MSR PocketRocket Stove > Reviews > Your Pocket Flamethrower

Author's product rating:   

Durability
Style
Value for Money
Ease of Use
Weight

Advantages:	Powerful, easy to use, good run time
Disadvantages:	Can be unstable

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

To some, bigger is better. If however, you have to fit your tent, sleeping bag, clothing, food and cooking equipment into one small bag, then bigger can be a pain. It's here that stoves like the MSR PocketRocket come in. The stove packs down into a small plastic container, 4" by 2" without the gas canister and weighs in at a mere 85 grammes. As this is without fuel, you'll need to find space in your pack somewhere for a gas canister, coming in at around 3" by 1.5" and costing about £3 on top of the £30 for the stove itself.

Having bought the stove plus a couple of gas canisters, the only thing to do was try it out. Steadfastly ignoring the warnings not to try it out indoors, I attached a canister and stood back. All I can say is, they don't call this the PocketRocket for nothing. Inside, the stove boils water in no time.

Of course, unless you've forgotten to pay the gas board, you're unlikely to need this stove inside, so let's step forward a few months, which found me on a hill side on the Isle of Man during a howling gale. The initial problem here is that of stability. Manx hillsides don't have the same flatness as my coffee table and it took a few tries to get the stove stable enough to actually cook anything on it. This achieved, there were no other problems. Even with strong winds, the stove managed to stay lit. Occasionally the wind got strong enough to momentarily extinguish part of the flame, but those clever people at MSR have designed a neat little windshield that stops any more that a third of the flame blowing out at any one time. Within a few minutes, half a pint of water had reached a speedy boil.

Going flat out like this, a small canister of gas will run for about half an hour, although larger canisters are also available. After use, the stove cools down fairly quickly so you don't have to wait around too long before putting it back in your bag, having first detached the gas cylinder which handily seals itself as soon as it's unscrewed.

Whether you need a small stove for hiking across the Alps with, or something to leave in the back of the car for making tea in a layby by the A4, I can heartily recommend this little wonder.