Coleman WeatherMaster Tent V.S. Montana Tent (I Bought BOTH!)
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I have both the Coleman WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent and the Montana 8-Person Tent, and in this blog post, I’ll go through all 17 differences between these tents.
The Coleman WeatherMaster Tent sets up faster, has higher quality steel poles, a higher peak height, a much bigger base area, 1 extra door, more pockets, and better ventilation than the Coleman Montana Tent. However, it’s heavier, more bulkier, costs quite a bit more, and doesn’t have a front porch.
| Characteristics | WeatherMaster Tent (10P) | Montana Tent (8P) |
|---|---|---|
| Set Up Timing | 19 minutes | 22 minutes |
| Take Down Timing | 16 minutes | 14.5 minutes |
| Peak Height | 80.5 inches | 74 inches |
| Longest Length | 16 feet 8 inches | 15 feet 4 inches |
| Longest Width | 9 feet 1 inch | 6 feet 9 inches |
| Total Base Area | 143.6 square feet | 103.5 square feet |
| Single Pads | 10 | 8 |
| Queen Beds | 3 | 3 |
| Front Porch | No | Yes |
| Doors | 2 | 1 |
| Room Divider | 1 | 0 |
| E-Ports | 1 | 1 |
| Lantern Loops | 1 | 1 |
| Pockets | 4 | 2 |
| Hot Day Ventilation | 5,500 square inches | 2,200 square inches |
| Rainy Day Ventilation | 2,100 square inches | None |
| Rain Test | ~15 minutes | ~15 minutes |
| Pole Material | Steel | Fiberglass |
| Fabric Material | 68/75D Polyester | 68/75D Polyester |
| Packed Size | 31 by 18 by 12 inches | 26 by 15 by 12 inches |
| Weight | 30.6 lbs | 23.4 lbs |
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Check out the Coleman WeatherMaster and Montana Tents:
Set Up Timing
The WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent took me 19 minutes to set up on my own, while the Montana 8-Person Tent took me 22 minutes.
I know it’s a little bit weird that the smaller tent took me 3 minutes longer, but I think I have 2 reasons for this.
Pole Material
First, the difference in the pole material.
WeatherMaster 10
My WeatherMaster Tent comes with these steel poles, which are much sturdier and thicker, and it made propping up the tent easier.
Montana 8
On the other hand, the Montana Tent comes with these fiberglass poles, which are a lot thinner, and therefore more wobbly and a lot more difficult to prop up on my own.
Set Up Process
Second, the set up process is a little bit different between the 2 tents.
WeatherMaster 10
My WeatherMaster Tent comes with these 3 pole sleeves across the width of the tent. After inserting the 3 curved poles into these sleeves, and then attaching 6 more poles to each side of the curved poles, your WeatherMaster will look like this:
After that, all I had to do was just prop the middle pole up first, then the 2 poles to the left and right of the middle pole, and the structure of the WeatherMaster is basically up.
Montana 8
On the other hand, my Montana Tent came with these 2 really long black fiberglass poles. After inserting them into the 2 pole sleeves at the center of the tent (pictured earlier), I had to prop the poles up, one at a time, until it forms this dome shape.
And I think I’m not very tall, so I really struggled with this, and getting the poles propped up was a little difficult for me. It was a lot easier with someone else helping me though.
Take Down Timing
Taking down both tents was easier than setting them up, with the Montana 8-Person Tent taking just 14.5 minutes, and the WeatherMaster taking 16 minutes.
Most Coleman tents come with carry bags with this strip at the bottom that you can rip out to make it easier to pack everything up, and I ripped them both off my Montana and WeatherMaster.
But I think the WeatherMaster still took slightly longer because there was just so much stuff, and even after the bag was expanded, it was still a bit of a tight fit.
Peak Height
Montana 8
The peak height in the Montana 8-Person Tent is about 74 inches, and I can stand upright here no problem because I’m not very tall.
This is a nice peak height, but it’s not amazing or anything. In fact, my 6-Person Sundome Tents also have this same peak height of 74 inches.
WeatherMaster 10
The WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent, on the other hand, has a much higher peak height of 80.5 inches, and I can reach the top of the tent only if I stretch my arm out and stand on tiptoes at the same time.
Livable Space
Montana 8
For livable space in the Montana tent, I noticed that the peak height is only at the center of the tent. When I take just 3 steps away towards the sides of the tent, notice that my head touches the mesh at the top of the tent.
This is because the mesh sort of droops downwards a bit, and the height where my head touches the mesh is only about 61 inches. I’m 5’3”, by the way.
WeatherMaster 10
On the other hand, I didn’t have the same problem with the WeatherMaster tent, because the 3 pole structure I showed you just now really helps to maximize the peak height and the livable space in the tent.
In fact, I could stand up almost everywhere inside the tent, except for this small triangular space at the sides here.
Base Area
Montana 8
The longest length of my Montana 8-Person Tent is about 15 feet and 4 inches, while the longest width is about 6 feet and 9 inches, and the total base area comes in at about 103.5 square feet.
The Montana Tent fits 8 regular sleeping pads with no leftover space, or 3 queen beds with also no leftover space.
WeatherMaster 10
As for my WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent, I measured the longest length to be 16 feet and 8 inches, the longest width to be about 9 feet and 1 inch, and the base area to be 143.6 square feet, which is a whopping 40% bigger than the Montana Tent.
I could fit 10 regular sleeping pads into the WeatherMaster with a little space leftover. But unfortunately, because the base area isn’t like a nice rectangular shape, I could fit a maximum of 3 queen beds.
Apart from these 3 queen beds though, there’s quite a bit of space leftover for camping gear.
Front Porch
My Montana 8-Person Tent has a nice little porch area, which measures about 103 inches in length, and about 32 inches in width, and this is something the WeatherMaster doesn’t have.
It provides quite a bit of shading from the hot sun, so you can put gear here as well. I liked that it kept my flip flops cool instead of superheating it.
Number of Doors
Montana 8
My Montana 8-Person Tent came with only 1 door on the front length of the tent, which is hinged. Coleman provides 2 extra fiberglass poles to insert into the door pole sleeves to create that hinged feature.
While I really love the hinged door, I found it weird that such a big tent has only 1 door.
WeatherMaster 10
The WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent, on the other hand, has 2 doors, one at each length of the tent.
The front door of the tent is the exact same hinged D-door as the Montana, while the back door is just a regular door without the fiberglass poles.
Instead, I had to zip it open and close, and use the 2 latches to the side to keep the door open.
Room Divider
Unlike the Montana Tent that doesn’t come with a room divider, my WeatherMaster comes with this room divider, so I could split the tent into 2 rooms.
Each “room” can then fit either 5 sleeping pads or sleeping bags (pictured above), or 1 queen bed plus an additional sleeping pad (pictured below). One room will have access to the back door, while the other room will have access to the hinged door.
I think the quality of the divider could be improved though, because now there are pretty big gaps at both sides of the divider, at the top of the divider, and there’s also a gap at the bottom of the divider.
Storage Options
E-Port
Both my Montana and WeatherMaster Tents have 1 e-port each, at the bottom of the tent.
Lantern Loops
Both my WeatherMaster and Montana also have 1 lantern loop each, at the very top of the tent, right in the center, for some lighting at night.
Pockets
However, my Montana Tent has only 2 pockets inside the tent, which look like this:
On the other hand, my WeatherMaster Tent has 4 pockets, 2 on the right of the tent, and 2 on the left of the tent.
Hot Day Ventilation
WeatherMaster 10
For hot day ventilation, my WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent has not only a lot of mesh on the roof of the tent, but it also has 6 windows around the entire tent, for a total of ~5,500 square inches of window ventilation.
And yes, I measured every single one of these windows.
Montana 8
As for my Montana 8-Person Tent, while it also has a decent amount of ceiling mesh, there are only 3 windows around the tent, which are not very big, for a total of about ~2,200 square inches of window ventilation.
This is less than half the ventilation of the WeatherMaster, and I’m not sure why Coleman didn’t add an extra window on this last wall here.
Rainy Day Ventilation
WeatherMaster 10
For rainy day ventilation, the WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent has pretty good ventilation, with these 2 big angled windows that I was able to leave open in not only just light rain, but moderate to heavy rain as well.
And if there’s a lot of wind, I could just zip the windows close from the inside of the tent.
Montana 8
As for my Montana though, the windows at the sides of the tent aren’t angled at all, and the entire window got drenched during my heavy rain test.
So, ventilation is minimal because no windows can be opened.
Heavy Rain Test
Speaking of heavy rain, both my Montana and WeatherMaster performed the same in the rain test, staying dry for only about 15 minutes before the first drop of water entered the tent.
Montana 8
While it looks like both these tents have decently long rainfly lengths, notice for the Montana that the widths of this tent isn’t covered by the rainfly at all, and this is where water first leaked into the tent.
WeatherMaster 10
As for the WeatherMaster Tent, while the rainfly is extended at the sides of the tent, the front of the tent has a really short rainfly length, and the leaking started here.
But if you use seam sealant for these 2 tents for the most vulnerable bathtub flooring seam, these tents should be able to last at least a couple hours in heavy rain.
Packed Size
My Montana 8-Person Tent has a packed size of 26 by 15 by 12 inches, while my WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent has a packed size of 31 by 18 by 12 inches, which is about 40% bigger than the Montana.
Weight
Similarly, my Montana 8-Person Tent weighs just 23.4 pounds, while my WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent weighs a whopping 30.6 pounds, which is about 30% heavier.
Pricing
My WeatherMaster 10-Person Tent cost me close to $300, while my Montana 8-Person Tent probably cost me half of that (maybe even less).
Recommendation
I’m a huge fan of my WeatherMaster Tent over the Montana, it just has so many pros and relatively few cons.
I love that it doesn’t take too long to set up, and after breaking my WeatherMaster in, I could set it up on my own, no problem. I love the higher quality steel poles in my WeatherMaster compared to the Montana, and after 3-4 years of having this tent, I’ve never had broken poles.
My WeatherMaster has the highest peak height of all my Coleman tents. And I have 14 Coleman tents, so I think the WeatherMaster is pretty impressive.
On top of that, livable space is much better than the Montana, and the base area is significantly bigger as well.
The WeatherMaster also comes with 1 extra door at the back of the tent, it comes with a room divider, it comes with more storage options, and its hot day ventilation and rainy day ventilation blows the Montana out of the water.
I think the 2 main cons of the WeatherMaster compared to the Montana is that because of all the extra features and materials, the packed size and weight is significantly bigger and heavier. And the second main con is the pricing. It’s at least $100 bucks more expensive.
Overall, I feel the WeatherMaster is the better tent, and I would recommend it for sure.
But if you’re on a tight budget, I think the Montana Tent is still a great pick for the price.
It’s a decent quality family camping tent for what, slightly over $100 bucks? I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better quality tent for the price, for sure. Plus, it comes with a nice little porch that the WeatherMaster doesn’t have.
Bonus: Must Read!
To find out how the WeatherMaster and Montana compare against my 12 other Coleman tents, I highly recommend that you read this blog post here: I Bought & Tested the 14 BEST Coleman Tents!
