More choices, Brunton's Bantam or Vesta

Has anyone purchased/reviewed these stoves? I originally was going to get the tried and true Whisperlite or Simmerlite but ran across these stoves researching my purchase. I'm interested in some real person review other than the regurgitated reviews I've read on most sites.

Thanks,

I can speak for the brand, I just sold my Brunton olympus white gas stove which was 4 years old and and still worked great never needed to be rebuilt, still had the rebuld kit that came with it. It sold for almost $40
Sold it to get the new lighter and more compact Brunton Lander Dual fuel, which is easily as good plus lighter and folds down to fit in my pot.
Great brand, expidition quality products

I have the Brunton Bantam and like it better than my MSR Simmerlite. It simmers better than the Simmerlite but I would not call it precision simmering. It weighs slightly less than the MSR stove but not by much. I have not used the Bantam alot but have been happy with it the few times I have used it.

Well, I did something stupid and bought them both.

Initial thoughts, both are VERY well made and I think I'll end up using the canister version the most with the liquid fuel version more in the winter. The Vesta is very light with a long flexible line and is super easy to setup and use. IMHO it will be hard to beat the Vesta for ease of use and since it has a preheat tube you can invert the canister and still seems to function very well. The Bantam has a much shorter tube but the valve control is much more precise than most I've seen or used. I'll be doing some boil tests and ease of prime / general usability test over the next several days and will post my thoughts.

Here are some initial testing results and thoughts during those tests:

Bantam: Very nice stove. Easy to prime(alcohol works better, less soot) and weights just shy of 10oz. without the windscreen. It burns hot and boil time for 1L of water was 4:34 in my test setup (which is a Evernew 1.3L Ti pot, ~20°C water, and tested to 100°C). Simmer control is good, but seems to surge when turned down really low so definitely not classified as "excellent" simmer control. It's "power" seems to drop off after 1L size tasks. I tried a 2L boil in a larger SS pot and boil time was 7:53. Still not bad at all.

Vesta: Nice canister stove and super easy to setup and get going. It weighted 8.8oz in the stuff sack without the windscreen (which it didn't come with). Boil time for 1L was okay at 4:51 but boil time really fell off in the 2L test at 10:57, so I don't think this stove would be any good at all at altitude trying to melt snow. Simmer control was super, as expected from a canister stove, being able to be turned down to a mere whisper and hold the output steady. This would be a good summer / warm weather backpacking stove which I believe is the target market Brunton was aiming for. I'd consider my Crux Lite best for that, but the Vesta would excel at larger pots/actual cooking because of it's better pot support, larger flame spread and overall better stability. Some features that might improve cold weather performance is the preheat tube. I was able to invert the canister on the flat valve body and it still burned well only slightly sputtering on occasion.

As an aside, my modified Vapor AF fared the best for boil times, simmer control, and power to handle larger tasks. The 2L boil time was excellent at 5:30 (1L test just prior was 3:20 to a full rolling boil). A bit heavier, but as I've said before, anyone looking for a stove that will burn anything, crank out the power, and be able to simmer superbly, I'd recommend a Vapor and bore out the jet.

I hope this information helps those searching when trying to decide on a stove.

P.S. - I don't know if there is a swap option available here, like in some of the flashlight forms I've belonged to, but I'd be interested in sending out the few stoves I have and/or receiving other stoves to test, so if anyone has a stove they don't use anymore or wouldn't mind sending a stove my way to test I'd like to do so. I of course would send it back (and expect mine to be returned) for an opportunity to try other stoves hands on.

My recent purchase of the Brunton lander, named for the look of the mars lander(whatever) looks aside its a great stove, a bit heavier than the bantam at 14oz but seemed to simmer well in my opinion which is very limited, I have only carried white gas stoves starting with a coleman then the brunton olympus now the the lander.
I like liquid fuel, as it can be used to start fire when wood is wet as well as clean off sap.
I'm not quite the tester you are and base most of my opinions on long term performance, and ease of operation. Anything boiling a liter under 5 min is good enough for me but I will say that brunton makes there stoves to last.

My experience with Brunton has to do with customer service or better said, non-existent service. I have an Optimus Nova which broke right after I got it. I emailed Brunton, who was the distributor at the time. They never responded. I wound up contacting Optimus in Sweden and got my answer right away. The fix was simple and Brunton could have gotten the same answer I did from Sweden and then sent it on to me, but they ignored me.

On the other hand, when I needed parts for a 20 year old XGK, I called MSR because the newer repair kits sold retail wouldn't work for mine. Not only did they have the parts, they sent me the parts for free.

Based on my experience, I won't buy anything Brunton sells, I don't care how nice it is.

I have a Brunton FLEX canister stove and love it. It's made by Primus and is a re-engineered Primus Crux. Everything about the FLEX is better than the Crux, IMHO. Brunton's designers really know their stuff.
Brunton's top binoculars are world class in quality. Their compasses are also excellent.

I just wonder if the Brunton liquid fuel Bantam will simmer as low as my MSR dragonfly. I doubt it since it's based on a Primus stove.

Eric
BTW, I have Brunton's conversion adaptor for converting a canister-top stove like my FLEX to a remote canister stove. Works with my Vargo Jet-Ti as well, or any Lindal threaded canister-top stove. VERY clever!

I only have limited experience with Brunton's customer service but it was very good. First Vapor AF stove had HORRIBLE boil times, as in 15+ minutes a liter. No questions asked, they RA'd the stove and sent a new one out.