Having your cake and eating it too is a good thing. 550 Firecord, created by the makers of Live Fire, proposes that is just what you will do with their new multi-functional paracord & fire starter.
From afar the 550 FireCord looks like a normal strand of paracord. A popular cordage used in lanyards, keychains, zipper pulls, as well as emergency lashing. Dig a little deeper though and you’ll see that inside the FireCord is an inner strand that lights up and acts as a fire starter.
PERFORMANCE
In our tests the 550 FireCord did very well as a parachute cord. I would argue that if you gave this cord to a paracord expert they couldn’t tell a difference from any other product on the market. It works and handles just like normal 550 paracord which is a good thing.
Of course the more unique feature is that of helping to start fires. No one needs to explain the importance of being able to start a fire when needed so I won’t go there. I will state though that the 550 FireCord does it’s job.
Simply unravel the paracord to expose the inner core strand. Remove the strand and fluff up the strand to expose the inner fibers.
From here you can throw sparks from your fire starter, ignite with a match, or whatever your other methods would be to get a flame going. The strand will easily catch fire and keep a flame going which assist you in getting your wood shavings started.
EASE OF USE
FireCord is simply to work with. Some might think it would be dangerous and potentially catch fire by simply being near combustible sources but that isn’t the case. You need to expose the inner strand to get the accelerant going. The outer stands of cord will burn like a traditional paracord but unless the inner strand is separated it will burn like traditional paracord. Check out their official instruction guide here.
Safe, simple to use, and handy. We are big fans of any product that provides extra utility. Why carry 4 different tools if 1 thing can do it all? 550 FireCord is the swiss army knife of cordage. Add to that it’s waterproof and you have a versatile product on your hands.
STRENGTH
Sadly we don’t own a tensile strength testing machine to see if it can achieve 550 lbs of pulling force. Maybe for Christmas this year? Either way we have no reason to think that FireCord can’t handle their rating. As a matter of fact most paracord manufacturers purposely understate their ability to perform. We have seen some 550 cord hold up to 700 lbs!
PRICE
At about 45 to 49 cents a foot the 550 Firecord isn’t cheap. The better price requires the purchase of 1000 feet while the higher price requires just a 25 foot purchase. Not too bad really but when you compare it to Military MilSpec C-5040H compliant paracord that sells for around 15 cents a foot you might question the purchase.
VALUE
At three times the price of the top of the line paracord, 550 Firecord might make some pause when deciding on their next purchase of parachute cord but in our opinion they shouldn’t.
Within 10 minutes of playing with the FireCord we got to thinking of all of the places we use cordage right now and realized that if our old stuff was swapped out with 550 FireCord, we would have extra piece of mind knowing that fire starting aids were all around us in case we needed to get a fire started.
Unlike our somewhat disappointed review of Live Fire, we felt 550 FireCord provided a product that worked and did it within a reasonable price range. It has our seal of approval.
