Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting using coal in a tent stove?

We've driven through Shiprock, NM a few times. It's on the Navajo Rez. Along the highway you'll find dozens of Indians with pickups selling coal by the gunny sack, hay by the bale, etc.

There’s two abandoned coal mines by Kayenta. The Navajo dug coal out of the ground before Peabody got there. I imagine they still do. The coal mine fed a power plant and the EPA said shut it down.

In my opinion Peabody screwed up the land by using so much water that they lowered the water table and now the natives are screwed.

Miguel - did you find coal locally? I’d be curious about where it can be found. I know we don’t live too far apart.

Never used coal but am following this thread

i have never burned any coal as an adult, but i sure shoveled my share as a kid. it was all we used. the whole house would take on a sort of dark shade inside from the coal dust and smoke.

Where can you buy coal?

A lot of coal mines had coal for sale pretty cheap. When I was a kid almost all campuses had coal fired boiler in the center of the campus, including schools and hospitals, even downtown businesses. You could buy coal at lumber yards, many houses had coal fired furnaces including ours.

I’m mostly familiar with mines in the west but there were many coal mines in the east. Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota and Montana have or had coal mines.

I guess in these days, I’d google “coal for sale” or ask at local lumber yards.

'Bless my soul," it's green mark coal'. I scooped some of that in the old stocker hopper,

Tractor Supply - Anthracite & Rice Coal. Never knew!

When I was attending the Univ of Idaho back in the '60's, there were steam tunnels connecting all the older buildings. They were off limits but many students would go down there and run around through them.

What about the charcoal idea mentioned earlier? Anyone done that?

I was thinking we would burn wood during waking hours and throw in some charcoal before going to sleep to extend the length of the last burn. Does that make sense?

This is my setup:

I've burned a lot of charcoal in a cylinder stove. Just make sure ya use a grate. Or the fire might be laying under the stove in the morning.....

McCabes supply in Watertown had a good supply of all types. I got anthracite stove coal, golf ball to baseball size. $6 per 40 pound bag. I’m going to give it a go again today. I think the trick is to get a good bed of hardwood coals before adding the coal. I’ll update with what I find.

No luck getting the coal to burn. I burned a hot fire of well seasoned hard maple for 2 hours. I put about two big coffee cans of coal into the bed of hardwood coals. Then I put 4 or 5 pieces of maple on top. I left it like this at noon. I got home at 5 to find the wood had burned to ash and the coal was discolored but not burning.
I think I’m trying charcoal next. I also think I’ll be making an extra trip into the camp site with a load of seasoned maple.

I see you did not take my advice for a better outcome. Can lead a horse to water, but.......

I started out with 4 large pieces laying side by side touching on the base of the stove. I built a fire with split dry cedar kindling. With the kindling burning hot I put split dry hard maple on top, appx. 2”x2” pieces. With the maple burning hot, I put about a coffee can of coal on top of that. About 30 minutes later I put in larger pieces, about 4”x4” and another can of coal. This is how I left it. 5 hours later, wood ash and cold discolored coal. I don’t see how I deviated much from your suggestions.

I'm betting your using anthracite coal. Bituminous burns much easier. I start a fire with regular wood. Prior to bed time I throw several football size lumps in and set the damper at 50%. Coal needs air to burn

Charcoal puts out a lot of CO. Make sure you know what you are doing using it in a tent.

Yes, I’m using anthracite.

That's your problem unless you burn the stove wide open you won't get it to light.