod on a previous mag. bar trying to get a spark with a knife. It sucked. So I only carry it with my firesteel as I said,. The magnesium burns very hot to help you get a fire going and lights very easily with my swedish firesteel.
 
Last edited:
Blais said:
After all the talk about the Doan mag bars, I wanted to try one (or something similar) for myself. I happened to find a Coghlan's mag bar at Walmart yesterday and couldn't wait to try it out.
s7_590102_imageset_02

I did what others recommended and snapped off a piece of hack saw blade to help scrape the magnesium and it works great for getting a pile of shavings in a reasonably small amount of time. Next, I tried the ferro bar and was dismayed to find that I couldn't get it to spark with the hacksaw blade. After twenty attempts, I switched to my LMF striker...nuthin. I then switched the spine of my puukko, and finally the sharp edge and got a weak spark after a few tries. :grumpy:

No amount of changing strikers, altering striking style, and swearing could get more than a tiny flash out of the ferro rod. I tried quick and short strokes, long and hard strokes, high-pressure and slow strokes and was very disappointed in the performance. I also noticed that the rod seemed much softer than my LMF rod and was getting torn up pretty bad. This was all done indoors in dry, warm conditions so I can only imagine the frustration it would cause if I was wet, cold, and tired.
Extra-:mad:

At this point I gave up on the built-in ferro rod and decided to use my LMF to ignite the pile of shavings. It took five attempts to get the shavings to catch and when they did, I wasn't particularly impressed. It burned real hot and certainly would readily ignite tinder but it fizzled out so quickly that I have my doubts about being able to start a fire in wet conditions.

On the whole, my Coghlan's Mag bar is useless to me without a more reliable way to ignite the shavings. Someone mentioned that the Doan's mag bar is, at worst, a ferro rod with a large handle but the Coghlan's isn't even that. As an emergency survival tool, I give it a big FAIL. I'm not willing to rule out the chance that mine came with a bad ferro rod and I do plan on removing it and replacing it with a better one. I certainly see it's value as a waterproof fuel source for firestarting and will keep it with my gear but I'm not leaving the PJCBs or oiled dryer lint at home.
Click to expand...

I think there's a reason everyone recommends the Doan magnesium bar: it works. I think it was Mistwalker who said the the Doan's bar is a good handle with a ferro rod attached, and that's a good analogy. Someone else (sorry, I don't remember who off the top of my head) posted a modification where they removed the ferro rod that came with it, and replaced it with a nice big mischmetal one. That looks like the best combination, to me.

Personally, I've never had any trouble with the ferro rod that comes on the Doans. They seem to work every time for me.

Don't give up on the mag blocks: they're a great survival tool. I wouldn't throw away the PJCB's, dryer lint, fatwood, etc. Rather, I would carry the mag bar as a back-up.
 
Because you cant get a fire going with it doesnt mean it sucks.
Many other people have used them, and they work fine.
Maybe you or your technique is the problem?
 
Shuya said:
Because you cant get a fire going with it doesnt mean it sucks.
Many other people have used them, and they work fine.
Maybe you or your technique is the problem?
Click to expand...

Shuya, maybe you're being premature. I've used Coghlan's for years and never had any problem. However, I've seen too many negative comments about them in this forum. Everybody can't be wrong. I'm wondering if the quality, or composition varies considerably. :confused:

Maybe the newer ones are crap, so I'm going to buy a new one after the weekend and see what happens and I'll report back here.

In the meantime, Blais, do not throw that one out. If the new one works ok, I'll swap you, and we can try each others. That way, maybe we can put this to rest, once and for all.

Doc
 
As I mentioned, I'm not willing to rule out the possibility of my just ending up with a bad rod. I'm going to keep messing with it to see if I can get it to work reliably but I'm having my doubts.

Doc, that sounds like a great plan to me!
 
Good on you, Doc. I'd be interested in the outcome of this experiment.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.
 
I buy these bars for the Mg. I scrape them dow to a pile of shavings in the shop then mix the shavings with chunks of esbit fuel bars. The mixture can then be carried on my person in a film canister. The Mg ignites the esbit pieces for a hot starting long lasting flame to ignite tinder. The shavings fro these bars can also be worked into cotton balls along impregnated with vaseline, this helps them catch quicker.

It is true that the whole system is not very effective, but Mg shavings burn hot, and will help other tinders ignite. The trick to using these things is to shave them down before hand and use the shavings as an accelerant for other tinders.
 
Yea.. I haven't been too impressed with the magnesium fire starters. I do have the Doan's..and I'll say this though.. the ferro rod does work well on it. It throws parks really good. But your right.. the pile of shavings burns really quickly. I just don't think the effort for what you get is worth it (if you have other options). In a matter of seconds I can shave some fatwood, light it, and have a flame that will actually last a while. Now it may not burn at 8,000,000,000,000 degree's but neverless it's fire and will catch other things on fire.

I'm going to try the goinggear rod's next. They seem to throw a shower of sparks that seem to burn longer than the LMF ones (at least in the video's)
 
Last edited:
Bolt-action bultema said:
I buy these bars for the Mg. I scrape them dow to a pile of shavings in the shop then mix the shavings with chunks of esbit fuel bars. The mixture can then be carried on my person in a film canister. The Mg ignites the esbit pieces for a hot starting long lasting flame to ignite tinder. The shavings fro these bars can also be worked into cotton balls along impregnated with vaseline, this helps them catch quicker.

It is true that the whole system is not very effective, but Mg shavings burn hot, and will help other tinders ignite. The trick to using these things is to shave them down before hand and use the shavings as an accelerant for other tinders.
Click to expand...

At that rate, I might as well carry a film canister of Thermite to ignite with the magnesium shavings. That ought get my fire started, even underwater. :D
 
dawsonbob said:
Good on you, Doc. I'd be interested in the outcome of this experiment.
Click to expand...

Yes, I've been wondering about this for awhile and want to get to the bottom of it.

And newknife, I don't know if anybody is saying this is the best bang for the buck, but it is an indestructible back-up and it's small and convenient to carry for that purpose. As far as burning up quickly, it's not meant to stand on its own, but rather to ignite your prepared tinder, which it does.

Fatwood works great, so does firestraws - it's just another option.

dawsonbob said:
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
Click to expand...

I wished everybody a Merry Christmas in another thread, but just realized, like myself, not everybody reads every thread, so, Merry Christmas, one and all, with a special Christmas wish going out to all our unemployed brothers and sisters, to find a good job in the new year. We're rooting for you.

dertetetetetete.jpg


Doc
 
DOC-CANADA said:
Shuya, maybe you're being premature. I've used Coghlan's for years and never had any problem. However, I've seen too many negative comments about them in this forum. Everybody can't be wrong. I'm wondering if the quality, or composition varies considerably. :confused:

Maybe the newer ones are crap, so I'm going to buy a new one after the weekend and see what happens and I'll report back here.

In the meantime, Blais, do not throw that one out. If the new one works ok, I'll swap you, and we can try each others. That way, maybe we can put this to rest, once and for all.

Doc
Click to expand...

I think your probably right about that DOC. I've owned 3 magnesium bars in my lifetime. I can't remember if they were all Coghlans, but since I purchased them all at walmart I assume my previous ones were. My current one is, and as I said it sparks fairly well with my firesteel striker. My first one worked just fine, but I lost it:(, and the second one that I broke the rod on wouldn't spark for anything. I tried knives, keys and even a piece of hacksaw blade. This was years ago and since my current one is fine I'd hoped it was just a quality control issue that had hopefully been fixed. At any rate Blais, even if the rod on your bar turns out to be of poor quality you can still use the magnesium. Thats why I still carry mine even tho I have a great swedish firesteel.
 
About the rods, I have to say that I really don't see any difference, in the one on my Doan and my LMF-steels.
They all give of the same amount of sparks with the same striker, pressure and speed.
That's why its sounds kinda funny that the OP can get things to work with a standard LMF and not the Coghlan's Magnesium Bar rod.
 
Hawkings said:
About the rods, I have to say that I really don't see any difference, in the one on my Doan and my LMF-steels.
They all give of the same amount of sparks with the same striker, pressure and speed.
That's why its sounds kinda funny that the OP can get things to work with a standard LMF and not the Coghlan's Magnesium Bar rod.
Click to expand...

My LMF works like a dream, nice hot spark showers. I played around with the Coghlan's a bit more and found that I can really only get a usable spark if I really carve into it with a sharp sharp corner or edge. This has negative effects on both the rod and the edge used. I used the spine of a carbon steel knife and it left curls of the rod sort of welded to the spine.
:eek:

I'm pretty convinced now that I somehow got a faulty rod and I'm going to try and pry it off to replace it with a larger, better one.
 
mag bars = :mad::thumbdn::grumpy: anyone that expects to stake their life on one deserves the cold death that follows.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top