good old Diamond stick matches

[Allen Lee]

I thought I should post results of my mini-test; fresh bought "stike-anywhere" Diamond matches stored in plastic tube with screw-on cap and half-inch ferrocerium steel glued on bottom. I was at 11000 ft, camped with bivy under Mountain Hardware Bat-Wing tarp and noticed that most of the matches fail to produce flame. Nearly all showed evidence of combustion (chemical charge – the tip, charred completely but was otherwise not usable to light off Esbit fuel even with alcohol wetting the tabs. Finally got 1-2 matches to produce about 1 second of flame and got a tab going. Out of 27 matches (max'd out the plastic capsule's volume) was left with 3-4 unused matches. Good thing this was a test and my brother brought the Giga stove and a mini-can of fuel. Air temp was high 30's (F), air was dry, camp was a 30foot clearing surrounded by packed snow (High Sierra Camp/ Vogelsang). Just an observation regarding the matches.

[Andy F]

Interesting.

Do you mean that the matches show evidence of combustion before you attempted to light them? It's possible they self-ignited from friction against each other during travel, but didn't burn long due to low oxygen availability.

It would be interesting to test the matches remaining in the fresh box to see if they produce the same results.

[Author]

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