UKH

Has anyone tried running an MSR stove on barbecue lighter fuel.

I'm in Norway on skis right now, and it is not that easy to get petrol to refill my fuel bottle, but most small shops do seem to sell barbecue lighter fluid.

Wondering how well it will work as an MSR fuel?

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Which stove have you got?

Not really sure. Poked my head into the tent bell end. No markings on stove or bag. Three legs, folds up. Red pumpy fuel bottle end. About 6 or 7 years old.

If it's a whisperlight (fecking noisy thing with 2 flow adjusters) it should run on pretty much any liquid fuel. Can be an arse to prime though and might knacker all the seals in the long run. I speak from bitter experience.

Tried it and it didn't work Mind you, the bbq lighter fluid i had wouldn't burn even putting a lighter to it directly either so maybe there was something with it. Methylated spirit (as in the purple stuff for thinning paint or cleaning brushes) works well enough in a pinch if you find yourself at a loss

Probably the whisperlite or whisperlite International. The XGK is the one that famously you can run on almost anything, I've got a 30 year old Whisperlite International - you can run it on just about any type of petrol (the cleaner the better) and parafin/aviation fuel. Not sure what lighter fluid is - some kind of super clean petrol? Or some sort of alcohol?

The whisperlite only has a single adjuster on the pump, the dragonfly is the one with two adjusters so you can supposedly simmer food rather than blast it.

I think they're all pretty good at burning random fuel but there are different jets for different fuels and I've found with alcohol based fuels you need to make sure the pump cup and o rings are well lubricated.

I run my whisperlite on Aspen 4 which is cleaner than petrol and runs well. It’s a garden machinery fuel so no hope to you unless there is a chainsaw shop nearby 😕

Sounds to me like you aren't familiar with Norway

You are quite right, it's a Dragonfly I own.  Allthough its pretty knackered after a few weeks of using really dirty fuel in Ethiopia a few years ago whd not cleaning it out properly afterwards. 

It is light naphtha  (see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha)     a mix of stuff like hexane, think zippo

BBQ lighter can be all sorts of things, paraffin based, alcohol base and probably anything else that burns.

Don't they have cars / petrol-powered tools and petrol stations round there?

Sports chain XXL sells Coleman fuel by the litre if you can find a branch near you.

Ten quid a bottle though, so almost cheaper to head down the Vinmo and grab a couple of bottles of single malt

As UKC was helpful in telling me for my summer trip last year, you can get 4-stroke petrol (Aspen 4T) at most fuel stations in Norway and Sweden. Deffo recommend, it burns a lot cleaner than petrol and doesn't break the bank. 

Well, I'm very pleased to report that having topped up the (almost empty) fuel bottle (chainsaw petrol) with a BBQ lighter fluid from Spar in Rena (claimed to be mainly C10-C12), the stove ran absolutely perfectly. Really nice and clean blue flame, with no difficulty lighting it, even at -10C.

Thanks for all the advice - most helpful.