Emergency Gear: Fisher Military Space Pen

Make: Fisher Space Pen
Model: Non-Reflective Military Matte Black Cap-O-Matic
Manufacturer's Product Code: SM4B


It was just about impossible to resist a piece of gear with the model name "Non-Reflective Military Matte Black Cap-O-Matic".  Seriously, you had me at "non-reflective"...  Not to mention that the Fisher company is quick to point out their long history with both the US and Russian space programs.  You would think this would be the alpha and omega of all tactical aerospace writing instruments.

Of course, the big selling point for Fisher is the pressurized ink cartridge that will work in extreme environments where you're average Bic won't (freezing temperatures, upside down, zero gravity, etc.).  I figured this would be the perfect addition to my EDC pack.  At first I was looking for smaller "wallet" pens, but I think those are better suited to keychain-type EDC's.  There was still plenty of room for a full-sized pen in my EDC pouch and so I decided to just go with something that would be comfortable to write with.

So as soon as I took it out of the packaging, I realized my first mistake.  The "cap-o-matic" part hadn't really registered with me when I bought it online, and I had wrongly assumed that it had a regular cap that you remove (it's easy to make that mistake if you're just looking at a picture of it).  Of course, it makes much more sense for it to just be a click type pen (no cap to lose, one-handed operation), but I knew that if I left a clickable pen in my EDC pack I'd end up with ink marks everywhere since that pack gets prodded, squeezed, and bounced around quite a bit.

So then I figured that if it wasn't meant to live in my EDC, I'd just use it as an everyday pen and still feel pretty good that I'm using a pen designed for military and law-enforcement personnel.

Except... it doesn't really write that well.

Now I'm definitely not a "pen guy", but I do enjoy a nice, smooth line of ink when I scribble something on paper.  I'm actually partial to the Uni-ball Signo 207, which you can probably find for about a dollar apiece online without searching too hard.  And so I figure that my $7 military space pen that can write upside down has got to be at least as good as my Uni-ball, if not ten times better.

And since I'm not a pen guy, it's a bit hard for me to describe what's lacking.  To me it just seems like the ink line is just thin and "weak".  It also feels to me like you have to hold the pen more upright than I usually do if you want to get a smoother flow.  I also noticed that if you don't use the pen for awhile, the first time you touch it to the paper, the ink is very, very weak making the first letter you write a lot lighter than the rest.  This sort of jives with what I've read about how the pressurized ink cartridge works.

So note that this isn't necessarily a "bad" pen.  It's just that for normal, everyday writing it's really no better than your average ballpoint.  I'm pretty sure it would shine under extreme conditions, but I was hoping it would also be a better pen during non-extreme situations (70 degrees, normal earth gravity, sitting upright at a desk).

So it's unfortunately not as good as my run-of-the-mill Uni-ball, so I don't think I'll end up using it for note-taking.  And with the Cap-O-Matic, I don't trust it bouncing around loose in my EDC.  I think it'll just end up with the bulk of the disaster supply, probably inside an admin pouch along with an all-weather notebook.