MSR Dragonfly; A review
History
Those of you who have camped with me or followed my bloggs will have seen that my cooking when out and about has moved on quite a bit. My early trips were characterised by army rations with boil in the bag meals. So cooking was really a case of boiling water. This was simple to accomplish with a trangia, kelly kettle or over a fire. However times have moved on and now dinners of Haggis, freshly baked pizza and fry-ups are not unheard off.
All this has required a dramatic change in equipment. The gentle heat from a trangia was not up to a fry up nor was the burn time long enough for a haggis. The fire does not have the controllability required for baking in the Outback Oven so change was inevitable.
I have had my eye on a petrol stove for a while as I have used gas stoves before and have some issues with these. There performance in the cold can be poor and of course you are always trying to gauge how full the gas bottles are and how many to take. A petrol stove would be solve these problems but I was not sure. I have heard they are noisy difficult to simmer with and on occasion temperamental.
After some research I got my hands on a MSR Dragonfly (http://www.msrgear.com/stoves/dragonfly.asp) as I had heard good things about it and as it is meant to have good simmer control and be a good reliable stove.
It's Here
So what do you get? Well first of all you do not get a fuel bottle as standard. Not a huge problem as long as you know in advance but something to be aware of. Certainly it gives you the option to select the size of bottle that most suits your trips.
The stove itself comes in a small bag which will hold the pump as well but I tend to leave this on the fuel bottle for convenience.
As well as the stove you get the pump, instructions, a foil circle to protect the ground, a windshield and a repair / service kit.
One of the things that attracted me to the MSR stove is the fact that you can service / repair the stove. Far to many things now develop a fault and you need to replace the whole unit. With the MSR stove (and with their water filters as well as I have one of those) not only can they be repaired but you can buy the parts yourself without having to send them away to some service centre. This also allows you to stock up on parts if you wish to cover for emergencies if you are going to be away for a while.
As testament to this I have had to replace the plunger for the pump. This was through no fault in manufacture. All I will say is that with the plunger of the pump extended you should not bounce the fuel bottle down a flight of stone basement stairs. Anyway as I say parts are readily available and easy for the end user to chance. Even an end user stupid enough to knock the fuel bottle down a flight of stone stairs. Of course I was just testing how robust the fuel bottle was and the bottle passed with flying colours.
Fire in the Hole
So lets light this puppy up. First place the stove on the circular foil to protect the ground from scorching.
Fold out the pan supports
Rotate the burner into position and flip out the simmer control handle ( I am sure it has a better name but it escapes me right now)
Slide the end of the pipe into the hole in the pump and clip. The control for the valve on the pump should be upward. I always expect this to be a tighter fit but it seals fine so must be tight enough.
Pump up the pressure in the fuel tank (25 to 30 times until you feel resistance) Well frankly I feel resistance with the first pump stroke and am always very aware that I am in effect making a petrol bomb so the first few times I did this I under pressurised the fuel tank. Having not been killed in a fireball I am getting more confident and now pump until I feel a lot of resistance.
Open the valve at the fuel bottle, then open the simmer valve to let out about a teaspoon of fuel then close it again.
When lit you are cautioned to expect a soccer ball sized flame and I have had this once but usually it is less. Lighting the fuel is best done with a ferro rod as it lets you keep a healthy distance
I am using unleaded petrol at the moment so it does not burn very clean. I will be trying the Aspen 4T later to see if it burns cleaner. To be honest you only notice this at the priming stage anyway.
As the flame dies down open the simmer control valve to get the stove going. Don't bother looking round for the approaching jet plane, its the stove.
Typically the stove flame does not show up very well in the picture above but it is there, it is noisy and it is hot.
Of course you should have had the windshield in place before lighting but I left it off to keep the pictures clearer. Put your pot of water on and wait for it to boil.
Now as you can see from the picture that the windshield is not very high. I also have issues with it not being adjustable circumference wise to cope with the Outback Oven etc so I use a couple of folding windshields you can buy from camping shops.
You can see these give much better protection from the elements and speed up boil times considerably.
Speaking of boil times no stove review is complete without an in-depth analysis of the boil times in comparison to other stoves. So for completeness I can confirm that the Dragonfly boils any given quantity faster than a trangia. Much faster. By any standard it is quick. There may be quicker stoves but I suspect we are talking about differences in time that have no real relevance in use. The only way to have boiling water available discernibly quicker would be to take a vacuum flask with boiling water in it
To shut off the stove you shut the valve at the fuel bottle first. This lets it burn off the fuel in the line etc as it goes out. A point to remember is to close the simmer valve when you get round to putting the stove away. I have on occasion forgotten to do this and been surprised by the fuel coming out when I set up the stove and open the fuel valve.
If you want to relight the stove you need to wait a few minutes for it to cool sufficiently. You then need to re-prime it but you do not need to let out much fuel for this. This can be a bit of a pain at first as until you are familiar with the stove you can turn it too low when trying to simmer and the burner blows out. I blame this on the noise as even when turned down to simmer heat the burner still sounds as if it is giving out a ferocious heat. The secret is to go by the look of the burner, not the sound
Once the stove has cooled you pack it away by doing the reverse of the set up procedure, except for de-pressurising the stove. Now let me be blunt about this I hate de-pressurising the stove. There must be a better option. If it were not for those petrol bomb concerns of mine I would leave it pressurised all the time. To release the pressure from the bottle you are instructed to hold the bottle away from you and slowly unscrew the pump until the pressure releases. Of course as it releases it sprays out a mist of petrol vapour and liquid. Not great if your companion is having his fag break or you are near the fire. There simply must be a better way to release the pressure.
In Use
In use the stove has met all my expectations and been up to all the tasks I have set it. It works well with the Outback Oven which would have been a deal breaker for me.
It is hot enough to fry with, controllable enough to bake with and has a burn time long enough to bring haggis to a boil and simmer for an hour. Cooking wise there is really nothing it cannot do that other stoves cannot. And as I have mentioned it is as hot as the hinges of hell
Likes & Dislikes
Well nothing is perfect. I have dislikes about this stove. The noise is not something you can ignore. When you shut the stove off it is as if you have gone deaf. You certainly could not use this stove somewhere where you needed to be very quiet and undetected. Of course I may be more sensitive to this as I have been using the meths trangia as a stove and it is entirely silent but even so the Dragonfly is way more noisy that any gas stove I have heard either.
I could wish the stove was even more simple and easy to service with fewer parts that could go wrong but this would be unfair. I think the stove has been kept as simple as it can be and provide the functionality. If it were more simple it would be less capable.
Lets not forget I hate the way you de-pressurise the bottle. This just seems wrong on every level and I live in hope that I have misread the instructions and someone will point out the real way of doing this.
The other down side is the smell. It is fine as long as you let the stove air after use but if you had to pack it away straight away I suspect your kit would acquire a petrol smell. I am hoping this can be addressed by using the Aspen 4T as a fuel.
However, let us not wallow in the negative as these are small points. The plus points are many. The stove packs away small. Very small when you consider the power of it.
It is user maintainable and this can be done in the field with minimal tools.
You can see how much fuel you have and how much you have used. You can refill the bottle every trip and do not have to dispose of gas cannisters just as you do not have to carry spare gas canisters as you do not know how much is left in the part used one. This also means you do not have the problem I have had in the past where a gas canister runs out half way through cooking something and you have to faff about changing the canister to continue the cooking. Whilst it is hard to say a petrol stove is green I do feel this saving on the disposal of gas canisters does make this type of stove more sustainable than the gas alternatives.
The Dragonfly can burn a selection of fuels. This is a benefit but to be honest not a big one for me. I will be burning unleaded petrol or one of the equivalents and cannot foresee a situation where this would be unavailable and an alternative would.
Hints & Tips
Well first if leaving the pump in the bottle make sure you keep the plunger down and not up
This way should you bounce it down stairs it will not break.
Upgrade the windshield to the folding ones that are available. Two of these gives you a lot of flexibility and greatly improves performance
Remember to give the burner a shake a few times before you put the stove away. This lets the shaker valve clean the jet and helps keep the stove burning better.
Try Aspen 4T or Panel Wipe as a cleaner fuel. I have still to try this but I trust the people who have made the recommendation.
Select pots that are wide and shallow as opposed to narrow and tall as this saves you loosing as much heat to the wind, even with a windshield.
Judge the simmer adjustment by the look of the flame not the sound
Conclusion (so far)
I have added the so far to the heading as I have still not had this stove for very long. A few months really and to make a really informed review I need to see how it performs over time. For the amount of money this stove costs you should rightly expect it to last you for years. My intention is to come back to this review and update how the stove stands up to the abuse it gets over a longer period of time.
Notwithstanding the above I do like the stove. It seems to tick all the boxes with little to detract. I have listed the likes above so do not need to go through them again but one thing worth highlighting again is the heat output the stove is capable of. It really has to be seen to be believed. If you are used to a gas stove then it is a real revelation. A meths trangia just does not exist on the same scale. Also the performance is not effected by the cold and you can have it as hot when the fuel bottle is near empty or full.
So a 4 out of 5 from me. If they make a quieter version that you can de-pressurise easier then it would get a 5
Links
MSR (Mountain Safety Research) web page about the Dragonfly
http://www.msrgear.com/stoves/dragonfly.asp
UK Distributor
http://www.firstascent.co.uk
History
Those of you who have camped with me or followed my bloggs will have seen that my cooking when out and about has moved on quite a bit. My early trips were characterised by army rations with boil in the bag meals. So cooking was really a case of boiling water. This was simple to accomplish with a trangia, kelly kettle or over a fire. However times have moved on and now dinners of Haggis, freshly baked pizza and fry-ups are not unheard off.
All this has required a dramatic change in equipment. The gentle heat from a trangia was not up to a fry up nor was the burn time long enough for a haggis. The fire does not have the controllability required for baking in the Outback Oven so change was inevitable.
I have had my eye on a petrol stove for a while as I have used gas stoves before and have some issues with these. There performance in the cold can be poor and of course you are always trying to gauge how full the gas bottles are and how many to take. A petrol stove would be solve these problems but I was not sure. I have heard they are noisy difficult to simmer with and on occasion temperamental.
After some research I got my hands on a MSR Dragonfly (http://www.msrgear.com/stoves/dragonfly.asp) as I had heard good things about it and as it is meant to have good simmer control and be a good reliable stove.
It's Here
So what do you get? Well first of all you do not get a fuel bottle as standard. Not a huge problem as long as you know in advance but something to be aware of. Certainly it gives you the option to select the size of bottle that most suits your trips.
The stove itself comes in a small bag which will hold the pump as well but I tend to leave this on the fuel bottle for convenience.
As well as the stove you get the pump, instructions, a foil circle to protect the ground, a windshield and a repair / service kit.
One of the things that attracted me to the MSR stove is the fact that you can service / repair the stove. Far to many things now develop a fault and you need to replace the whole unit. With the MSR stove (and with their water filters as well as I have one of those) not only can they be repaired but you can buy the parts yourself without having to send them away to some service centre. This also allows you to stock up on parts if you wish to cover for emergencies if you are going to be away for a while.
As testament to this I have had to replace the plunger for the pump. This was through no fault in manufacture. All I will say is that with the plunger of the pump extended you should not bounce the fuel bottle down a flight of stone basement stairs. Anyway as I say parts are readily available and easy for the end user to chance. Even an end user stupid enough to knock the fuel bottle down a flight of stone stairs. Of course I was just testing how robust the fuel bottle was and the bottle passed with flying colours.
Fire in the Hole
So lets light this puppy up. First place the stove on the circular foil to protect the ground from scorching.
Fold out the pan supports
Rotate the burner into position and flip out the simmer control handle ( I am sure it has a better name but it escapes me right now)
Slide the end of the pipe into the hole in the pump and clip. The control for the valve on the pump should be upward. I always expect this to be a tighter fit but it seals fine so must be tight enough.
Pump up the pressure in the fuel tank (25 to 30 times until you feel resistance) Well frankly I feel resistance with the first pump stroke and am always very aware that I am in effect making a petrol bomb so the first few times I did this I under pressurised the fuel tank. Having not been killed in a fireball I am getting more confident and now pump until I feel a lot of resistance.
Open the valve at the fuel bottle, then open the simmer valve to let out about a teaspoon of fuel then close it again.
When lit you are cautioned to expect a soccer ball sized flame and I have had this once but usually it is less. Lighting the fuel is best done with a ferro rod as it lets you keep a healthy distance
I am using unleaded petrol at the moment so it does not burn very clean. I will be trying the Aspen 4T later to see if it burns cleaner. To be honest you only notice this at the priming stage anyway.
As the flame dies down open the simmer control valve to get the stove going. Don't bother looking round for the approaching jet plane, its the stove.
Typically the stove flame does not show up very well in the picture above but it is there, it is noisy and it is hot.
Of course you should have had the windshield in place before lighting but I left it off to keep the pictures clearer. Put your pot of water on and wait for it to boil.
Now as you can see from the picture that the windshield is not very high. I also have issues with it not being adjustable circumference wise to cope with the Outback Oven etc so I use a couple of folding windshields you can buy from camping shops.
You can see these give much better protection from the elements and speed up boil times considerably.
Speaking of boil times no stove review is complete without an in-depth analysis of the boil times in comparison to other stoves. So for completeness I can confirm that the Dragonfly boils any given quantity faster than a trangia. Much faster. By any standard it is quick. There may be quicker stoves but I suspect we are talking about differences in time that have no real relevance in use. The only way to have boiling water available discernibly quicker would be to take a vacuum flask with boiling water in it
To shut off the stove you shut the valve at the fuel bottle first. This lets it burn off the fuel in the line etc as it goes out. A point to remember is to close the simmer valve when you get round to putting the stove away. I have on occasion forgotten to do this and been surprised by the fuel coming out when I set up the stove and open the fuel valve.
If you want to relight the stove you need to wait a few minutes for it to cool sufficiently. You then need to re-prime it but you do not need to let out much fuel for this. This can be a bit of a pain at first as until you are familiar with the stove you can turn it too low when trying to simmer and the burner blows out. I blame this on the noise as even when turned down to simmer heat the burner still sounds as if it is giving out a ferocious heat. The secret is to go by the look of the burner, not the sound
Once the stove has cooled you pack it away by doing the reverse of the set up procedure, except for de-pressurising the stove. Now let me be blunt about this I hate de-pressurising the stove. There must be a better option. If it were not for those petrol bomb concerns of mine I would leave it pressurised all the time. To release the pressure from the bottle you are instructed to hold the bottle away from you and slowly unscrew the pump until the pressure releases. Of course as it releases it sprays out a mist of petrol vapour and liquid. Not great if your companion is having his fag break or you are near the fire. There simply must be a better way to release the pressure.
In Use
In use the stove has met all my expectations and been up to all the tasks I have set it. It works well with the Outback Oven which would have been a deal breaker for me.
It is hot enough to fry with, controllable enough to bake with and has a burn time long enough to bring haggis to a boil and simmer for an hour. Cooking wise there is really nothing it cannot do that other stoves cannot. And as I have mentioned it is as hot as the hinges of hell
Likes & Dislikes
Well nothing is perfect. I have dislikes about this stove. The noise is not something you can ignore. When you shut the stove off it is as if you have gone deaf. You certainly could not use this stove somewhere where you needed to be very quiet and undetected. Of course I may be more sensitive to this as I have been using the meths trangia as a stove and it is entirely silent but even so the Dragonfly is way more noisy that any gas stove I have heard either.
I could wish the stove was even more simple and easy to service with fewer parts that could go wrong but this would be unfair. I think the stove has been kept as simple as it can be and provide the functionality. If it were more simple it would be less capable.
Lets not forget I hate the way you de-pressurise the bottle. This just seems wrong on every level and I live in hope that I have misread the instructions and someone will point out the real way of doing this.
The other down side is the smell. It is fine as long as you let the stove air after use but if you had to pack it away straight away I suspect your kit would acquire a petrol smell. I am hoping this can be addressed by using the Aspen 4T as a fuel.
However, let us not wallow in the negative as these are small points. The plus points are many. The stove packs away small. Very small when you consider the power of it.
It is user maintainable and this can be done in the field with minimal tools.
You can see how much fuel you have and how much you have used. You can refill the bottle every trip and do not have to dispose of gas cannisters just as you do not have to carry spare gas canisters as you do not know how much is left in the part used one. This also means you do not have the problem I have had in the past where a gas canister runs out half way through cooking something and you have to faff about changing the canister to continue the cooking. Whilst it is hard to say a petrol stove is green I do feel this saving on the disposal of gas canisters does make this type of stove more sustainable than the gas alternatives.
The Dragonfly can burn a selection of fuels. This is a benefit but to be honest not a big one for me. I will be burning unleaded petrol or one of the equivalents and cannot foresee a situation where this would be unavailable and an alternative would.
Hints & Tips
Well first if leaving the pump in the bottle make sure you keep the plunger down and not up
This way should you bounce it down stairs it will not break.
Upgrade the windshield to the folding ones that are available. Two of these gives you a lot of flexibility and greatly improves performance
Remember to give the burner a shake a few times before you put the stove away. This lets the shaker valve clean the jet and helps keep the stove burning better.
Try Aspen 4T or Panel Wipe as a cleaner fuel. I have still to try this but I trust the people who have made the recommendation.
Select pots that are wide and shallow as opposed to narrow and tall as this saves you loosing as much heat to the wind, even with a windshield.
Judge the simmer adjustment by the look of the flame not the sound
Conclusion (so far)
I have added the so far to the heading as I have still not had this stove for very long. A few months really and to make a really informed review I need to see how it performs over time. For the amount of money this stove costs you should rightly expect it to last you for years. My intention is to come back to this review and update how the stove stands up to the abuse it gets over a longer period of time.
Notwithstanding the above I do like the stove. It seems to tick all the boxes with little to detract. I have listed the likes above so do not need to go through them again but one thing worth highlighting again is the heat output the stove is capable of. It really has to be seen to be believed. If you are used to a gas stove then it is a real revelation. A meths trangia just does not exist on the same scale. Also the performance is not effected by the cold and you can have it as hot when the fuel bottle is near empty or full.
So a 4 out of 5 from me. If they make a quieter version that you can de-pressurise easier then it would get a 5
Links
MSR (Mountain Safety Research) web page about the Dragonfly
http://www.msrgear.com/stoves/dragonfly.asp
UK Distributor
http://www.firstascent.co.uk
