FireSteel Ranger

I purchased this fire steel because I liked its size and price, but this is a very poor quality fire steel. I am a wilderness survival-skills instructor and have used many, many different fire steels from many different manufacturers. This steel will produce sparks if scraped in a long, continuous motion down its entire length, but that is not how you actually use a fire steel to start a fire. A good quality steel will produce a nice focused and controllable shower of sparks when scraping about the last 1.5 inch or so of its length so that you can ignite a tinder bundle without scattering it; this steel will not do that. When i first received this one I did a few quick test-strikes in the normal fire starting manner, it did not produce any sparks. I tried some exaggerated, full length strikes and it did make sparks that way. I then decided to do 25 test-strikes in a normal fire starting way and count how many times it made usable sparks. Out of 25 attempts it sparked only 2 times. This test removed curls of material with each strike and left a very large flat spot on the steel but it only sparked twice. I use fire steels every day and with proper technique a good one will spark every single time. I will definitely not be carrying this steel for fire-making but have decided to keep it to use as a demonstration of the fact that everyone should test any fire steel they do carry and that there are some brands which should be avoided (and "Fire Steel Ranger" is one of them).