Ed Remember Scout troops have to be covered by insurance and I believe they dictate the switch to the falsly perceived (safer propane) I also think there could be a little laziness on the scout leaders part. One bottle of propane a bunch of hoses and a match= light ,heat and cooking. No filling or pumping. When my friend sets up his kitchen I have joked that he should have a Black Seal License for all the gas line he runs.Twin bottles multiple lights several burners . Dan
The reason I like Propane, especially for groups, is that I like to be part of the group instead of being the stove operator. One of the kids helps me get set up with my two propane fired two burner stoves on stands, each with it's own 20# supply bottle, and we're good to go. No muss, no fuss. At rendezvous, (Pre 1840 Western Mountain Man.) it's all wood fires, and candles only for light. When I go hunting or fishing its my little camp stoves, preferable the Svea 123 with a Sigg Tourist. Next trip I'll be using my "new" Optimus 00. But only when a wood fire is impractical. Nordicthug
No doubt a big propane setup probably works best for a scout troop. My sons' troop (12+ years ago) was primarily a camping troop and they had some petrol suitcases but did most cooking over campground fires. When I was a Scout in the 60s, we were primarily a hiking outfit. All cooking was done over fires in the backcountry. This is pretty much outlawed now, especially in the national parks. The main reason of course is that of degradation of the park environment by generations of foraging for firewood in the campsite vicinities. This pretty much ended the practice in the 1970s. As I said a few moons ago, hiking stoves were not in general use in my Scouting days. My Optimus 45 in about 1961-2 was a real novelty, and I got quite a few style points for it. I took it on one 50-mile hiking trip! With Trapper Nelson pack, natch.... The small stoves were used by climbers in the old days-- above the timber line. They really came into their own with hikers, at least around these parts, in the 1970s. I think there are an awful lot of folks out there who prefer the petrol Coleman suitcases over propane, besides us dedicated stovies, because they sitll sell, as does the fuel. Tent campers as a class contain a fair number of old-fashioned types, or they wouldn't be out there!
Is feeding Scouts en masse the regular thing now? Several and a half years ago when I was a Boy Scout feeding was a patrol affair. Each patrol of 6-8 boys drew their stores and the duties; food prep., cooking , washing up etc were delegated by the PL. This worked out fine and over the course of a camp everyone had a go at everything a few times over. The troop never ate as a whole. The scoutmaster and HQ people (adults) didn't do any cooking at all apart from their breakfasts but were fed their evening meals by each patrol - one adult to each patrol on a rota. This setup worked fine when we exclusively used fires and continued to do so when 2-burner propane stoves were introduced to supplement the fires.
Yeah, we always cooked by patrol. Bat Patrol; still see or hear from my old patrol mates, in fact we're planning a 40 year + reunion soon.
I was a Beaver ( no smartarse comments please), I still see some of them about town from time to time.
I think the scouting experience varies greatly from troop to troop. The better run troops still use the patrol method and still encourage patrols to cook on fires when possible. The great thing about the patrol method is that over a couple of days everyone gets to do a bit of everything and hence you learn more. Pairing up older scouts and younger scouts shortens the learning curve. As far as the safety issues of gas versus kero versus alcohol versus propane; the only opinion that really matters is that of the insurance underwriter. A good deal of how things are done in scouting is goverened by their insurance policies. I took first aid training recently as part of being a girl scout troop leader. I cannot give a girl any form of medication, even something as simple as aspirin or ointment for sunburn, due to insurance limitations. Strange, but true.
I have a 426d in pieces coming this week with an extra tank from UPS out of Wisconsin. My brother has his from Kmart when he worked there in the 1960's. Hundreds of campouts with it. Love my Prentiss Wabers also.
Hopefully we’ll continue to be able to buy Coleman fuel (or Crown) well into the future. Otherwise, we’ll have to haunt auto body shop suppliers for the US equivalent of “panel wipe”. (And I’m sure they’ll only have the ‘slow’ kind in California.) ….Arch
My local Walmart has a hard time keeping fuel on the shelf. I try to keep about five gallons on hand. I order the Crown brand on their website the and twice they substituted Coleman for the same price.
@ArchMc Hopefully enough Coleman/Crown fuel will be sold so they don't discontinue it, but if they do and they don't discontinue VM&P (Varnish makers and Painters) naphtha sold in the paint section of stores, that should work fine for you. The one I used had a higher flash point, so needed a little more preheat but worked fine in a lantern for me. In this case, by preheat, I used a torch lighter directly to the mantle to get it going. Otherwise it would leak down without igniting. Once lit, it burned perfectly. Hopefully we won't need to resort to this, but at least it's an option.
One would have thought the idea of restriction of camp fuels was far-fetched, at least until California banned denatured alcohol not so long ago. Or maybe they just banned the name; even more Orwellian. Denatured alcohol is relatively inexpensive; "Stove fuel" alcohol, exactly the same thing, is expensive. My long-term concern is the preoccupation of some people and authorities with 'symbolic' acts. We will obviously be using gasoline for transportation for decades, but banning of 'fossil fuels' for camp stoves, and lawnmowers, etc, will make it look like 'something is being done' to mitigate climate change at no political cost. Similarly with campfires, which we can be sure will be under attack, as they alread have some places. Hope I'm wrong. Anyway, I keep a good supply.
Yeah, all this talk about alternative fuel, and climate change ..... But the big news this morning is complaints about the high cost of gasoline.... and ours is the lowest cost in the world (I believe they said).
Lowest cost? Not even close, technically speaking. A distinction of course has to be made for tax rates, obviously. Europe has extremely high tax rates. On the other hand some oil-rich countries practically give it away, or in some cases heavily subsidize it. Overall, the "look on the bright side guys, it sucks way worse over there" isn't going to mollify the pitchforks and torches crowd.
When there's no Coleman fuel on the shelves at Walmart, remember that considerable stove and lantern fuel is bought to facilitate the home production of methamphetamine.
I've never seen a shortage of Coleman fuel; the usual places always have a lot of it; it's the price that has changed a lot from the time I came to CCS in 2021; from $4 to $15 per gallon, basically. It apparently is used in meth production; or was more when backyard labs were more popular.
