Primus

Omnilite TI Stove

Great Expedition Stove

Familiarity:

I've put it through the wringer

I don't write reviews often at all, but this is a great stove! I've used it on multiple winter trips for melting snow and 2-3 week packrafting trips throughout Alaska. This stove is rock solid and is my goto stove for just about any trip. I always run the stove on Coleman fuel or kerosene (I hate iso butane canisters), with a preference for kerosene and use a small amount of alcohol to preheat the stove instead of using the stove fuel to prime - this reduces the sooty mess that collects on the stove when priming (also helps keep the fuel nozzle clean). There seem to be many folks that have issues with the jet clogging, that is usually because there is a small amount of machining grease on the control valve spindle in new stoves that have one (Dragonfly, Nova, Polaris, Omnifuel etc,). Those spindles will make debris in the stove body when burned, so you really need to burn in a new stove for a few minutes then strip the control valve and clean it before heavy use. Also the cleaner/pricker just pushes crap back into the stove, if it's clogging a lot you might have a bigger particle than the nozzle opening - remove the jet and shake the stove out. You just don't notice that as much on stoves with an internal shaker/cleaner. Primus support is top notch. I purchased a 10 year old Omnifuel used that had a leak in the pump, when I called and asked for a single o-ring they sent me a new pump. Another time, I asked for a spare burner bell so I could leave my silent cap in one, they sent me an entire burner bell, stove body, and control valve for fee. I've used many other stoves MSR Dragonfly, whisperlite, SVEA 123, older Primus/Optimus brass kerosene stoves (numbers 00, 96, 210). This stove is the one that I would pick over the lot for any trip I go in in Alaska during the winter.