MSR's Dragonfly is also multi fuel. It will burn white gas, kerosene, unleaded auto fuel, diesel, and jet fuel. I have both the Dragonfly and the Whisperlite International - both good stoves. The DF is better for simmering and larger cookware.

There are stoves that can burn diesel, but be aware that diesel is a comparatively dirty fuel. If you're going to burn diesel in most camp stoves, you're going to need to clean the stove far more frequently than you otherwise would.

With regard to the two stoves you specifically named, the XGK and the Whisperlite Internationale, the XGK is going to be able to handle a heavy fuel like diesel far better than the lighter duty Internationale. I wouldn't want to run either stove on diesel for any length of time, but with the Internationale only when I simply had no other choice.

The DF is a very stable stove, excellent for larger pots, but I would avoid diesel with it. The Dragonfly stove is the most prone to clogging of all of MSR's production liquid fueled stoves.

Be very careful when you read on a stoves' box that it can burn things like automotive gasoline, AV gas, diesel, etc. First off, manufacturers are in the business of selling stoves. Second, even if the stove can burn something like diesel, what is the impact of doing so? Most stoves will not burn non-standard fuels well and will clog more often. For me, I'd get a heavy duty valve-at-the bottle single-valved stove with a large generator like the MSR XGK. I would avoid valve-at-the-burner stoves like the Dragonfly and the Optimus Nova or small bore, medium duty stoves like the MSR Whisperlite. I want something simple, rugged, and reliable.

HJ

The Army has a multi-fuel stove. I'm too lazy to look up the nomenclature, but we used it in Alaska. It burns straight gas, gas and diesel mixture, or straight diesel. In a pinch, it can burn wood too.

This is not a backpacking stove. It probably weighs about 25 pounds. Made to fit in a 10 man arctic or larger tent. It heated stuff up, not cooked it.

Gas worked the best, although you end up changing gas cans more frequently. Gas/diesel was pretty good, good heat, more burn time, at about a 2/1 gas to diesel ratio. Pure diesel sucked, took forever to get it going and then the heat output was poor.

No matter what you burned, clean up was a pain.

Addendum: For burning diesel in backpacking stoves, definitely get some alcohol and practice priming with it. You do not want to prime a stove with diesel. Diesel when used to prime makes a big, smokey mess.

HJ

I have run my optimus 00 paraffin stove on diesel. It was rather dirty and messy, didn't burn very clean and required frequent use of the cleaning needle. Which is quick and easy on the optimus 00. I wouldn't want to do it inside a tent or shelter - too smelly and messy.

The Norwegian Army (and probably other NATO nations as well) has been running the Optimus 111 on something called F-34 for years and years. F-34 is standard NATO fuel for a multitude of vehicles, aircrafts and stoves. According to Wikipedia, it is a mixture of 97% kerosene (paraffin) and 3% diesel.

I think any stove capable of burning kerosene (paraffin) should be able to burn diesel as well - but it is a messy high maintenance project.

In the US, F-34 is commonly called JP-8. JP-8 isn't quite as good of a stove fuel as K1 kerosene (called paraffin in the UK), but it's pretty darned close. You'd have to be pretty observant to notice any difference.

JP-8 is the primary fuel for vehicles in the US Army and I believe in all of the other US armed services. As such, stoves used by the US Army have to be able to use JP-8. Some of the stoves the US Army has been using recently include the MSR Whisperlite Internationale, the MSR Dragonfly, and the Optimus Nova; there may be others. There was a move to jointly develop a capillary force vaporizer (CFV) stove with MSR, but apparently that project died. They got as far as the prototype phase and issued the stove to various field units. I wish I knew why they cancelled the project. I was very curious about it. I did pick up a copy of one of the prototypes of the stove.







HJ