Trangia burner shootout - Military v Civvi...

[Martyn]

I noticed some discrepancies with the Trangia burners I have since I recently aquired a Swedish army mess kit and got one of the Military version burners that come with it. So i decided to do some tests. The first thing I noticed anout the two burner, the civvi version heats up[ into "gas burner" mode much quicker than the military version - and I mean much quicker. So, I filled em both with neat meths (no added water) and lit em both. I set up my digital camera on a tripod and took photo's every 30 seconds....

Test done on a concrete floor in sheltered conditions. Civvi version on the left, military version on the right:

after 10 seconds...

after 30 seconds...

after 1 minute...

after 1 minute 30 seconds...

after 2 minutes...

after 2 minutes 30 seconds, and the civvi burner is pretty much up to full heat with the gas ring in full flow...

after 3 minutes...

after 3 minutes 30 seconds...

after 4 minutes...

after 4 minutes 30 seconds...

after 5 minutes...

after 5 minutes 30 seconds and finally the military version cartches up. A fiull 3 minutes longer than the civvi model...

After the burners are both up to heat, there is little to *visually* choose between them as the following random shots show. Again, Civvi model on the left, military on the right...

After this, I decided to time them both and see which boiled faster, but doing the test with hot "up to speed" stoves. Using the small pan in the Swedish kit, I times how long each burner took to boil 250ml of cold water. Both burners took around 3minutes 30seconds (give or take) to achieve a high, bouncing boil. So they pace each other pretty well, which agrees with my visual impressions of both burners when they are hot. But you have to factor in the HUGE warmup time for the military version - add that on to the boil time and who knows. I'm waiting for the burners to go fully cold, then I'll do a boil test from there.

More later....

Update:
I put 250mls of cold water into the swedish kit, lit the (cold) stove and immediately placed the pot onto it and started the clock.

The civvi burner took 5 minutes to reach a bouncing boil.
The military burner took 6minutes 45seconds to reach the same bouncing boil.

Update
Initially, I boiled 250mls of water with hot stoves to test performance. I thought this would be a good real world experiment as 250mls is a good mugfull. Both burners were pretty close, maybe the civvi slightly faster, but i couldn't be sure that wasn't due top some anomalous factor - there was only a few seconds in it, so to my mind, they were equal. But this didn't really establish if one design was inherantly more powerful than another. Maybe the mil-spec model could claw the difference back over a longer burn with a bigger volume. So, I decided to test further.

First off, I emptied both burners and burnt off any excess fuel. Than I added exactly one film-canister full of fuel (probably about 20mls) to each burner. Then I lit them both, and concious of the milspec burner having a longer warm-up time, I used a small butane torch to warm both burners simultaneously. The milspec burner needed more work from the torch, but very quickly (less than 20 seconds), both burners were running at full heat. I then just left them so see which one ran out and self-snuffed first. Afetr about 5 minutes, the civvi model ran out of fuel first - but closely followed (about 20 seconds later) by the milspec model. Conclusion - inconlusive. The difference could have been explained by the harder to heat up military model, they were certainly very evenly matched. Both burners seem to consume fuel at about the same rate - with possibly the civvi version being slightly more thirsty. I would need to test again with a much larger fuel volume to me more certain.

next up, boiling 1 litre of cold water. This is a big boil for a trangia and about tyhe maximum capacity of the Swedish mess kit. I( made sure both burners were up to full heat before putting the cold pan of water on to boil. The civvi burner reached a bouncing boil in 11 minutes, 45 seconds. The military model reached the same point after 14 minutes! That's 2 minutes and 15 seconds slower to boil 1 litre - and this was using a hot burner.

Itr would seem that the civvi model is a little more powerful and maybe slightly more thirsty (I'm not sure on the last point).

My conclusions so far...

Civvi:
Smaller footprint
Lighter (a full civvi including simmer ring, weighs the same as a bone dry military)
Much faster warmup
Cools down much faster
A little more powerful
A simmer ring
Better lid seal
Generally more efficient

Military:
Larger capacity
More robust
Much cheaper
Simpler construction (if that is a factor)

Given the data, it's difficult to reach any other conclusions really. It should be noted though, that the differences are not that big in reality. Similar performance, similar fuel consumption. The only significant factors are the much slower warmup time of the military model and the loger time it takes to boil a big panfull - oh and the simmer ring is a huge bonus for the civvi model IMO (though this can be improvised for the milspec version). Everything else is just little bits & pieces that dont amount to much - but if you have to choose, they do persuade towards the civvi as number 1 choice.

The only thing left to test is ease of lighting, warmup time and heat output during cold and/or windy weather. I've a sneaking suspicion that the civvi model will dramatically out-perform the milspec version in very cold conditions. We'll have to wait for the snow for that test though. :biggthump

 

[Gary]

Martyn you sure the civi was on the left? Reason I ask is my civi one is smaller than the military ones and the one on the left looks larger to me!


Might be my wonky eyes of course!! :shock:

 

[TheViking]

If you look very close Gary you can see that it's the military one on the right. As far as I know, the military one is bigger. The "ring" on the military one reaches more out and it's visible in the picture. :biggthump

 

[Martyn]

Martyn you sure the civi was on the left? Reason I ask is my civi one is smaller than the military ones and the one on the left looks larger to me!


Might be my wonky eyes of course!! :shock:

Certain mate - look in the last bottom right picture, you can just tell it's larger. It's a trick of the camera. The civvi model was putting out more light, so more of the stove shows up. Here's the same pic Viking posted above, but tweaked in photoshop to enhance the light...

Update:
I put 250mls of cold water into the swedish kit, lit the (cold) stove and immediately placed the pot onto it and started the clock.

The civvi burner took 5 minutes to reach a bouncing boil.
The military burner took 6minutes 45seconds to reach the same bouncing boil.

 

[Viking]

Don´t forget to clean the burners, they will work a lot better then.

 

[Martyn]

Don´t forget to clean the burners, they will work a lot better then.

The military stove is brand new, only had it just over a week and it was from an un-issued kit. I could easily tell the stove had never been used. This is only about it's fourth or fifth lighting. The civvi model has had quite a bit of hammer though. If anything, it's the civvi model that is more "gummed up" and in need of a clean.

 

[Viking]

The military stove is brand new, only had it just over a week and it was from an un-issued kit. I could easily tell the stove had never been used. This is only about it's fourth or fifth lighting. The civvi model has had quite a bit of hammer though. If anything, it's the civvi model that is more "gummed up" and in need of a clean.

I have never seen a brand new burner for the mess kit :shock:

 

[Paganwolf]

that'll be the whisky mac Gary :rolmao: does it make a difference running on green heat? or is it size that counts :shock:

 

[Gary]

Ya I can see it now - must be my eyes!! :shock: or the whiskymac!

Johan quiet a lot of the ones I get are new - most still wrapped in the wax paper.

 

[Viking]

Ya I can see it now - must be my eyes!! :shock: or the whiskymac!

Johan quiet a lot of the ones I get are new - most still wrapped in the wax paper.

I am not surprised they are closing down more and more regiments, soon there wont be many left here. A couple of years ago there were lots of places that the army stored things that we were going to be issued in case of war (even whisky and vodka). All this are sold to foreigners thatbuy it very cheap and then sell it and make loads of money on it, and i only get issued old and used kit

 

[leon-1]

Martyn, you should try the same experiment with a coke can stove as well and watch the others fall by the wayside as it gets up to full heat in no time ):

 

[Gary]

You should patent those Leon! :biggthump

 

[Martyn]

Next up, I'm gonna try boiling a litre from cold with each burner. I figure the larger, heavier military burner takes longer to warm up, that's logical, but I want to know if there is any performance difference with the stoves when they are hot. The 250mls test is a good guage for just brewing up or something, the civvi model wins that race, but if you are boiling rice or a large stew then the military version may actually win out the "tortoise v hare" contest.

I have to say, this is all pretty pointless of course. Both burners are great IMO, just a bit of fun. But... so far, it does seem like the civvi model gets a place in my kit. Not just because it boils faster, but the small footprint means i can package it better in the Swedish kit and the simmer ring is great. It's a shame the military model doesnt have a simmer ring. I also think the threaded seal on the civvi version is more "leak proof" than the bayonet fitting cap of the military version. It's easy to see how the heavier, thicker, larger, more robust military model has been tweaked to make it "mil-spec". The civvi model is pretty robust though and I'm wondering whether the modifications made to the military version have downgraded it's features & performance slightly, in the interests of making it squaddie proof?

 

[Martyn]

I am not surprised they are closing down more and more regiments, soon there wont be many left here. A couple of years ago there were lots of places that the army stored things that we were going to be issued in case of war (even whisky and vodka). All this are sold to foreigners thatbuy it very cheap and then sell it and make loads of money on it, and i only get issued old and used kit

I read something about this Viking, apparently during the cold war, the Swedish government/army has stockpiled tons of gear. But with the end of the cold war, all that gear suddenly became redundant - they figured better to sell it off to the surplus market, than have it sitting there rotting. Hence the glut of Swedish army gear all of a sudden hitting the market. It's shocking that the squaddies dont get thier pick first though.

 

[Martyn]

Martyn, you should try the same experiment with a coke can stove as well and watch the others fall by the wayside as it gets up to full heat in no time ):

Yeah, I can weel imagine. The smaller fluid capacity and ultra thin metal would probably see it heat up in a flash. The only problem with the coke canh versions that forever put me off using them, is you cant conserve fuel in them. You either have to judge the fuel you add to them very precicely for the job at hand, or wait for them to fully cool (and evaporate some) and pour it back into your container. I can see the attraction for the minimalist ultra-light hiker, or moutain marathon runner, but they're not for me.

 

[Viking]

I read something about this Viking, apparently during the cold war, the Swedish government/army has stockpiled tons of gear. But with the end of the cold war, all that gear suddenly became redundant - they figured better to sell it off to the surplus market, than have it sitting there rotting. Hence the glut of Swedish army gear all of a sudden hitting the market. It's shocking that the squaddies dont get thier pick first though.

I got to visit a place where they store a lot of gear, it was an old farm and there were lots of gear inside. Everything except weapons ammo and medcine. Nowadays you can buy most things in surplus shops but it is mostly old kit.

 

[Adi007]

Excellent write-up Martyn! In your area, what's the price difference between a civvi and military model?

 

[RovingArcher]

Interesting comparison, thanks for sharing it.

I don't know much about the trangia stoves, so I'd like to ask, would the extended storage of the military version cause tarnish? If so, would tarnish affect how efficiently the stove works?

 

[leon-1]

Yeah, I can weel imagine. The smaller fluid capacity and ultra thin metal would probably see it heat up in a flash. The only problem with the coke canh versions that forever put me off using them, is you cant conserve fuel in them. You either have to judge the fuel you add to them very precicely for the job at hand, or wait for them to fully cool (and evaporate some) and pour it back into your container. I can see the attraction for the minimalist ultra-light hiker, or moutain marathon runner, but they're not for me.

I have just finished re-designing one of these type of stoves, my old one would boil a pint of water at the same speed as my whisperlite international, it would burn for about twenty minutes, the new one is smaller, lighter, effectively it holds enough fuel to cook a meal on and that is it. As far as fuel is concerned I get about 6 fillings from 200ml of meths on the old stove, the new one should be about the same. Both will be considerably faster than a Trangia (don't get me wrong I have had a trangia 27 for about 17years and it's a very good stove), but my old coke can stove, pot stand and windsheild weigh less than a trangia burner with 50ml of fuel in it. The stove can normally be picked up within a minute or 2 of being extinguished.

I will be trialling the new stove in the next couple of days. So I will probably have little hair left afterwards and require treatment for burns.

 

[Martyn]

Excellent write-up Martyn! In your area, what's the price difference between a civvi and military model?

Local shop sells the Swedish army mess kit complete for £9.99. I think you can get the civvi version of the burner alone for about the same. Without doubt, the Swedish mess kit is outstanding value.