UKC

Hiya,

Does anyone know where to get proper Isobutane/ propane mix fuel canisters from?

I'm sick of using the substandard british version of msr fuel which is just a standard butane propane mix (Crap in the cold). The propane just boils off leaving the butane behind...

Ideally I'd like 100g cans so that they pack inside the jetboil.

Dave

In reply to amazingdave:

Same deal with Isobutane/propane or any other mixture - the component with the higher vapour pressure boils off quicker...

In reply to stupot:
But the craper the other component the worse the canisters performance so make sense to get the best mix possible.

we had this drama bothying on Burns night, bloody gas canisters were too cold to burn properly despite it not being particularly cold ambient.

Stu

In reply to amazingdave: one trick is to get a piece of copper wire and wrap it round the canister and have the end of the wire in the stoves flame. The wire will heat up and keep the canister warm and performing better.

In reply to amazingdave: I'll try the wire trick.... sounds good.

I've been on to lyon and they don't know of any importers of isobutane mixes. pah.

The isobutane boils at -11 whereas the n-butane (bog standard) boils at -0.5. so it would be a good mix for most uk uses.

I've found that the cylinder rapidly cools once you start releaseing the gas so that n-butane mixes are poor even at plus 5-10 degrees...

In reply to amazingdave:

Be careful with it, i have a mate who had one blow on him-lucky to not be scarred or injured.

In reply to Vip1r:

Aye, carefully does it!

I've resorted to tipping warm water out of the jetboil onto the can to pep things up a bit...

Bit of a rule of vanishing returns thing there though.

In reply to amazingdave:
Go here for Andy Kirkpatricks tips on using gas in extreme conditions:
http://www.psychovertical.com/?stoves
<Rest of the site is pretty cool too!>

In reply to Vip1r: The trick is not to have too much wire in the flame so the wire gets warm rather than hot. But of course a bit of sense is needed when heat and gas are involved!

In reply to amazingdave: I buy cans from a local DIY store. Keep them in your sleeping bag, shake them, put some kind of handwarmer under them etc. They seem to work OK at -10 or even below. Even prop./but. mix isn't great in cold weather, if you camp loads in deep frost and gas bothers you - just get a petrol stove instead.

Is the MSR gas you buy in the UK any different from the MSR gas I can buy in Finland? I wouldn't have thought so?

In reply to amazingdave:

see if you can get one from a tool shop that is made for blow torches maybe? I used these in italy before when out of gas and happened to walk passed a toolshop with one in the window!

Won't be the 100g shape though. Some are 100% propane, even better.

In reply to TobyA:


It might be, the gas (chilean, doite) I got in Argentina was 80% propane or something like that, because of cold/altitude issues and everyone seemed to sell just this, I guess economies of scale mean there is little point selling two different mixes.

If the finns are used to cold weather perhaps they have a different mix?

In reply to winhill:
Isn't propane crap at that concentration? I thought that's the reason why you don't get just prop?

But I don't think MSR will make different mixes - I'll look at their website later.

In reply to amazingdave:

Just do what everyone else does - keep the canisters warm in your sleeping bag/clothes and warm them with your hands/legs during use (easy to do with a jetboil).

In reply to Glen:

Last time I tried to warm up the jetboil when it was running it flared up and melted the neoprene...

I don't mind doing all the tricks to keep it going if it's the only way. It just pi**es me off that you can get gas in the states that doesn't need all the fannying about.

In reply to TobyA: MSR do make different mixes - this is a response from them:
"I spoke with the product manager for stoves and asked about the fuel
mixtures in our canisters. Cans made in Korea uses approx 80%
Iso-Butane and 20% Propane. Cans made in Italy/UK use approx 70% Butane
30% Propane with a small % in each cartridge of Iso-butane.

Nathan Hamm
Cascade Designs Inc."

To the OP:
You can get Primus Power Gas in the UK. This contains Iso-Butane, n-Butane and Propane altho I'm not sure of the exact proportions: the Primus website says 25% Iso-Butane, 25% Propane, but the UK distributer www.rosker.co.uk says only 10% Iso-Butane, 20% Propane. If the latter is correct, this would be worse than 30% Propane of Coleman canisters.

In reply to amazingdave:

Really? Mine only does that if you shake it quite a lot.
I agree that gas mix does seem to be different in the states, although I found this to be a problem with a coleman stove I had as it would blow itself out with american gas.