Xikar Stratosphere II High Altitude Lighter, Single Jet Flame, Windproof, Ergonomic Design, Durable and Dependable, Blue

My only gripe which turned out to be a better thing is that the image is wrong. I received the newest xikar lighter. I currently have the old style as pictured, but in green. I bought 3 as groomsmen gifts. I was kind of annoyed at first when I opened the box, but was happy when I clicked the lid open, no more little latch, but more like a zippo style lid. Filled up with xikar butane (which on my original they used ronsonol butane and it didnt work at all) and all three lighters lit up great. One of them seems to need adjustment because it actually puts out too much butane and the torch wants to burn out. Easy to adjust. I have been using the old version for 2 years now and loved it so much, that I am actually buying a 4th of the black new models right now. As far as wind and all that goes, it is what it is, there might be better, but I dont have issues with mine. I try to light whatever out of the wind anyways. Great for cigars, great for lighting up a fire starter for my chiminea, 4th of july punks, everyone always wants to borrow my lighter.

I was pretty happy with the lighter for the first week. After the first week the flame became weak and the lighter was hard to start. I had to adjusting the flame setting to full just to get it to light but it still would go out and when it would fire it barely could get the cigars to light. I am using their fuel as well. I am waiting for a response from the seller to see if they will send me a replacement. For $30 I expected to last a little longer than a week. If the seller replaces the lighter I will let you know. (UPDATE) Sep 08 2012. Recieved my replacement lighter from Burn Wholesale (great company to do business with!) It works for now, hopefully I will get some use out of it. Do yourself a favor buy American buy a Zippo. I will soon.

I have seen a lot of poor reviews for this lighter. My unit worked well our of the box and it has continued to work well for 3 years. I have owned or been gifted a lot of lighters and some very pricey ones (eg Colibri) have not held up well at all. Very few of my many refillable lighters last more than a year or two. For a while I resorted to cheap disposable non-refillable ones. However, this one has been good. I suspect the problem might be initial quality control, as the complaints have been for a new unit, and not that they failed after using a while. This has been a good purchase for me.

I have been trying to purchase a reliable wind resistant lighter; turns out it much harder than it sounds. This is not the first model I have purchased, however, it the first to actually light up AND be able to stay lit thru a puff of air at arms length! (while that may hardly seem like a "windproof" test, this is the only one to have passed so far, the other would go out just by saying the phrase "puffer fish"). a few things that while they mention in the manual deserve noticing: -It lights quick and easy... -your thumb IS very close to a very hot flame...in the breeze you had better make sure your thumb is upwind! -the device heats up, FAST, if you need more than 5 seconds of flame, look elsewhere -the flip top lid is plastic and the open spring is a little weak, you must also press the lever to CLOSE the lighter (seems odd that it does not snap closed) -eats fuel at a pretty good clip so that is why 4 stars (mostly the closeness of your thumb and how hot the device gets, those are design issues). That said, its a lighter and it actually LIGHTS!!! other manufacturers take note, if a device does not perform its primary task, anything else really does not matter...

I needed a decent, no frills, consistent torch. I researched so many and finally decided on this one. It shows up and I fuel 'er up. Click, click , click...nothing. I wait 10 minutes, nothing. Around 50 clicks later, it lights. Ok maybe just break in thing. Put it in my pocket and about 2 hours later get a cigar ready....click, click....nothing. I set it upright overnight and in the morning I try it again, it works over and over again. Ok so I stuff it back into my packet and a few hours later go to fire up a cigar and nothing, over and over. I walk over to the garbage can and slam it in. Some may have gotten a good one but mine was absolute effing garbage. Edit: The manufacturer has done a solid thing here and has made this right with me. They sent me an alternate Xikar torch that they pre tested out before shipping to me on their dime. It works great and they did everything right to make this customer happy on a originally defective product. Well done Xikar.

I bought this for a trip to Colorado with some buddies, realizing my torch lighters likely wouldn't work well. So, I bought this based on decent reviews and the need for a week. I filled it with the good gas and at out altitude in north Texas is seemed to work fine. Luckily I brought a couple of my torch lighters to Colorado though. We were at about 9000' in Lake City. This lighter worked briefly, sort of. It got a couple of cigars lit with some patience and thumb work. The second time, it just wouldn't light or would start to then die. I grabbed both torch lighters to try and lo and behold, they lit just fine. A little flicker at first but fired up and kept us going. I did bleed and refill this one but got nothing more than a brief light and flickered out. Torch lighters, including one I've had for 10+ years, both worked fine. I wanted to like this one and really wanted it to work, but no go. Too high? Not high enough? More like a waste of money. Luckily for the week we had by trusty, old, torch lighters. Maybe it's a case of, "you get what you pay for"? These are relatively inexpensive, so maybe that should have been a sign. Too bad the return window is so short on these......

This lighter is horrible, took forever to get it to light after its first refill then it worked fine up until the next time to refill it. That's when it wouldn't light again. It's to big of a pain to get it to light after every refill, and paying this much for a lighter that was suppose to be reliable and light in lots of extreme conditions was a bad joke. It is hard enough getting it to light under normal conditions let alone in the extreme. Stay far away and look else where if your looking for a survival lighter that will work whenever you need it. Gas station Bic lighters are more reliable than this cheap junk

Great windproof lighter, emphasis on windproof...you really have to try to get it to go out (the heat element works exceptionally well, even when compared to other lighters with similar features). I purchased this one as a backup (my primary is a simple single/soft flame Thunderbird insert for my Zippo) lighter for high-altitude backpacking and I believe it will serve me well in that capacity (just keep in mind that it does have a jet flame, which, despite burning hotter, does consume fuel at a greater rate than the average soft-flame). It is easy to change the height of the flame, though I found that my example required a fairly high volume to ignite reliably (and I haven't tried it at particularly high altitudes as of this draft). I only wish it were a little more compact, though it is reasonably lightweight and has a fairly large fuel reserve, so it isn't worth deducting a point for this minor drawback. It replaced my old Eddie Bauer windproof lighter that recently died. Hopefully this one lasts as long (though it has an excellent warranty, if it happens to fail early).

Article utilisé 5 ou 6 fois pour dégustation de cigare. A arrêté de fonctionner du jour au lendemain. Plus aucune flamme malgré une charge pleine. Très déçu surtout à ce prix! Garantie terminée depuis quelques jours...

I thought I would purchase a somewhat expensive light in the hopes that it would last. Less than a year and it's dead.

it worked well in the beginning, after the refill it was totally not working.