Clipper Lighters

What Clipper makes for campers and hunters

On this site, Clipper covers one product type: lighters. That sounds like a short page. It isn't, because inside that one type the brand makes several different tools:

• Classic soft-flame lighters: the round-bodied pocket lighter, in large, medium, mini and micro sizes
• Jet-flame lighters: the same kind of body with a torch flame
• Metal lighters: metal bodies instead of plastic, soft flame or jet
• Tube lighters: long, slim lighters with the flame out at the end, for candles, lanterns and stoves
• Packs and trays: from a single lighter to mixed packs of 3, 4, 6 or 8, up to 12-, 16-, 24- and 48-count boxes

Almost all of them run on butane and say they're refillable, per their listings. That's the main thing the brand is known for, and it's what makes a Clipper a lighter you keep instead of one you toss.

The grid above shows what's on Amazon right now, with a filter by type. Listings come and go every week, and most of the brand's catalog is the same lighter in different colors and prints. So I'll write about the shapes and what separates them, not about this week's count of camo packs.

Most of the specs here come from Amazon listings, and the grid marks those values. Where a listing doesn't say, the grid shows a dash. I didn't guess the missing ones.

Lineup notes: the Clipper soft-flame lighter

The Classic Large

This is the one everybody pictures: the round, slightly flattened body with the flint wheel on top. The listings for the Classic Large packs name butane fuel, a soft flame and a refillable body. They come in 6-, 9-, 12-, 16- and 48-count packs, plus mixed-print 4-packs and an 8-pack of random designs.

Clipper's own page for its large metal lighter says it's reusable with the maker's replacement flint ("stone") kits and ignition system, plus its refillable gas. That's the brand's pitch in one line: when the flint wears down or the fuel runs out, you fix the lighter, you don't bin it.

A soft flame is the plain yellow flame of a classic pocket lighter. It's the right flame for a candle, a lantern mantle you're lighting from the side, or a twist of birch bark in a dry fire ring. It's the wrong flame in a stiff wind, which is where the jet versions come in.

Medium, Mini and Micro

The smaller sizes follow the same idea in a smaller body. The listings in the grid include a CP21R Medium 3-pack and a Micro 4-pack, both butane, the Micro listed with a soft flame. The Medium pack lists butane but doesn't say refillable in its listing, so I'm not saying it either.

Small lighters make sense where space is tight: a fire kit in a pill bottle, a shirt pocket under a harness strap, the little zip pouch on a day pack. They hold less fuel, which is just physics. A smaller tank empties sooner.

Lineup notes: the Clipper jet-flame lighter

Classic Jet Flame

The jet-flame Clippers keep the familiar body and swap the soft flame for a torch. The listings in the grid name butane and a torch/jet flame, and most say refillable. Two listings name a single jet. They come in 48-count trays, mixed 4- and 6-count packs, and a 12-pack of silver jet-flame lighters.

Clipper's own page for one jet-flame set describes an "adjustable windproof flame" and electric ignition, and says the lighters are large-sized and gas-refillable. Electric ignition generally means a push-button spark instead of a flint wheel. Read the listing of the exact pack to see which ignition it has, because the grid's listings don't always say.

A jet flame is a narrow, focused flame, and the maker calls it windproof. That makes it the better pick for the ridge in October, a damp fire starter, or a camp stove burner in a breeze. The torch lighter page covers jet counts and fuel windows across brands, and best torch lighter has a ranked list.

Walt's take, when he first saw one light in the wind off the porch: "So it's a soft flame that's been to the gym." He then asked to borrow it. He did not give it back.

Mini Tube Torch

The Mini Tube Torch is a 3-pack listed with a torch/jet flame and a refillable body. It's a slimmer, longer shape than the classic, closer to a small tube lighter than a pocket lighter. There's also a 24-count tray of mini tube torch lighters in the grid, listed with a torch/jet flame.

Lineup notes: Clipper metal lighters

The metal Clippers trade the plastic body for metal: the Silver Metal Jet Flame, the Rose Gold Metal, the Metal Refillable Lighter and the Metal Lighter in ICY Metallic Blue. Their listings name butane, and most say refillable; the Silver Metal Jet Flame adds a single torch jet.

Clipper's page for its large metal lighter calls it a large size for "true fans", reusable with the maker's flint and ignition kits and its refillable gas. One listing in the grid, the Rose Gold, lists no specs at all, so the grid shows dashes for it. That's the listing's gap, not a secret feature.

What metal changes in practice, plain and simple: it's one lighter instead of a tray of them. You buy a metal one to keep and refill. You buy a 48-count tray to put a lighter in every coat, every truck and every kit. Both are fair plans. Only one of them survives Renee's junk-drawer purge.

Lineup notes: Clipper tube lighters

The tube lighters are the long ones. In the grid that's the Mini Tube Refillable Candle Lighter, a 24-count tray whose listing says refillable. Clipper's own site describes its Mediumtube and Wave tube lighters as butane refillable, with an "elongated burner" that makes it easy to light objects at a distance or in hard-to-reach places, "like candles or barbecues".

In a camp, "hard-to-reach" means the bottom of a jar candle, the back burner of a two-burner stove, a charcoal chimney, or a lantern you'd rather not stick your knuckles into. A pocket lighter does all of those jobs. A tube lighter does them with your fingers a little farther from the heat.

How to choose within the Clipper lineup

Pick the flame for the job

This is the first fork, and the grid's flame filter does it for you:

• Soft flame: candles, lanterns, a dry fire ring, the cabin stove
• Jet flame: wind, damp tinder, a camp stove on an exposed ridge
• Tube or long body: candles in jars, stoves and grills, anything that wants distance

My one opinion on this page: keep one of each flame in the camp kit, a soft flame for the cabin and a jet for outside. The reason is in the maker's own description: the jet flame is the one it calls windproof, and a candle doesn't need a torch. The refillable butane lighter page covers the soft-flame side across brands.

Then plastic or metal

Plastic bodies come in packs and in every print imaginable. Metal bodies come one at a time. If you lose lighters, buy the tray. If you keep them, a metal one is a fine thing to refill for years. (I lose lighters. I also keep lighters. I'm a complicated man, and my coat pockets are proof.)

Then the pack size

The grid runs from single lighters to 48-count trays. For a deer camp, the math is simple: one per person, one per vehicle, one in each fire kit, one in the cabin drawer. That's already a 12-pack for a small crew before anybody borrows one.

Then check the listing for refillable

Almost every Clipper listing in the grid says refillable. A few don't say either way, and a couple of the mixed trays don't list a fuel. If refilling is the reason you're buying the brand, confirm it on the exact listing first.

Refills, flints and care for Clipper lighters

Butane refills

Clipper sells its own butane can, which its page describes as pure butane for lighters and other fire devices. Use the fuel the maker sells or recommends for the lighter, and fill it at home at the table, not at the fire ring.

Flints and ignition

Clipper's pages describe replacement flint ("stone") kits and replacement ignition systems for its large lighters. That's the other half of a reusable lighter: the fuel is only one thing that runs out. A lighter with fuel and no spark may only need its flint replaced.

Cold weather

Here's the ice math, applied to fuel. NIOSH lists the boiling point of n-butane at 31°F. A lighter burns butane as a gas, and a cold lighter is slow to turn its liquid fuel into gas. On a 20-degree morning in the stand, a lighter that spent the night in the truck may spark and sulk.

So the lighter you plan to use rides in an inside pocket, close to your body. The backup rides in the fire kit, with a second way to make fire: a ferro rod or a few fire starter sticks. The fire starters page and the ferro rod page cover both.

Storage

Keep spare lighters in a box in the cabin, not on the truck dashboard or a sunny windowsill. A tray of 48 lighters in a hot cab is 48 small fuel tanks in a hot cab. I'll leave it there.

Kids and lighters

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission requires child-resistant mechanisms on disposable and novelty lighters, built to stop at least 85 percent of children in testing. That's most children, not all of them. Keep lighters in the fire kit or on you, never loose in a cup holder or a kid's jacket pocket.

Clipper facts

Here's what I could verify from the maker's own pages and a Catalonia government trade directory:

• Maker: Clipper is the lighter brand of Flamagas
• Founded: Flamagas says it was born in 1959, making metal lighters under the Flaminaire name
• Clipper's start: introduced in 1971, which the maker describes as one of the world's first plastic lighters
• Factories: Llinars del Vallès near Barcelona, Spain; Chennai, India; and Ganzhou, China, per the group's site
• Reach: the maker says Clipper is sold in more than 130 countries

The maker doesn't say which factory made which lighter, so I've left "where made" to the package and the listing. The maker's pages here don't give warranty terms, so those are left out too.

Fill it at home, keep it in a warm pocket, and put it back in the kit when you're done. That last part is the hard one. It's always the hard one.