An easy car camping hack for isobutane stoves.

The other day Cristi texted me from a garage sale. Did I want this stove?

Of course I want a like-new MSR RapidFire for five bucks! YES.

Cristi has a knack for finding stuff like this. Seven years working at REI and a lifetime of “thrifting” has given her an eye for special finds. The RapidFire isn’t the first stove that she snapped up at a deal. She found an unused XGK at a church sale a few years back. And ALMOST grabbed a SVEA 123 earlier this summer (I get the assist on that one, I saw it tucked back in the corner of an estate sale she dragged me to). Through the years she has contributed significantly to my Stove Acquisition Disorder, at a total cost of under 20 dollars.

The RapidFire is an isobutane version of the MSR WhisperLite, which really is the one backpacking stove to have if you’re going to have only one. These days the RapidFire has been supplanted in the MSR lineup by the WindPro, an updated, lighter version with an innovative stove stand that lets you run the isobutane canister upside down for better cold weather performance.

The RapidFire and WindPro are designed to run on lightweight isobutane canisters. MSR markets an isobutane/propane mix under the IsoPro brand, but any canister with a Lindal valve will mate with the stove.

My plan for the RapidFire was to swap it for the DragonFly that currently rides in my car camping kitchen bin. And for some reason I got to thinking that it would be cool if I could figure out a way to run the stove on 1 pound propane cylinders rather than isobutane. The bigger cylinders are less expensive than isobutane canisters, last twice as long and perform better in cold weather. They would be perfect for car camping.

[Current price on an 8oz isobutane canister runs $6-$7. You can buy a 2-pack of 1 pound propane cylinders for about 10 bucks.]

Turns out there is a way to swap them over. A quick visit to BezosMart gave me a few options to choose from. They all looked the same, so I bought the cheapest one.

Turns out the cheapest one didn’t work. The female end of the adapter threaded onto the propane cylinder properly, but the threads on the Lindal valve didn’t match my stove. I went back to the well and ordered the one with the best reviews. Which turned out to be a winner.

The adapter threads onto the propane cylinder and mates with the RapidFire. That’s about all there is to it. I bent a simple stand out of heavy aluminum wire to hold the end of the canister up at an angle to improve gas flow. Other than that it was plug and play. Flame control is not quite as good on the low end as it is when running butane, but the stove runs hot and otherwise functions normally. Easy conversion that will cut the cost of camp fuel by half or more. Definitely worth a try if you have a butane stove or two in your collection.

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