MSR Canister Fuel new dimensions

[Paul Mason]

MSR has come out with new dimensions for its 4oz canister. I saw it at REI recently. It look like Jetboil.

80/20 blend of isobutane and propane

http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/stove-accessories/msr-isopro/product

[Hikin’ Jim]

MSR has come out with new dimensions for its 4oz canister. I saw it at REI recently. It look like Jetboil.

80/20 blend of isobutane and propane

http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/stove-accessories/msr-isopro/product

Interesting. I had seen their new canisters in some photos from last summer's Outdoor Retailer, but I hadn't seen any make it to the local retailer yet. The photos at the link you gave are still of their old, wide 4.0oz/113g canisters. Apparently their new canisters are 3.9oz/110g.

You can see their new canisters if you look at the photos of their Reactor system. Apparently the smaller canister is intended to nest within their new 1.0L Reactor pot.

Also of interest, apparently they've marked their canisters to indicate where the canister will float in water when full and when empty. To determine approximately how much gas one has left, one floats the canister in water and see where the waterline falls between the two marks. I wonder if what I wrote in July 2011 influenced them? :)

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[EndoftheTrail]

Price and dimension were always the two reasons why I stayed away from MSR, in favor of the smaller size SnowPeak canisters. Wonder how MSR's new, smaller size compare?

[Hikin’ Jim]

The dimensions from what I've read are the same as those of the 100 or so gram Snow Peak, Jet Boil, and Optimus canisters. The weight should be commensurate. Looks like MSR has abandoned it's lone wolf (i.e. unique) canister format.

Optimus where I shop is cheapest, but MSR uses isobutane.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[EndoftheTrail]

Thanks, Jim. Always good to have more options.

[Jeffs Eleven]

We have these at my work and I've been comparing them to the JB 113g. I can't really see a difference. Its juuuust a smidgen taller. I assume the 110g will fit where the 113g does. (in JBs and such)

it also has the printed pics on the side so you can float it to determint the volume left.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Thanks, Jim. Always good to have more options.

Definitely.

I've usually stayed away from the 113g MSR canisters because they didn't pack well and weighed more than other canisters (because of their proportions) per gram of fuel.

I think MSR thought they were offering a higher end canister, i.e. one that would be more stable because if it's wider base. But I think the public wanted packability. The advent of the new 1.0L Reactor pot (which won't accomodate the old wide canister format probably was the final nail in MSR's non-standard configuration. I think it's a good thing.

For those truly worried about stability, just get a canister stand.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[Hikin’ Jim]

We have these at my work and I've been comparing them to the JB 113g. I can't really see a difference. Its juuuust a smidgen taller. I assume the 110g will fit where the 113g does. (in JBs and such)

it also has the printed pics on the side so you can float it to determint the volume left.

Jeff,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe JB's canister is 100g even. MSR has traditionally been 113g but is now switching to 110g which is what Snow Peak has been using for a long time.

I think you're right though that the new MSR canisters will fit where Snow Peak, Optimus, and Jetboil canisters fit. The critical dimension is the width (typically) not the height, although if you have a short pot that just baaaaarely fits a JB canister, an MSR canister might be a tad too tall.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[Daryl and Daryl]

"I wonder if what I wrote in July 2011 influenced them?"

Maybe so. Only they know.

A quick search on the subject at BPL shows discussion of the idea back to at least 2009, however.

Regardless of the specifics there is no doubt that your contributions have affected many stove related products. Thanks for all that you have done and do.

They might be afraid that if they gave you credit by, for example, calling it the HJ Canister you would sue them for a piece of the action.

[Jeffs Eleven]

HJ,

Yer probably right! I was saying it off the top of my head. I was only a couple of grams off though! LOL

I was just getting at the fact that its only baaarely taller. I shoulda looked and stated the correct weights to be less confusing to anybody reading it.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Yer probably right! I was saying it off the top of my head. I was only a couple of grams off though! LOL

I was just getting at the fact that its only baaarely taller. I shoulda looked and stated the correct weights to be less confusing to anybody reading it.

No worries. I'm the only guy geeky enough to know the differences in canister weights between the different brands off the top of my head. lol. I'm incorigible; just ask my wife. ;)

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[Hikin’ Jim]

"I wonder if what I wrote in July 2011 influenced them?"

Maybe so. Only they know.

A quick search on the subject at BPL shows discussion of the idea back to at least 2009, however.

Regardless of the specifics there is no doubt that your contributions have affected many stove related products. Thanks for all that you have done and do.

They might be afraid that if they gave you credit by, for example, calling it the HJ Canister you would sue them for a piece of the action.

I definitely can't claim to have originated the idea. I first saw it on Roger Caffin's Bushwalking FAQ and he attributes it to a forum discussion somewhere (perhaps on BPL?).

I'm just bemused by how interested people were in the idea. Backpacker magazine published something shortly after my article and now MSR is changing their canisters. lol. I guess some obscure blogger who posts on BPL got his voice heard. Or it could be coincidence, who knows. Hey, coincidence or influence, as long as we get better gear, right? I for one am happy that MSR is going with more packable canisters that weigh less per gram AND have nifty markings on 'em whereby I can judge how much gas I have left halfway in my trip. Yep, were good for that second cup of coffee, and don't spare the boil. :)

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[Roger Caffin]

> I first saw it on Roger Caffin's Bushwalking FAQ and he attributes it to a forum
> discussion somewhere (perhaps on BPL?).
Not BPL, but aus.bushwalking news group – essentially pre-web.
For those who do not even know what 'pre-web' means … a long time ago. Maybe 1990?

Cheers

[James Marco]

Ha, hey….Actually News Groups sort'a predated the web by a few years…85-90. CERN was using hyper-linked documents about then…later to become the web by 1990-91…I sorta remember there weren't too many groups, maybe 400-500, mostly connected with dedicated phone lines/sat. GPS were just being developed as NAV systems by the military a few years before that. Netscape was just being worked on. Hackers were just starting to develope the first few viruses. Anyway, it is just MSR's way of selling less for the same or more money. The floatation measure is certainly a pretty fair idea…

[Jeffs Eleven]

I sent an 'email' in probably 1990 with the program… that I can't remember the name. its killing me. The logo was yellow.

Prodigy!! yeah Prodigy. For Macs only? we had like a Mac SE or something.

sent it to my friend I went to school with. didnt see the big deal. …not a businessman I guess.

…of course I was in the 8th grade… all I cared about was Ali's 'knockers' ;)

[Hikin’ Jim]

it is just MSR's way of selling less for the same or more money. The floatation measure is certainly a pretty fair idea…

Actually, the canister is more different rather than smaller. The old canister was 113g of gas. The new 110g.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving

[Mike R]

I bought one of these more than a week ago at MEC in Vancouver. Dimensions look identical to that of the JB – fits nicely in my Snowpeak Solo Ti cook set. Now if only I had a smaller stove to go with it.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Dunno why the new ones are not showing up on store shelves here. Maybe everyone has a lot of the old ones and they're afraid of getting stuck with the old ones if they start putting the new ones out.

I'm very curious to try the new "water marks" to see how much gas is in a given canister. Looks like they've done a good job, but I'd like to see for myself.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[Hikin’ Jim]

I got curious and looked up where it was that I had seen the idea. This is from the Gas FAQ on bushwalking.org.au:

Gauging the Contents of a Gas canister
One of the more common criticisms of the whole gas concept is that it can be hard to tell how much fuel you have in a canister. People crap on about 'what to do with half-empty canisters'. This criticism is most often heard from the advocates of petrol and kero (or alcohol, in America). It is true that you can measure exactly how much petrol or kero you have put in the tank, although in practice I suspect most people just fill the tank up. This adds extra weight of course. But it is really true that you can have no idea how much gas you are carrying? Of course not.

The method I normally use is to weigh the canister at home on a small cheap digital scale. I know how much gas there should be in a new canister – typically about 220 – 230 g in the most common size. It is written on the side of the canister as 'Net Wt' or equivalent. The canister might weigh 350 g when new, so the empty canister should then weigh (350 – 220) = 130 g. Now I can work out how much gas is left in a canister after a trip just by reweighing it. I have recorded the weights of many empty canisters over the years: the light Primus ones were about 115 g, many more common ones weigh 130 – 135 g, and a few of the cheaper more tourist-variety are up around 150 g. It all depends on the metal used for the tank. But if you start off by recording the new weight each time with a felt-nib pen on the canister itself, you will quickly get to know what's going on. You can see my numbers on the Powermax canister in the picture above.

However, I recently found another method for doing this, in the "Gear Talk Archive" for Sep/Oct 2000 on an American web site, from someone who signed himself as 'Barn'. He suggested you should float both an empty canister and a full canister in water and mark the water lines. Transfer the full and empty lines to the canister you take to the field. As the canister empties you can measure the remaining fuel level by floating it in water and noting where the water line is relative to the full line and empty lines.
Obviously you should be using the same canister for all these measurements. They won't let you fine tune your predictions along the lines of so many grams per day, but the method works in the field.

I've done some reviews of MSR gear and have some contacts there. I asked what had influenced them to put flotation markings on their new canisters. They replied that it was my article. That's kind of cool that they're open to taking ideas from customers (and kind of cool for me personally that they read some of my articles).

HJ
Adventures In Stoving

[Hikin’ Jim]

Old thread, but if it's helpful, I've got the weights and dimensions of the new MSR canister format on my blog: New MSR Canister Format.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim's Blog

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