Hey, Tim, If I were in your shoes, I'd use nothing but the OEM fuel bottles for whatever stoves you're planning to take with you down there! Use Primus bottles with Primus stoves, Optimus bottles with Optimus stoves, and so on, and so forth. To do otherwise, IMHO, may well be "penny wise, and pound foolish"! Just my thoughts, and the mileage may vary for anyone else... Heading your way, day after tomorrow, Tim! Should be in the area around noon, plus of minus an hour. But, as I mentioned in my past PM to you, we would have to meet someplace very near our regular route on the freeway, as our time is a little more "dear" than in years past. Would that work for you? If not, then we may have to wait until next year, as we'll be going home by the "South" route, through Texas, so that we can visit with my aged, and almost blind, Uncle, and then through AZ to visit my Mom. No pressure, though, if this won't work for you. If so, please send me your cell phone number in a PM. I forgot to get it before we left.... Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc
They did - I had one on my old No:9 plus another early model. I may still have one. The instructions here on the 2nd page warn against sourcing Sigg bottles from elsewhere - maybe suggesting the one's supplied to msr were better
I have read somewhere, a trusted source but cannot recall who at the moment, that the Sigg fuel bottles did not have the same wall thickness as the bottles designated for pumping up, thereby more likely to have pressure accidents. Could be. I use my Siggs for storage and pourage only, and carry bottles specifically designated for pressure use for the pump. I do notice that current MSR bottles have a longer neck, hence more threads, than my older Siggs. Could this have something to do with being under pressure? Could be.
At an outdoor shop I saw a MSR fuel bottle & another make that had been cut down the middle to show the thickness & construction. The MSR was thicker. Not sure who made the other bottle. I believe it wasn't too uncommon to find Sigg fuel bottles with blown out bottoms from overpressure - still intact but the bottle wobbled if you stoood it up! But back in the beginning I'm guessing MSR weren't set up to make the bottles & used the market leader at the time until they were able or forced to make their own, or possibly get them made to their own spec.
I have an old MSR bottle with the wobbly bottom. I use it for storage but not pumpage. It came with a stove. Maybe that's why the guy sold the stove -- probably scared the bejesus out of him when it popped. I don't know of any way to tell how old it is, but it is faded and has a graphic design which I've never seen elsewhere. Might have been from before they beefed up the specs. Might have been one of the ones Sigg made for them, early on. Which is not to say that Sigg made bad stuff. I just doubt anyone realized how some maniacs were going to pump ... and pump ... and pump ... it's the whole "More Power" thing I guess. So like everything else the bottles had to be over-engineered. But I feel safer with the new ones anyway, I don't mind a large margin of error when we are dealing with explodables.
I mostly use MSR fuel bottles and some old SIGG's to carry and store Coleman fuel. Coleman fuel does come in one US gallon steel cans. I've kept it in the steel cans for long periods of time but now I'm storing everything in either SIGG or MSR fuel bottles. I've been told that Coleman fuel will last longer if you store in in containers with very little air space. Coleman does make fuel bottles that look like any other major brand* "white gas" type fuel bottle. *SIGG, MSR, Primus, Brunton, Snow Peak, and Optimus are the brands I've seen here in the US.
Interesting information, Ross. I wonder if by "SIGG bottles" they really mean "fuel bottles" in the generic sense. The sentence warns one to be wary with ones from Taiwan which clearly would not be SIGG brand name bottles.
soda bottles my not be a good idea motorcycles that use polyethylene fuel tanks cannot be painted different colors due to fume seepage (the volatile compounds )which blows the paint off the tank this causes the fuel to go off over a period time. soda bottles are built using injection molding and will deform if liquid is stored in them any length of time if you can pain a bottle then store the fuel for around 6 months to see if the paint starts peeling off you you will be able to let us all know the result.
I actually went down to a local sporting goods store and fiddled with the new MSR bottle caps. They are noticibly heavier. Time will tell, but I'm not quite ready to embrace the new caps just yet. I wonder if Asprin, were it introduced today, would ever be approved for the public's use. Yesterday, I took out a SIGG bottle and an MSR bottle. Just tapping them with the back of my fingernail, the MSR seemed to be quite a bit thicker, which makes sense in that MSR bottles are designed to function as a pressurized fuel tank whereas SIGG bottles are designed just to store and transport fuel. Thank you all for the post. I would never have given the issue a thought had I not seen it here. Having just picked up an old 0.3L SIGG (which is smaller than any of the MSR bottles), I was planning to use it with my MSR stove for short trips. Now, I won't even think about it!
They probably used the steel gallon cans when filling all of the gas guzzling suitcase stoves and lanterns. With a moderate amount of cooking and baking I bet a family could go through the better part of a gallon in one weekend. The market was definitely towards this type of end user. The backpacking gear was an afterthought. I have seen pictures on the internet of coleman fuel packaged in pet bottles... looked a lot like water.
Optimus used to and still may sell "Arctic Fuel" which was packaged in what appear to be PET bottles.
Interestingly, I took the cap off a one gallon can of Coleman fuel last night. The cap was made entirely of plastic -- and it had a seal. That being said, the seal looked metalicized, not at all like the seals found in "bottled water" bottles.
I took your advice, Doc. I got an old 1L Sigg. The guy wanted $7.00, but I pointed out that it needed a new seal ($0.61 at REI), and he gave it to me for $6.00. I love bargains.
A very old thread, but still relevant. Just to back Grigory up, I've been using a PET bottle to store petrol in for some years now, after my sigg sprang a corrosion leak, and it has worked remarkably well. Whilst it's not as robust as a metal container actually designed for the purpose, it works very well in practice. The fuel has not degraded the bottle in 5 years, it does not seem to let any fumes out (and it is often left to sit for months on end as we don't use it much in winter), so the fuel doesn't go 'flat' in storage..PET bottles are effectively free, and amazingly robust (I use another for my caving drinking bottle aftear years of using 'proper' drinking bottles of various sorts, most of which broke eventually. PET bottles are just the right mix of strong but squashable to make them almost indestructible). You can also see immediately how much fuel you have, which is nice, and they are very light. My bottle is a Tesco tonic water 1L bottle; quality varies - I've seen Chinese PET water bottles that really are very thin-walled and definitely wouldn't be a good idea to use. The main risk is heat or puncturing with something sharp. An aluminium bottle is of course much more proof against those things. But for our car-camping usage it works so well I've stuck with it. One issue is that you can't show it to the guy at the fuel station when you buy more, because it's definitely 'not approved'! I show them the fuel bottle on the stove itself, then fill the plastic one too whilst they are not looking :-) Mind you, I did once buy emergency fuel (diesel) in a rural patrol station in Ireland and the guy went out the back and found a PET bottle for me to use to take it away in. (This was about 25 years ago now - no doubt such helpfulness has been clamped-down on in the meantime). Of course Diesel is a lot safer as it's very hard to burn. That bottle didn't dissolve either, but was used for hours, rather than years. So, if you are a little bit rock and roll, using a PET bottle for your fuel is not actually a stupid thing to do. Just keep it away from flames and sharp pointy things, and you'll probably be fine.
I just went and looked at my Coleman Brand Premium Fuel in a red plastic container. And it is in HDPE Number 2. My NALGENE bottles are HDPE number 2, but, the NALGENE bottles 'NOT OK' for alcohol are different. Ken in NC
