A person on another board asked for opinions on the Dave Canterbury's canteen cookset. I figured I'd copy/paste my thoughts here, too.

I have the Pathfinder stainless steel canteen cooking kit and it's...okay. The stove, cup, and lid are excellent and I love them. The cup is about almost 1/2" taller and has straighter sides than traditional military canteen cups. This gives about 2oz more volume to play with. I like doing "boil in a bag" cooking out in the woods so the larger Pathfinder cup makes this technique easier. I can submerge my food deeper into boiling water safely.

The Pathfinder cup lid snaps on very tight...almost to the point of being dangerous when trying to get it off if the cup is filled with something really hot. However, I have seen people insert a tubing "nipple" that allows them to use the cup as a crude distillation system for purifying sea water. I'm considering doing that to my cap.

The stove is pretty heavy duty. The top is filled with holes to let the heat escape upwards. I used a tin snips to cut out an oval in the center of the stove top to increase heat transfer from my fire to the cup rather that the stove absorbing this heat. The cuts were smoothed with a Dremel tool.

As for the canteen itself... It's big and HEAVY. When full it's too heavy to carry on a normal belt. You need to have it attached to your pack or some sort of 2" military webgear belt, especially when you have it nested with the cup, stove, and lid. That makes it inconvenient to drink from for me. Here in Texas it gets HOT and I need my water right at hand. A regular, plastic military canteen fits in the cup so that's usually what I use when hiking. In a bug-out situation I'd probably take the steel canteen though just to have a secondary container to boil water.

Summary: get the cup, cap, and stove. As for the canteen...maybe.
I'll try to get some pictures up.

The Pathfinder cup is only about 1/4" to 1/2" taller than the standard military cup.
IMG_3994 by merriwether, on Flickr
You can't see it well in this picture but the Pathfinder cup's sides are straighter so it does hold a few more ounces of water than the standard canteen cup which makes it better for boil-in-a-bad cooking.

Pathfinder next to regular canteen:
IMG_3992 by merriwether, on Flickr

The canteens:
IMG_3997 by merriwether, on Flickr
The Pathfinder has straighter sides and a big mouth.

The Pathfinder lid does NOT fit on a standard cup.
IMG_3996 by merriwether, on Flickr

My modification to the Pathfinder stove:
IMG_3995 by merriwether, on Flickr

Anyway, I like the system but I don't love the system. I paid around $69 and I don't think it's worth that for regular hiking. The prices has dropped $10 since then. However, for TEOTWAWKI it would be a solid piece of gear.
-Blast

A civilian alternative that is significantly cheaper is a GSI cup http://www.rei.com/product/842865/gsi-outdoors-glacier-stainless-bottle-cuppot- holding either a Naalgene one liter water bottle or a recycled energy drink bottle - will run around $15. To get a bit lighter and significantly more expensive, there is a Snow Peak cup, in titanium, for about $45.

A small pot/cup sometimes comes in very handy, however you do it.

Blast
Thanks for the in depth review.Too heavy for my taste, and I have recently been playing around with canteen based survival kits. What I'd like to know about is the boil in bag cooking. What is it and how do I do it? I only know of Success Rice for boiling in the bag.

Basically you boil up the right amount of water, toss it into a bag or pouch containing your dehydrated food and set it aside for a few minutes. Especially by insulating the bag, you can prepare dishes not specifically designed for this technique. I understand some forms of pasta (small diameter types) will cook up very nicely with this technique.

Google "freezer bag cooking" for lots of info. Lightweight backpackers are fond of 'boil in a bag" because the cooking apparatus is simple, light, and cheap/

Nice review, Blast, and appreciate the photos.

Question, did the stove originally just have a series of round holes in the bottom? Just wondering how much you cut away.

Yes, the bottom had a bunch of evenly-spaced holes all over the bottom. I cut from hole to hole, giving the scalloped edge. There were a lot of holes in the piece I removed.
-Blast

Nice review Blast, I have the same kit and completely agree wit your assessment.