A few words about what I believe is one of the most dependable pieces of camping kit out there. I’ve had this incarnation of the MSR XGK for a few years now and it has never let me down, not this one, or the two older ones that I had before. I bought my first one about 30 years ago and am still using the bottle from that one. If it has a drawback, it is the fact that it is a bit of an ‘on’ and ‘off’ ‘nuclear fission’ machine. You could forget gourmet cooking and simmering, before I figured a way around that. (!!!!). Yep, I have devised a way for gourmet cooking with an MSR XGK EX stove, (roll over Einstein).
First, let’s take a look at the stove and it’s performance.
The stove comes with a pouch, wind shield and the pump that attaches to the bottle.
This allows you to buy a bottle size for your needs. I have two, the midsize bottle which is about 0.6 liter and the large (about 1 liter) one. The smaller one usually lasts me between 3 to 4 days and the long one about a week or a bit more. This is using it three times a day, breakfast, coffee break and dinner. It has three folding legs/pot holders that open up to provide a very stable platform for the stove to stand on and for a cooking pot. It has a shaker needle for cleaning the jet which works flawlessly. A shake before and after cooking has kept my stove working for a few years now without needing a clean. The hose is flexible, allowing for the stove head to be carried inside my pots, saving some precious space. The stove and bottle 
separate for easy carrying and stowing. From my experience, the stove works with almost any liquid fuel that burns and is very reliable anywhere in the world. I have always bought a maintenance kit with a new stove, and have never used any of them. I still recommend having them, if only for some more peace of mind.
To fire it up, it needs priming, which I do by pressuring the system and letting a little fuel onto the priming mat. This is very straightforward but I recommend using long matches, it makes it easier, especially if you are using white fuel that lights a bit energetically. You will know when it gets going and so will everyone else in your neck of the woods or mountains. It kind of sounds like an argument between Odin and Thor and works the same way. Nothing stops it until you close that valve at the bottle and here lies it’s strength and it’s only flaw. It has no simmer, only cook at full throttle. I have managed to work a smaller flame but it will not simmer on that one either, but as I said earlier, there is a way.
I used to simmer by holding the pot up, a little above the flame to adjust simmering. This works, but it’s a bit hard to have a conversation going for someone like me, who likes to talk with his hands. So, I devised a way to distance the pot from the flame by sticking a 
pie case with a detachable bottom between the stove and the pot and, ‘tadaa…’ It simmers with the best of them. You can buy a simmering plate, but these are large and heavy, which defeats the purpose of a lightweight camping stove. You will need a tool, like a multitool with a plier or one of those aluminum pot handles, to put it in place and lift it up from the stove, but these are things you probably have with you anyway.
So, by adjusting the smallest flame you can and a pie case, you can do gourmet cooking with an MSR XGK EX.
To sum it up, this is a very reliable and solid stove that will work anywhere and at any height. It is built to last, I had the first two for about 13 – 14 years of heavy use each and expect this one to last just as long. With the simmering sorted, I would say this is one of the best stoves you can lay your hands on.
