User Review: MSR PocketRocket

MSR PocketRocket
Above: The current PocketRocket, which may differ slightly from the version reviewed.

Reviewed January 20, 2007 by greenninja5150

Rating:
Price Paid: Don't remember

I bought this thing about a year and a half ago from REI. From the start I knew this would really only be good for boiling water. It has a pretty small hot spot. Yeah, you could cook something with this if you really wanted to but it's more effort than I wish to expend. With the freeze-dried food out there nowadays why bother cooking?

Anyways, this heats up a pot of water pretty quick as long as the wind isn't blowing. If it is, forget it. I made a deflector/wind screen out of a piece of 4" aluminum dryer vent that I "paperclip" to the pot. It helps but you have to shelter the stove from the wind. I would imagine that this problem it not unique to this stove. As far as the "tipping" problem suggested in other reviews I haven't experienced it. At all. I've always used the large gas canister and find a flat spot to put the stove before lighting it.

I use the GSI "hard anodized" boiler set with the stove. I recommend it highly. The large fuel canister, inside a clean sock, fits perfectly inside the tall pot which fits inside if the short pot. Toss the steel handles that come with the pot set and get an aluminum pot handle. The bag that comes with the set is big enough to put the handle and PocketRocket on top of the pots so all your water heating equipment is in one place in your pack.

I often take the kit with me on day hikes with my girlfriend so we can have something hot to eat for lunch. For boiling water it does the job very well.