the fire piston i own is what i consider a back up. I also keep a couple magnesium/flint blocks around, but if i have a BIC lighter in my pocket, that's what i want to use.
That being said a couple points.
I do like the fact that a fire-piston is pretty much all you need.
The rubber o-ring can and would probably wear out, thus losing compression- but all you would need to fix it would be a small piece of twine/string to fill in the space- in fact some fire-pistons are sold with twine for a o-ring....
As far as char-cloth... i think thats bunk... its such a pain in the *ss to make, and to be honest i have had pretty decent success using a small wad of dry leaves, and a small tuft of dryer lint works fine as well.
I'd say it comes down to preference... but i think they're kind of neat....
Here's a video i found on youtube showing use with "chawga" a fungus im not familar with....
ART
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAKYR...eature=related
