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

Found a great deal on a stove for my wall tent. A hunting buddy tells me he has the same stove and that this model works so much better with coal rather than wood.

OK - I'm looking to try it but I have no clue where to buy coal and don't really know the type of container I should get to transport it.

Anyone burning coal and can tell me the basics of first-time coal burning?

Coal rocks. We burned it in the army in our pot belly stoves to heat our GP medium platoon tent. No chopping wood and burns hot and long. It's messy though.

Farrier supply store here sells it. As well as various yards that will sell lump coal.

However they are getting harder to find.

What kind of stove did you get?

Any wood stove will work with coal, but a grate of some kind will keep the coal from getting buried in the ashes. A very even heat can be had with a grate and a very controllable (air tight) stove.

Those plastic sacks are a good coal carrier. Those sacks are tougher then needed, and conforms to the irregular shapes. Or a box, pails or what have you.

A good lump of coal is nice with a brisk night when your short on sleep. But I wouldn't use it if I believed I were up-wind the elk I wanted to hunt.
No proof of why, but coal fires are not real common. Not like wood smoke smell.

Coal gives off a real pungent odor before it cokes and burns well. Again, no proof, but I would not risk moving a drifting herd through the nite.

Good wood is a must, gold standing dead or dead leaners will make any stove sing.

Good standing dead Douglas fir is about as good as it gets in the Colorado mountains. Is there a chance your friend chose coal over marginal wood?

You can get it off ebay but the shipping is 3x the price of the coal.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/COAL-for-bu..._DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27cae9f56b

Coal burns better if you knock the ash off of it every so often. A grate will then allow air around it for a much better burn.

I prefer charcoal to coal......

There's a landscape supply ie: rocks of all kinds, in SW Denver that sells it by the 15lb bag if ya know of someone coming your way from here.

I was working along RR tracks in UT this summer and found a bunch of it free for the pickin up, but didn't want to check it in my luggage

Huntsman, I bet you get a good burn from that once it gets goin, pretty hard to get started up high.

Coal will put a stink that most game are not use to.

Coal can burn very hot please take note.

Thanks for the replies.

This stove does have a grate to separate the burn chamber from the ash bin - pot belly style.

I like the charcoal idea. Especially since its readily available, light, cheap, clean.

A lot of coal has a relatively high sulfur content. You are smelling the sulfur oxidizing into sulfur dioxide.

In southern Colorado coal is pretty easy to come by. Just ask some of the locals, cause most everyone that doesn't live in town keeps a small supply for cold winter nights. I use to buy from a fellow in La Veta, and there was another good supplier over in Gulnare. Usually 1/2 ton would last me the winter with the wood I cut and burned.

Up north I know there is was coal dealer in Idaho Springs, and I'm pretty sure there is one in Frisco, but it's been a few years since I spent any time there.

Be careful how much coal you load in the stove, it will get very hot if you don't have real good air control.

If you can get it you want Anthracite coal. It has much higher BTU per lb than western varieties.

Don't let Obama read this thread or he'll be out to outlaw elk hunting in the name of clean air.

Ain't that the truth!

Just for Obama, I did a little research.

$0.13 cents a pound good for your carbon-footprint?

Just got off the phone with the folks at the link below.
Bulk lump coal, with some good sized lumps(new shipment) so a few of those plastic woven sacks, heavy dog-food or grain sacks would be handy for hunting.

http://m.ainsworthrocksales.com/Location

Where camp will be this year, a west or north-west wind (blowing towards DC) would in no way effect my hunting!
Think I will bring up a good measure in case of a cold snap.

Thanks for the link!

IIRC both Anthracite (hard) and Bituminous (soft) have about 25 million BTUs per ton. Anthracite is much cleaner, less soot, but more expensive. Soft coal was used in the coke ovens for steel-making.

You really need shaker grates in your stove/furnace to burn it right.

I still prefer Kingsford-tuminous coal. Always bring a bag, or two.....