I've got some experience that is relevant here: if you're like me, the instinctive way to light a lighter is holding it vertically with your fingers and operating it with your thumb, then holding it still and bringing whatever is to be lit to the flame...
This is not the way to proceed with pyros. If you do you will discover, as I did, that when the fuse ignites the extremely hot phosphor and whatever flame jets out that it will burn right through the thumb of even relatively decent gloves and cook the nail and nail bed. Not a terrible injury, I mean the nail grew back fine after the knackered bit came off and the scab healed, but it bloody hurt!
Of course a moment spent thinking about what would happen before I did it would have revealed to me all I needed to know, but the reason I draw your attention to it is that, while I have been guilty of many dick-moves in my life, I'm by no means a pillock. I did it in the heat of the moment and so may you...
If the striker fails to light the fuse after the 2nd attempt, my experience is that it's had it. I've started carrying half the sliding lid of a box of Cook's Matches, which gives me 2 1"x2" strikers which are loads better than the crappy efforts on pyros. We've discussed this a little before and somebody said that a mate of his stuck a piece of Cook's Matches striker to the side of his shotgun for easy access, which sounds great for indoors or rain free woodland.
When I've had to resort to a lighter, since the barbecued thumb episode but before the advent of the Cook's Matches plan, I hold the pyro at about 45 degrees to the vertical and bring the flame to it from underneath, so that when it ignites, the fuse flame burns upwards away from both hands. I'd encourage all of you, no matter which alternative method you go for, to consider in which direction the fuse will burn...
Also, although they are generally not at all cheap, Pyrohide & Kevlar gloves are the way forward when it comes to fvcking about with pyros. You could let a MK IX go off in your hand wearing those and get nothing worse than a slapped/stingy feeling. I always feel in a bit of a hurry to get rid of a lit pyro when I'm wearing other, or no, gloves, especially those light blue MK5's which don't seem to have much consistency in fuse times. This hurrying doesn't make for good throws...
