MSR Pump failure modes

I have broken the plunger on a several MSR pumps over the years. The first thing to wear out for me, if the stem doesn’t break, is the pump cup that creates pressure–cheap easy fix. I kind of hope to never own a white gas stove again, ha. If so I’d not rule out MSR personally.

Mine broke while winter backpacking in the Adirondacks High Peaks 2 or 3 years ago.  Some of the plastic bits around the plunger broke, so I could no longer pressurize the fuel canister. Luckily it was our last night when it broken, and our group of 5 brought along two stoves.

I’ve been un-trusting of that shitty plastic pump ever since.  If my life depended on it, I’d bring along a 2nd pump as a spare.  I like the look of that Primus!

Here are some more possible failure points shown:

I just got back from a 17 day January trip with my MSR Simmerlite stove and had to do a field-repair replacing two rubber grommets in the pump.  Normal wear and tear.  After thousands of meals with my Simmerlite I have never had a pump failure or have a pump break. Just carry the usual repair kit and you’re good to go.

But plastic is plastic (stuff breaks) and new pumps costs about $35 so just go ahead and upgrade to a new one even if the old one still works.  I do this with many pieces of backpacking gear—replace before breaking.  I’m sure there’s an engineering term or a NASA term for going in with new gear.  It’s something like—“Hours of usage equals Replacement Time.”  No sweat.

I carry several pieces of redundant gear on my trips—a spare pack hipbelt, a spare spoon, a spare mini Bic etc.  And also a spare MSR stove pump.  It’s light and never used . . . yet.  But when a pump truly dies in the field a spare is great to have.

Get an old yellow pump.  The metal ones can fail also, just MSR has sold so many stoves, bound to be failures.

Duane

At the time I was reading MSR pump reviews, I recall people breaking them via standing on them. I figured two things: I won’t stand on mine, and if its extremely important, I’ll bring a second pump.

I’ve had it around 8 years now, had leaking due to an old oring once, but apart from that its been fine.