How to Find the Perfect Ballpoint Pen Refills

Anyone searching online for ballpoint pen refills is met with a vast range of options. With so many different models, it is easy to lose track. There are different ballpoint pen refill types, sizes and variants, along with a wide variety of lengths and widths. In addition, some ballpoint pen refills offer a particularly smooth writing experience, while others stand out for an especially long writing distance. There are fine ballpoint pens and ballpoint pens with broader refills. The variety is almost endless.

In this blog article, we explain the most important types of ballpoint pen refill, so that you can quickly find the right ballpoint pen refill.

G2 Refills by Smoothness and Writing Distance

Depending on the ballpoint pen, the type of refill may vary. There are standard refills, large-capacity refills and many others. The important thing is to find a ballpoint pen refill that fits your pen.

G2 ballpoint pens are the most common. Three different kinds of refill are available for them. Which refill is right for you depends on your individual requirements. Is especially smooth writing more important to you, or would you prefer to write for as long as possible with one refill? Or is your main concern good value for money?

The following table gives you a quick overview of the key characteristics of the three main types of ballpoint pen refill:

The per-item prices refer to high-quality ballpoint pen refills. You will certainly also find inexpensive ballpoint pen refills for under one euro, but you will usually have to accept compromises in quality. Cheap soft refills, for example, often write worse than standard refills because the ink quality is lower. In this case, we recommend choosing a high-quality ballpoint pen refill instead.

Ballpoint Pens That Write Smoothly

One point should be emphasised straight away: it is not the ballpoint pen that writes, but the refill inside it.

High-quality ballpoint pens from leading brands do of course stand out through solid materials and a much better feel in the hand than standard ballpoints – in our blog article “Why choose an elegant ballpoint pen?” we share a few pointers for your purchase. However, it serves little purpose to buy an expensive pen and then insert only a low-cost refill. That will simply lead to your £500 ballpoint pen skipping as you write, and the writing feel will deteriorate noticeably. This is why makers of premium writing instruments consistently rely on smooth-writing ballpoint pen refills.

G2 Refill Types

In the table above, we have already introduced the three most common types of ballpoint pen refill. Which one is right for you depends on your needs. As a general rule of thumb: if you want especially smooth writing, you usually have to accept a shorter writing distance.

• Standard refill:

These are the usual ballpoint pen refills found in most pens. Depending on quality and line width, they write between 1 km and 11 km – with the Hörner G2 refills in our online shop reaching the maximum writing distance of 11 km. Depending on the ink used, the writing feel can differ significantly. High-quality ink is characterised by consistent and smooth writing, allowing your pen to write without much pressure.

• Soft refills:

These contain an ink that writes very smoothly. People who write a great deal especially appreciate this type of refill when writing longer texts. However, they consume considerably more ink, which is why soft refills with the same fill volume generally write only around 5 km. Owing to the nature of the ink used, they are also more expensive.

• Rollerball refills:

Yes, there are also rollerball refills for ballpoint pens. These follow the G2 standard and write as smoothly as a rollerball. It almost feels as though you are holding a high-quality fountain pen in your hand. These refills offer the smoothest writing experience, but this comes with a short writing distance of around 2 km. In addition, these refills are the most expensive.

If you use your ballpoint pen in many different ways, you may benefit from changing the refill and adapting it to the task at hand. With quality ballpoint pens, changing the refill is straightforward and should not place undue strain on the metal thread – unlike low-cost pens with plastic threads, which may break after only a few uses, making frequent refill changes inadvisable.

What Types of Ballpoint Pen Refill Are There?

As mentioned at the very beginning, it is very easy to lose your way in the jungle of refill variants, refill sizes and refill types. This applies especially to ballpoint pen refill types, because the industry has in some cases developed dedicated refills for specific pens. It would be almost impossible to list every model in one blog article.

The most common refill types are G2 refills, which have been our main focus here. In addition, there are the somewhat less common type D and A2 refills. All other refills are either so rare that they are hardly worth mentioning, or they belong to disposable ballpoint pens in which replacing the refill is not possible.

In our range, we offer only G2 ballpoint pen refills. The company Schmidt Technology kindly provided us with its data sheets for this blog article, enabling us to present the key differences between types G2, D and A2:

G2

98 mm long

6 mm wide

Writing distance 11 km

D

67 mm long

2.35 mm wide

Writing distance 1.4 km

A2

106 mm long

3.2 mm wide

Writing distance 4 km

In addition, writing distance varies depending on the ball width. The rule of thumb is simple: ballpoint pens with broader refills write for less distance than finer ballpoint pens. While the widely used G2 refills in writing size F (0.8 mm) can achieve up to 14 km, G2 ballpoint pen refills in size B (1.2 mm) reach only around 7 km. The 11 km writing distance in our table refers to the medium M type (1 mm).

Is Ballpoint Pen Ink Toxic to the Skin?

And then there is that one question almost everyone has asked at some point: is ballpoint pen ink toxic and harmful to the skin?

Experience tells us: no. After all, most of us, when we were at school, drew cheat notes or simply little decorations on our arms. Did it kill us? Of course not.

As a general principle, our experience is not misleading in this case. Ballpoint pen ink on the skin is not inherently dangerous – provided the skin is not excessively stressed or irritated and remains unbroken, so that no ink can penetrate beneath the surface.

However, every skin type is different, and some people react more sensitively to ink than others. Allergic skin irritation can certainly occur. Sometimes the issue is not even the ink itself, but rather a solvent used afterwards to wash the ink off. That said, modern inks, which are often water-based, can usually be removed fairly easily and without chemical solvents.

Inks Are Subject to Limits for Potentially Carcinogenic Substances

Ballpoint pen inks do, however, contain colourants – and these can indeed be hazardous, with some even regarded as carcinogenic. Legislators have therefore set limits or banned the use of certain substances altogether. The aim is to keep the level of potentially cancer-causing substances in ballpoint pen refills below a threshold considered harmless.

Unfortunately, tests show that these limits are not always observed – and in some cases are exceeded several times over. In the vast majority of instances, this would become problematic only if the ink were ingested orally. On the skin, by contrast, even slightly elevated levels are generally not a cause for concern.

Even so, we would still advocate greater attention to statutory requirements and to the origin of the ink. Our quality refills for ballpoint pens are manufactured in Germany and are subject to strict regulations. Just as with our ballpoint pens, the wellbeing of our customers matters greatly to us where refills are concerned as well.

Conclusion

The range of terminology used for ballpoint pen refills is so extensive that it can sound like a science in its own right. Do not worry – it is not. In practice, the standard is a small number of different refill types that fit the great majority of ballpoint pens and therefore also the leading ballpoint pen brands.

Do you have any further questions about the models in our online shop? Then write to us via WhatApp or email.