Fire Pistons?

[markinengland]

I am new to fire pistons.
I have two, both bought from the US on ebay.
One is horn with a string gasket and works a treat on chaga and char cloth tinder. Worked first time out of the box and nearly every time since.
The other has a brass cylinder and a rubber gasket on the piston. No matter what I do or what tinder I use I can not get the thing to work. It has good bounce back so I assume there is good compression but somehow the tinder will get warm and no more. I get the feeling that the piston is not quite long enough so it cannot quite get ignition.
Anyone else had similar expereince with one of these rubber gasket fire pistons and got them to work?
Anyone made one using simple "primitive" tools?
I was wondering if it would be possible to drill down into endgrain in hardwood using a fire drill type set up and then use that fire drill in the hole it has drilled as the basic fire piston?
Mark in England

[Justin Snyder]

Mine is all wood and it works almost every time.  I did notice that sometimes you get a little material in  the bottom of the cylinder and the piston bottoms out and it wont start. They are also particular about length and diameter of the hole I hear.  Justin