What is the longest you can go without reloading?

6 shots with the 44 mag, 30 shots with the .223 ar, only 26 with the 6.8spc ar, sadly only about 8-9 hours with the hampton and oak.

I went all summer without reloading my englander and it stayed at about 85 degrees for almost 3 months Man that stove is a bad ass!

Around 14hrs with a Quad 7100 jammed full of oak,maple, & cherry. After 14 hrs the fp is still giving off heat and has a good bed of coals to restart before I go to bed!
Best part is the furnace never kicks on!
just my 2cents

I haven't reloaded in 10 days (damn warm spell).

30 shots with the AR and AK 9 shots with the 1911 and 15 with the polymer pistols 6 shots with the bolt actions.

As far as wood stoves, I cannot get very long burns with hardwoods no matter how much I choke it out.

If I stuff it at around 10pm, when I wake up at 5:00am I have a very small coal bed. Most times not even enough to catch new splits.

It is 21 degrees now, I might set my alarm to wake me up and ad more splits as we will be sleeping in tomorrow.

It don't matter if I load e-w, n-s or whatever, AND my wood is a little under seasoned which I would think would make it burn slower.

Next year if $ permits I wanna buy a new stove. Either a small sized one with a bigger fire box (if possible) or a medium sized stove with tight tolerances as my stove now so It don't take up to much room in my living room.


good thread!

Edited for spelling.

so far i can set my englander 28-3500 packed with ash some cherry and girthy oak splits around 10 -10:30 damper it down and when i wake at 6 -6:30 the blower is still on and theres a sizable remnant of a slab left and a orange bed of hot coals to easily start a new morning fire recharged again before heading out to work

I have been doing alot of experimenting, and have had mixed results. Typically I load up at 10pm with 4 large rounds or splits and 3-4 smaller pieces to fill in the gaps (this is a furnace, btw). I have tried setting the thermostat that controls the draft inducer fan, but that doesnt seem to have an effect on burn times so ive been keeping it at 74. When I get back down there at 5:30, I typically have a great bed of coals. Throw in a few pieces of scrap pine with a few splits, and voila!

Now 2 nights ago, I tried closing the draft inducer fan halfway to give it less air (just like you stove/insert boys!) but that seemed to have a negative effect. Less coals in the morning, less heat throughout the night, same wood used and roughly the same size pieces.

I managed seven hours last night, and that's about tops for me. I am only now getting comfortable with very large loads and fine tuning my process, so later in the season once I break out the oak I may do better. Still, seven is fine for me. I'm not a good sleeper anyway and am home 24/7 so it works.

size of the splits makes a big difference.

I put 2 - 6 inch splits in with the normal 3 inch splits and had a good 9 hours out of it. With all 3 inch splits I get 5 or 6 hours out of it.

For me and the Mansfield, I have to maintain a minimum 300* F stove top - so far, about 7-8 hours tops when in the teens out. Now, insulate my OLD 1800 SF house better, and I'll bet that could turn into 10-12 hrs.

My big old Morso 1125 got loaded twice a day no matter how cold it was outside. I just varied the amount of wood and air intake to match outside temps. That old Morso could hold 2 armloads of wood

way too many variables..House setup, insulation, weather...Best I ahve done in my old house under 20 degrees outside is 8 hours really, and thats keepign the house above 68 degrees

During the day I get between 6 and 7 hours on a full load. Over night when I close down the vents I get 7 to 9 hours with a good bed of hot coals in the morning.

Browning do you have a BAR? If so I am way jealous. Do you have an 03 ffl? I looked at a BAR and the price with the tax stamp was as much(or more) as a car.

No, but I do have a semi-automatic Browning 1919. So, my reload time depends on how many links I've strung together I stay away from Class III stuff. Too much hassle, to much expense, to much paperwork, too much government involvement.

If you really want a Browning BAR you can get semi-automatic version.
http://www.ohioordnanceworks.com/semi-auto/SLR-semi.html

Some reproductions are better than others.

I do not like the BAR

i got a load of hearty hemlock splits (15 bucks a packed heaping trailer load!) from a local amish sawmill
i have found this is really handy stuff to throw on a bed of coals to get a quick hot fire up going again in no time flat
makes an awesome starter and gets the stove body up to temps qucik i like to have a small rack (really love the smell too!) damn handy for this reason ,another bonus is the thinner splits can fit in the tighter areas and cracks for that pack up before bed and or work

Not to totally derail this thread, but how can you not like the BAR? It laid the groundwork to the modern assault weapon. At the very least, you have to like it better than the M16.

At 20 degrees outside temp I can get 8-10 hour burns rather easy. Gets down to 0 and I mix coal/wood and get the same burn times.

My Jotul 3TD is located at my summer/retirement home (Newfoundland) and is only burned during September and October so the lenght of the burn time is not all that critical. Still, 4 hours seems pretty short compared to what others are getting. Now, I've only been burning soft woods (mostly fir). It's about the only wood available. And, this particular fir came from standing dead trees (some sort of blight) so the wood is very dry. Also, I'm very new to wood-burning and may get longer burn times as I become more familiar with the process.
Chip Tam

I'm very envious. I'm guessing the long burn times are in medium to large stoves? I've got a 1.7cf firebox and the absolute most I've ever gotten out of a burn is 8 hours. At that point it wasn't putting out useable heat, the stovetop was only about 100 degrees, but there was enough heat left in the coals to restart the fire. More regularly I get 4-6 hours before the stove temps drop below 200 and I'm down to just a few coals. Burning a mix of hardwoods, mostly maple.

Sorry about the hijack. BAR thanks for the link. Where did you pick up the 1919? Southern Ohio Guns had some a few years ago and I now wish I had gotten one. I just bought a Romanian PSL platoon level sniper(7.62x54). I really like it too but it's no BAR.
Joe

With well seasoned oak I usually average 6-8 hour burn times without having to relight with kindling. Two nights ago I got my longest burn yet......9 hrs I loaded the stove at 8:30 pm and when I got up the next morning at 5:30 there were still enough hot coals to be able to add three medium sized splits to get it going again.

I figure with my 1.8 cf firebox I'm doing dam well.

I'm usually loading the stove up at 9PM, which gives me time to get everything burning nicely before bedtime. When I get up at 6, there's a nice bed of coals for the daytime load.

If it's not too cold out, I'll wait a bit before loading it up again, so the coals can burn down a bit. Just rake them forward and open the air wide for a while.

So, 9+ hours.

I filled the stove one night a couple of weeks ago and knew the next day was going to be warm but that night I needed heat. The next night at the same time we didn't need heat due to warm outdoor temps. I had time so I figured I would clean out ashes, the stove was still slightly warm and to my suprise there were coals! Not enough coals to start a new fire but they were there 24 hours later.

The beast rules :coolgrin: