Welcome fellow Dauntless owner.
The smoke coming out of your stove is likely because you have a poor draft. How warm was it outside when you started your stove and how tall is the stove pipe from the top of the stove to the top of the chimney outside? Is your stove pipe running through the house and up through the roof or mostly outside? Is your pipe double or single wall inside? Draft is determined by a number of factors. I have ~15' (minimum required) of a stove pipe run, and it's all inside, double wall pipe. If I try to light my stove when it's say 45 degrees outside without heating the flue I would have smoke return into the house. I can quickly just hold a piece of paper that I light up into the flue through the damper and it will heat the stove pipe enough to create a draw up out of the living quarters. You might want to try that. Also try the top down fire. I stack the box with kindling which is about 1" to 1.5" thick pieces of wood criss crossed, then put a fire starter on a wood platform and a few pieces of wood over the fire starter then light the stove. Keep the door cracked a little bit but dont forget that you have the door cracked open. If you leave the door cracked, put the handle on the ledge to visibly make you aware that the door is cracked. Once you close the door, put the handle on the left side in the handle holder to make you aware that the door is closed.
The stove will allow smoke into the house from the top hatch from time to time but shouldnt be much. If you are getting a good bit after opening the top hatch, you need to make sure you have the damper open, the air control as high as it will go (all the way forward), and you need to crack the hatch open an inch first, wait a few seconds then slowly open it. Once you have a good burn going, you can expedite opening the lid but it will always allow a tiny bit to go into the room. If you make the mistake of not opening the damper or moving the air control to the highest setting you will get massive amounts of smoke into the room if you open the top hatch.
Also as mentioned by the previous reply, and likely a theme you will see mentioned many times throughout these forums, your wood needs to be well seasoned. There is only ONE place near me that actually sells kiln dried seasoned hardwood and it's $900 for a full cord of wood. Everything else ranges from $200 to $350 a cord, and it's all cut that summer. It takes multiple years for most hardwood to season to the point that you can use it in modern stoves. You will need to buy a moisture meter, take pieces of wood inside and let them sit for 24 hours, then take the wood outside, split them in half and read along the grain of wood to determine your moisture content. Anything greater than 20% and you will create a good bit of creosote and will struggle with this already challenging stove to operate. Oak 19% or less burns great in the dauntless, 23% not so much.
