Which G2 refill? A buyer's guide to Parker-style refills

Our Mechanical Pen now takes a standard Parker-style G2 refill. The barrel is 10mm longer to fit it and nothing else has changed: the same twist mechanism and knurled grip, machined in England as before. That makes it the same pen as our Journeyman Pen in all but the Journeyman's pocket clip, so the two now share refills. G2 refills are made by a long list of companies, from Parker and Schmidt to Uni and Pentel, so the ink in your pen is now your choice. This guide covers the refills worth knowing and how to choose between them.

Why we changed the refill

The Mechanical Pen was designed around the Fisher Space Pen cartridge. It took more than 25 iterations to get the fit right, and a pressurised refill suited a pen made to live in a pocket: it writes upside down, in the cold and on damp paper. But a pen built to last for decades shouldn't tie you to one ink, and over the years the refill was the thing reviewers most often asked us to change. Some wanted a gel line, some a finer point, and several asked for a Parker-style refill by name.

The only thing I would change would be to use a Parker style G2 refill instead, that way we would have significant more options for refills.

G2 was the obvious answer because of the choice it opens up: ballpoint, hybrid, gel and pressurised, from Germany's Schmidt and Schneider to Japan's Uni and OHTO. Making room for it cost the pen 10mm of length, which we think is a fair price. The Journeyman already took G2, so the two pens now take the same refills.

What is a G2 refill?

G2 is the refill that grew out of the Parker Jotter. Parker launched the Jotter in 1954 and its T-Ball refill in 1957, with a textured tungsten carbide ball, and the original mechanism turned the refill a quarter turn every time it retracted so the ball wore evenly. So many other makers adopted the refill that it became a standard in its own right, which is why you will see it sold as G2, Parker-style or Parker-type. They are all the same thing.

A G2 refill is about 98mm (3.9in) long and 6mm across, with a stepped plastic tail at the back that the pen's mechanism pushes against. Some have a plastic barrel and some metal; a metal barrel has thinner walls, so it holds more ink.

You will often see ISO 12757-2 printed beside the G2 label. Strictly, that standard is about the ink rather than the size: it certifies a ballpoint refill for documentary use, so the writing is tested to stay legible on documents that need to last. Parker, Schneider, Pelikan and Uni all make G2 refills that carry it.

Ballpoint, hybrid, gel or pressurised?

The size is fixed, so the choice is in the ink, and the ink changes how the pen feels more than anything else.

Ballpoint. Oil-based ink, thick and slow to flow. It dries fast, lasts longest and copes with cheap paper, but it needs a little more pressure and gives a lighter line. A ballpoint refill typically writes several thousand metres.

Hybrid. A thinner, low-viscosity oil-based ink that glides more like a gel while keeping most of a ballpoint's drying speed and life. Most of the refills we would reach for every day sit here.

Gel. Water-based gel ink gives the darkest, most saturated line for the least pressure. The trade-off is distance: a gel refill writes a few hundred metres where a ballpoint writes thousands, and it takes longer to dry, which matters if you write with your left hand.

Pressurised. Ballpoint ink pushed towards the tip by compressed gas, so it writes upside down, in the cold and on damp or greasy paper. It doesn't glide quite like a hybrid, which is the price of that reliability.

The G2 refills worth knowing

There are dozens of G2 refills on sale. These are the ones we would point a friend towards, grouped by ink, with the makers' own figures where they publish them. Distances are the length of line a refill writes before it runs dry.

Refill	Ink	Tips	Worth knowing
Schmidt easyFLOW 9000	Hybrid	F, M	Comes in both our pens. Black, blue
Parker QuinkFlow	Hybrid	F, M	Writes about 3,500m. Black, blue
Uni Jetstream SXR-600	Hybrid	0.38, 0.5, 0.7mm	Fine lines. Mostly black in the UK
Monteverde Soft Roll	Hybrid	EF to 1.4mm	Nine colours in medium
Schmidt P900	Ballpoint	F, M, B	Inexpensive. Seven colours in medium
Schneider Express 735	Ballpoint	F, M, B	Writes about 10,000m. Four colours
OHTO PS-107NP	Ballpoint	0.7mm needlepoint	0.35mm line. Black
Parker Gel	Gel	M (0.7mm)	Dense line, writes about 600m. Black, blue
Schneider Gelion+	Gel	0.7mm	Quick-drying. Four colours
OHTO Flash Dry PG-105NP	Gel	0.5mm needlepoint	Fast-drying. Black
Schmidt Megaline P950	Pressurised	M	Writes upside down, no adapter. Black, blue
Fisher PR	Pressurised	F, M, B	Needs its extender, trimmed 0.5mm

Everyday hybrids

The Schmidt easyFLOW 9000 is the refill that comes in both pens, and the G2 refill we stock. It starts writing the moment it touches the page, dries fast and lays down a strong, dark line from a 1mm stainless steel ball coated in tungsten carbide. We carry the medium in black and blue, and Schmidt also makes a fine.

Parker's own QuinkFlow is the current version of the refill that started the format. It is a hybrid too, in fine and medium, black and blue, rated to write about 3,500 metres and certified to ISO 12757-2.

The Uni Jetstream SXR-600 puts Uni's Jetstream ink, a low-viscosity oil-based ink that dries quickly, into a G2 refill. Tips come in 0.38, 0.5 and 0.7mm, so it is the hybrid to choose for small handwriting, though UK stockists mostly carry black.

Monteverde makes a large family of G2 refills. Its Soft Roll range uses a low-viscosity ink in tips from extra fine to a 1.4mm super broad, and the medium P13 comes in nine colours, from blue-black to turquoise and brown.

Ballpoints

The Schmidt P900 is the no-nonsense workhorse: a standard ballpoint in fine, medium and broad, and an inexpensive way to try colours, with the medium in seven of them. Schmidt also makes a P900 Softline with a broad 1.2mm ball and a smoother hybrid ink, rated to write 3,900 metres.

For distance, the Schneider Express 735 is the one to look at. It has a metal barrel, comes in fine, medium and broad in black, blue, red and green, is document-proof to ISO 12757-2 and is rated to write around 10,000 metres.

The OHTO PS-107NP has a 0.7mm needlepoint tip that draws a line about 0.35mm wide, for anyone who writes small or annotates in margins.

Gel

Parker Gel gives a dense, dark line in black or blue from a 0.7mm medium tip. It is rated to write around 600 metres, a fraction of a ballpoint's distance, so it is worth keeping a spare.

The Schneider Gelion+ is made to dry quickly, which makes it the gel to try if you are left-handed. It comes in black, blue, red and green with a 0.7mm tip.

For the finest gel line, the OHTO Flash Dry PG-105NP has a 0.5mm needlepoint tip and a fast-drying ink, in black only.

Pressurised

The Schmidt Megaline P950 is a pressurised refill made at full G2 length, so it needs no adapter. It writes upside down and in extreme temperatures, comes in medium black and blue, and is the simplest way to keep the go-anywhere character of the original Mechanical Pen.

What isn't a G2 refill?

A few refills share a name or a size with G2, and they cause most of the confusion.

• Pilot G2. A gel pen, not a refill format. Its refill is about 111mm long and won't fit a G2 pen, despite the name.
• D1. The short 67mm refill used in multi-pens and our Pocket Pen, much thinner and shorter than a G2.
• Same length, wrong width. Schmidt's P8126 and P8127 capless rollerballs are 98mm long, like a G2, but 7mm across, so they won't go in.
• Other house formats. Cross, Lamy M16, Pentel EnerGel LR7, Sheaffer K and Schneider Express 75 refills are all different sizes. The Caran d'Ache Goliath is close to a G2 but not a straight swap.

There is also no liquid-ink rollerball refill in the G2 format. Refills sold as capless rollerballs for Parker-style pens are gel, which is the nearest you will get.

Using a Fisher cartridge in the Mechanical Pen or Journeyman

If you prefer the Fisher Space Pen cartridge, or have spares from an earlier Mechanical Pen, it fits both the new Mechanical Pen and the Journeyman. The Fisher PR is shorter than a G2, so each one comes with a small plastic extender that fits on the back end and brings it up to G2 length. Trim 0.5mm off the end of the extender with a sharp craft knife, fit it, and the cartridge sits in the pen like any other G2 refill. We still stock the PR4 in black and the PR1 in blue.

If you are still deciding between our pens, our guide to choosing a Wingback pen compares all three, and the story of how the Mechanical Pen was first designed is in Designs: the Mechanical Pen.

The Wingback Team