The Coleman Company is steeped in a fantastic American history. The saga of the outdoor equipment icon dates back nearly 100 years to Kingfisher, Oklahoma, where W.C. Coleman began manufacturing lanterns to finance his final year of law school. The company's story is a romantic one of classic American entrepreneurial pursuits.

W.C. Coleman

Soon enough, Coleman enlisted its efforts into the U.S. military, when during WWII, the company produced projectiles for the Navy as well as parts for the B-17 and B-29 bombers. But it didn't end there. Coleman's greatest contribution to the wartime effort was the development of the GI Pocket Stove. Design requirements for the stove were demanding.

Lightweight and no larger than a quart thermos, the GI Pocket Stove was required to burn any type of fuel and operate in weather parameters ranging from -60º to 125º F. When the desperate call came out from the military to fill the void, the Coleman company ignited its ingenuity and produced a working prototype within 60 days. By November 1942, some 5,000 units marched into battle as U.S. forces invaded North Africa.

Coleman's 5 Gallon Water Jug falls short. The design is outdated. The materials are weak. And, functionality is a factor difficult to overlook. I've owned two of these jugs and both have failed in a number of ways.

With the square shape of the container, the Coleman 5 Gallon Jug fits snugly into corners, but its protruding spigot and handle leads to wasted space, as multiple jugs cannot be stacked upon one another.
	Additionally, the protruding spigot tends to become snagged by clothing or other equipment, which tends to pop it from its threads. It gets worse. The thin plastic threads on the jug are weak enough that nominal shifts in atmospheric pressure pop it from its threads. And if you're thinking that tightening might help to remedy this problem, don't bother. The threads are so thin that even a weak-writsted child could strip the spigots grasp on the jug's threads. The picture above was taken after a half mile prerunning last month's SCORE Henderson's Terrible 250 off-road race in Henderson, Nevada. The jug and other articles within the vehicle were secured well enough that there was no chance of the spigot taking a hit from anything that would have jolted it from its base. It's simple The container just could not stand the shock of prerunning the racecourse. In 120-degree heat, water is extremely important to your survival. This jug is just not worth betting your life on.
If you can manage to keep the spigot threaded to the jug when dispensing, you're doing well. The spigot and the rubber seal it is equipped with does the job. But when dispensing, don't be anything other than gentle when opening up the spigot, or you'll end up with a flood of water when the it busts from the jug's threads.
Above, another weak and outdated component of the jug is the breather. More common and certainly more reliable these days are the threaded versions. The Coleman 5 Gallon Jug has a snap on version with a very thin tether. First off, on the two jugs that I've had, the tether has broken. As for the snap, most snap breathers can hold their own even in extreme atmospheric changes, but it must be the composition of the plastic that makes this one prone to the rare incident of releasing popping off when transporting water. Liberty Outdoor
THE FINAL WORD I may be a little on the nostalgic side when the Coleman brand comes to mind. It must be those fishing and hunting adventures through the mountains with my older brothers as a child. But there are some things I just can't overlook when staking my life on it, and that's a reliable outdoor equipment. The Coleman 5 Gallon Water Jug just doesn't make the grade. It failed the test. I cannot recommend it - even if it only cost me 10 bucks. I would rather have saved myself the money for gas and store my water in a used milk container than purchase this jug. I'd say it's time for Coleman to discontinue this product and head back to the drawing board. This product taints the company's reputable name, especially when the 30-something-year-old Coleman two-burner stove that I grew up with has never failed.