Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Turlough
1
Mar 26, 2017
great price compared to Europe , will Msr xgk marine combo stove set be available do you think ? Can't obtain this in europe
warriorscot
317
May 4, 2017
TurloughIf you are in Europe check out the Chinese knock offs, it's one of the cases where the knock offs are just as good or sometimes better than the reality as they liberally pinch the good bits from all the brands.
gzhang11
83
May 4, 2017
warriorscotWell, that's because they are not "knock offs". Many Chinese companies has put a large sum of money into R&D just like the Japanese has in the late 70s. You are just seeing the beginning of that, just because it's Chinese doesn't automatically makes it a "knock off". Companies like DJI, Xiaomi etc are actually becoming the forefront of innovation thesedays. I asked my wife to bring a whole bunch of Toaks and Fire-Maple stoves and cookware from China recently because I think they are actually better than all other brands.
warriorscot
317
May 4, 2017
gzhang11Oh no the ones I'm talking about are 100% knock offs, they are pretty blatant copies ripping off parts of older Primus and MSR stoves into quite good frankenstoves. The materials aren't as good, but they are serviceable, and in real world terms using light weight alloys for the stove really doesn't make much of a difference when compared to the weight of the fuel and it's bottle. The brand changes pretty much every year or two, but they are the same stoves, if you look for petrol stoves on amazon in Europe it's obvious which ones I'm referring to.
SantiagoDraco
611
May 4, 2017
gzhang11If they copy the design then they are knockoffs.
gzhang11
83
May 4, 2017
warriorscotNot sure which ones in particular, perhaps older stoves? I own a couple, such as the famous BSR stove and several Fire-Maple titanium cannisters stoves, love them I have not seen anything as good as them. That said, stove is a simple mechanism and you don't really have a lot wiggle room here, you can say the same about pretty much every stove as they are somewhat a copy of another, I own several MSR/GSI/Snow Peak stoves that looks exactly like one another and in most cases that's because they share the same manufacturer and just slap their logo on it.
warriorscot
317
May 4, 2017
gzhang11Inexperience of the market doesn't mean they aren't knock off stoves, or simple material substitutions, also there is a significant degree of rebranding, but it's still rebranding which is different from a knock off.
In most of the cases with stoves there is one company that came up with the design, even after the design goes out of patent in certain regions it doesn't mean copies of it aren't still copies. If you look at even the Fire Maple line (not that I was talking about those) you can actually see that they are in many cases 1:1 COPIES of existing designs, in some(almost all) cases identical ones(e.g. the coleman, MSR and Jetboil copies they do in steel and Ti). In fact I've owned and used several identical products to the fire maples over the years and the non Ti ones don't even have the advantages of the improved materials. In some cases that's actually fine as the designs are so old now they aren't covered by patent in a lot of places anyway.
As you will note I'm recommending the products, I'm just not putting lipstick on a pig, they cost what they cost for a very good reason and it's not because any specialised R&D went into the products. The whole fire maple(and other companies in that particular business zone they reside in) business strategy is built on making identical copies of various products, and in some cases substituting better materials than the original or standard versions.
If you look at a like for like comparison of the stoves in the same range as this one i.e. multifuel, the fire maple is a pretty clear frankenstove as I described. They've basically done a mashup of the MSR Whisperlite/dragonfly and an XGK. Nothing wrong with that, it's a great product, but the only R&D they are doing is pinching and repurposing other companies IP and kit bashing the individual parts. I was actually referring to another similar frankenstove which was actually a combo of the XGK and Dragonfly design with a bit of omnifuel inspiration. It's a great stove, but you can tell where the designs for each component were pinched from down to the fact if I want to get tools and spares I can actually use the "official" brands versions. But both the Fire Maple(from what I can tell from all the images) and certainly my own chinese frankenstove, use 1:1 copies of the MSR burner design(the best on the market IMO), and even the fuel system is 100% exchangeable with the MSR version.
But as I said I fully recommend it as the fact they totally disrespect traditional IP/copyright/trademark etc. means they've married features from Coleman, Primus and MSR stoves into single items that in many respects are just as good or even slightly better than the originals at a fraction of the price.
Solemn
1
May 6, 2017
warriorscotSo like the best possible knockoff, gotcha.
warriorscot
317
May 7, 2017
SolemnYeah, it's the best bit of modern chinese manufacturing, they used to just do blind copies. Now they steal the best bits from competing products and mash them up.
Styvkuling
207
May 11, 2017
TurloughYou can get a green primus-branded fuel bottle to go with this or some other compatible stove (so not with msr's plastic pumps).
ozedude
Jun 9, 2017
gzhang11Sure they have.