Hi all! Found this weird fuel bottle on Ebay, and took a punt out of sheer curiosity. Advertised as a Dutch army fuel bottle, it seems to be a solid alternative to, say, a trangia bottle for pouring fuel into a classic stove. Info around the internet is scarce, so I thought maybe some of our Dutch members have any leads on what it's supposed to be used for? Pictures below: came in a plastic bag manufactured by BRS. Listing said manufacturer could vary. seems like claim to being military kit is legit. Transport cap can be used as a wrench for the pouring assembly. Pouring assembly is threaded into bottle underneath the transport cap. It works. But leaves half a cup of fuel inside that is difficult to get out. In all it seems a solid bit of kit. A few tiny O rings around the spring piston, that looks a little fragile, but cap creates redundancy in sealing for transport.
The BRS brand and English labelling suggest it isn't Dutch. BRS = Chinese Reminds me of the "M95" military stoves sold on ebay in Europe- BRS-12a. It's hard to know the exact story though. I bought what was sold as a Dutch Army day pack (pre-internet). The only Dutch informant I later spoke with swore it was Nazi. I have since seen identical packs from Dutch East Asia (Vietnam when run by Holland). Your request for informants with actual knowledge is a good one.
Dutch East Indies became Indonesia upon independence. Viet Nam was part of French IndoChina during its colonial period.
Yes- name escaping me at the time. And frankly I don't know where the pack was used/issued/intended. I was speaking of unreliable sources- and I own being one.
Wow! Quite strange, the western army's OE with Chinese product, if it is really the genuine. Thanks for photos.
The bottle had the name of the company printed which sold these bottles to Dutch Army: Dutraco Gouda B.V. This company also provided single burner gasoline Coleman and later the Chinese BRS gasoline stoves to the Dutch Army. It looks legit to me. These bottles can be found at a number of dump shops, here, here and here.
Hello @Brenneman , Thank you for the shop links! I'm considering buy one. The bottle orifice may same as usual Primus and Optimus, if yes means not suitable for MSR pumps due to the Size matter even the same SIGG thread it has... Anyway it's weird that Chinese Branded product for Western military, personally it's strange point
Hi @Yun124 well, if a green painted Chinese fuel bottle fits the specs as described in the tender by the Dutch Army and probably being the cheapest option, why not?
I think You're right! I'm not a specialist about Military's supplying chain business, so don't know exactly. yet just thought there are some more logic about it, Not only based on the tender/bid logic. Anyway it might be the reason why BRS branded bottle was chosen. Yun
Thank you all for some nice feedback! Like Scrambler said, it's not always easy to tell what is good or not. Thank you for the insight and links, @Brenneman! Btw, Gouda, is that the same place where the cheese comes from? @Yun124 sorry to dissappoint, but bottle thread is a bit narrower than regular fuel bottles. Seen below held together with an MSR cap.
Gouda is a Dutch town and indeed the origin of Gouda cheese, but, since “Gouda cheese” is not a registered trade mark, nowadays Gouda cheese could be, and indeed is, made everywhere
Thank you for your advice @pysen78 , so now it's no reason to buy it for me. I just realized that this bottle is for using "fuel container".
Looks indeed like a copy of the Markill safety fuel bottle. More specific the Markill Matic fuel bottle. Olive green versions of these were made or supplied by Dutraco Gouda bv in The Netherlands with Nato stock number NSN 8110-99-125-5804 From personal experience I can tell that the Markill Matic safety bottle is horrible to use. The area of where you have to press is quite small and on top of that it usually leaks fuel on your fingers. I think that the Trangia safety cap is a better option. This one will fit besides their plastic alcohol bottles also on aluminium fuel bottles such as MSR and Sigg. The Dutch army used the Coleman 550B stove in lager numbers. Later they switched to other commercial available stoves like the MSR Whisperlite V2 and the BRS 12A.
I have one Dutch Army surplus fuel bottle I got from Sportsman's Guide. The spill-proof mechanism is too hard to manipulate, and flows too slow anyway. I take it off and freeport the pour mostly. I looked up the Trangia spout on Amazon, but it's too spendy. I keep methanol in mine. The bottle itself is sturdy enough. Marked ''BRS'' so I suspect Chinese origin.
Last week I bought a second hand Coleman 550B (Peak 1) together with a special olive green plastic storage box, a aluminium storage box and a 1 liter green fuel bottle. The bottle is from the same design as shown in the pictures here and has also the same NSN number. The brand is indeed Markill Matic.
