I just got back from riding Advrider Death Valley Noob Ride. I loaded up two 30 oz MSR bottles on top of my medium rolie bag. I strapped them down and took off on the steel pass trail. After riding for 2 miles I stopped and looked back at the bottles. Both were gone. One was hanging on the strap on the side of the bike and look like it had gone to war and back. The other side just had the cap of the bottle. Luckily the rider behind me was riding eyes open and picked it up for me. Lesson learned from this experience don't strap the bottles down and MSR bottles are pretty tough. They are still holding liquid. I will be getting something to hold them for the next ride.

 

MSR bottles are tough to beat - we use them in Wildland Firefighting as our fuel mix & bar oil containers. Year after year more paint comes off, but we can't seem to put a hole in them.

 

I couldn't believe the one survived the impact of when you chucked it at the ground in anger after seeing the other was missing! I've never seen anyone throw something so hard.

 

no matter how hard i tried those bottles would'nt break

 

i just wish they made the opening big enough to fit the spout at the gas pump...i literally need to keep an empty gatorade bottle to fill with gas and pour in to the msr bottles...bit of a hassle...people looked at me funny for using bicycle water bottle mounts to hold my bottles...i've even used standard bungee cords (1 through the caps and around the tail and another around the bottles)....i've never had the bottle fall out or even close to fall out in any of my rides including rough rides...

 

for next time this might work better and will strap to your rollie bag. Wolfman Wolf Bottle Holster - RevZilla

 

I use two of these to extend the range of my KDX. My backpack has two outboard pockets that hold them just right. The backpack is also soft to land on.

 

I rode over some "buried/lost" in a muddy corner last summer. They are probably still there...and still full.
The bottle opening is a pain, I just fill them from a gas can before I leave, or grab a cup or bottle from the trash at the gas station, fill it, then pour it in.
Just make sure the O-ring is in good shape before you give it the Samsonite gorilla test.

 

I am not sure what you used to strap the canisters down with, but my bitter experience is that if you are going off-road with cargo, bungees simply arent up to the task. In-elastic flat straps with cam or ratchet style buckles are necessary if you want your cargo to come with you on your *entire* journey!
I think the reason a gas pump nozzle won’t fit in the neck of an MSR canister is that they are not intended to haul gasoline in. They are actually meant for camping stove fuel. I am sure the fine print that comes with the canisters has some sort of carefully worded legaleze regarding this…

 

True on the camp fuel vs. gasoline, but actually Coleman fuel is closer to unleaded regular gasoline than you might think. In fact, many Coleman stoves will work on unleaded regular gasoline in a pinch, and some of the stoves even have a simple valve **** to switch from Coleman fuel to unleaded regular. It's more of a "jetting" issue to run unleaded fuel vs. Coleman fuel in a Coleman non-propane appliance. Gasoline is only slightly more volatile than Coleman fuel. I'll bet, like you suggest, that the opening on the MSR and other fuel bottles was intended to keep people from filling them directly from a gas pump nozzle just because of the lawyer/litigation nature of our world...except in North Korea, of course.