Yes it is reliable. I use this stove for more than 4 years. It never let me down. I can recommend this stove with no doubts! Watch part 2 and part 3 of this episode as well! I use this stove in really hard winter conditions -35°C ! Sometimes you have to clean the nosel, that's it! If you use withe gasoline you'll never have to clean it!
I found it simmers quite well but you do need the windshield in any wind when simmering but I make porridge with it and fry up eggs and bacon no problem.
I have this same stove. With the pathfinder logo. :) i knew when i got it that it was just a label but hey…. Ive found the little knob for turning the valve is not glued in very strongly. Be gentle everyone.
I have one and a coleman 533. The BRS12a is complete and total rubbish. This stove produces about 20% of the heat that a Coleman 533 does. I did a boil test of a kettle of water - 2 minutes 15 for the Coleman, ELEVEN minutes for this one..... using the same fuel. The nozzle gums up after a few hours use, the flame becomes inconsistent - burning mainly on one side, it is supplied with a couple of sentences of English on the label and a few more instructions on a tag in Chinese. There is no manual to describe care and maintenance or how to disassemble it to change the nozzle from gasoline to ethanol or diesel - even though it came with replacement nozzles. Basically buy a real stove, this is rubbish. Anyone reviewing it as anything other than crap clearly didn't spend their own money on it like I did....regretfully.
It is good to see I am not the only person who is still using their ancient backpacking stove. I purchased my MSR Mode G stove in 1978 when a new store opened and had on sale the MSR Model G Stove for $44!! FORTY-FIVE years later I still use this stove on outdoor trips. I no longer go on long back country trips but, I have found few places where I don't have to go far to enjoy the great outdoors for snow camping and backpacking, it renews my soul. I do have to replace the pump which now cost more as I paid for the entire stove back in '78! My best outdoor expenditure!
Noice this explains why I had trouble running on lamp stove oil and when I added 99% isopropyl alcohol to the tank to clean and then tried to run it with the alcohol it worked beautifully. What I thought was a dirty filter wick, tank, and burn valve was actually user error and wrong fuel added. Luckily lamp oil does not corrode or affect any of the components of this stove and it actually helped clean the internals from all the dirty and debris of decades of use
The Soto Mika has so many O-rings that are points of failure. The O-ring of the fuel bottle pressure indicator failed, leaking fuel, and there is no replacement o-ring for it. Some forum posts from years ago wrote about receiving a replacement pump from Soto. However, Soto hasn't replied to me. The MSR dragonfly has very fine simmering control and is fully field serviceable with far fewer failures.
You can use filtered used motor oil in these with 50% ipa. Works great but must be shaken for a minute before you start . Can also do it with most oils etc olive and works perfect with deisel as well. Best is to use ethanol blend fuels .
its funny - first cold steel copied the Russian shovel and made it better by welding the back then the Russians new shovel copied cold steel and welded the back also - weird how things play out
Check gas regilation mechanism If the blocking mechanism design is based on a cone, this is good, if it is based on a ball, it is bad. As it gets dirty, the ball will start to get stuck. You can braze the ball to the moving part and this solve the problem.
Views and reviews: thanks for this idea. Personally, I use masking tape, but I’m not adverse to this, oil or wax. I live in a place with very high humidity, by the seashore. That’s a sure recipe for oxidation all right. It’s funny, almost everybody has a bit of liquid bandage of some kind in their backpack first aid kit, but you’re the first person I’ve ever heard you thought to do this. So thank you. :-)
It says the 1000 ml bottle half full (350mls) needs 210 pumps. You don't have to pump it from no pressure except when you move the stove and maybe want or need to relieve the pressure. I just top mine up when it is in regular use in camp. The pumping is easy enough and not an issue or annoyance in practice.
I have Primus OmniLite Ti, had to pump 10-15 times max, I guess your bottle must have been pretty empty that you needed that many strokes, crazy. I love my OmniLiteTi but this one, oh god that pump also with that knob instead of simple flipping the bottle.. priming looks very complicated as you need to go through full output, no real simmering it seems to be dieing out. On mine I just let some fuel out, prime few seconds cause small burner does not need long priming and I crank it up, nice blue flame. This one oh boy I am so glad I didn't get Soto hahaha
