In reply to Dave H:
> I have just re-read the stove manual and it says that it can be used with most makes of bottles
That's actually not what it says in the manuals which came with my Himalaya MultiFuel. The pink CE-compliant leaflet says:
"This appliance shall be used exclusively with Primus Propane/Butane mix cartridges 2202 and 2207 or Primus liquid fuel bottles for white gas, unleaded automobile gasoline/petrol, kerosene (or other similar fuels)."
and
"It may be hazardous to attempt to fit other types of gas cartridges or liquid fuel bottles. It could cause fuel leakages and result in injury or death."
The white supplemental instruction book says:
"All manufacturers recommend that their customers use exclusively fuel bottles and cartridges of their own brand. Of course. you will think that this is a marketing stunt, and that would be quite understandable. But there is a safety reason, too! If the cartridge or the bottle and stove fit exactly together, very little can go wrong. That’s why we recommend the use of Primus burners only with Primus bottles or cartridges!
"During my travels around the world, I have come to made the distressing conclusion experience [sic] that you can’t always and everywhere get the right cartridges and fuel bottles (if they have been lost or broken somewhere). If there is no other choice, you might make an exception and try to screw the Primus pump into fuel bottles from other manufacturers. It will work with most other bottles because the Primus pump is made from aluminium. (But don’t try the opposite way: pumps made from plastic will usually not fit into other brands’ fuel bottles!) Important:
1. All plastic bottles are out of the question – no matter, if the top fits or not – since they will not endure the pressure.
2. Fill the bottle up only by three quarters full! This due to the construction of the Primus pump. Only the fill line on original Primus bottles is appropriate. All other marked lines on other bottles are not valid!"
So Primus' advice is: yes it may work, but no we don't recommend it. I believe that this is as much to do with product liability issues as anything else.
A quick scan of web sites reveals that many of the retailers who carry the Primus stoves do
not carry the Primus fuel bottles. You could argue that these retailers are knowingly selling a CE-certified appliance for use in a configuration which would invalidate its CE certification! (Up and Under is one web retailer which lists the Primus fuel bottle - it's actually cheaper than the equivalent sized MSR bottle, but a bit more expensive than the Sigg.)
Cotswold Outdoor - who told Dan_S not to use the MSR bottle - recommend on their web site that the Sigg fuel bottle be used with the Primus stoves. This advice is still contrary to Primus' own recommendation. Even less useful, the picture and description of the Sigg fuel bottle on their web site is of the
plastic Trangia fuel bottle, which would be completely unsuitable for the Primus stove!
However, it is certainly not the case that
any metal fuel bottle which fits the Primus pump will be OK. As I mentioned before, there are some out there which are only designed for transporting fuel. Unlike the MSR and other bottles which are designed to be used pressurised, these bottles do not have a thread cut directly in to the aluminium neck material of the bottle. Instead the thread is cut in a separate brass insert, which is then push-fitted into the neck of the bottle (you can see this type of thread construction on any Sigg drinks bottle). If you screw the pump into this thread and pressurise the bottle, there is a risk that the insert could be pushed out of the neck of the bottle. This might spoil your trip, especially if your stove happened to be lit at the time.
My experience has been the same as Dave H's, that the Primus pump fits the MSR bottle just fine. That's because the threads are, for all practical purposes including that of sealing a pressurized fuel system, the same. The issue mentioned in the Primus manual about how far you fill the bottle is to do with where the Primus fuel pickup lies inside the fuel bottle, and how you shut off the fuel supply and bleed pressure from the bottle by flipping it over. If the bottle is too full then you can still shut off the fuel supply to the stove by turning down the control knob, but it can be difficult to bleed pressure from the bottle without spraying fuel everywhere. I found no problems with this aspect of the Primus stove's operation when I filled the MSR bottle to the fill line marked on it, however.
Bottom line: if you want to follow Primus' advice to the letter then the Primus fuel bottle is available from some retailers. However, at least two other manufacturer's pressurised fuel bottles are reported to work with no discernable problems.
