7mm pen Cross Style Refills

[Smitty37]

I am investigating what refill to provide with a new 7mm Cross Style pen kit that I am working on. Maybe some of you have an idea of which brands (specific models) would give excellent writing results but still not be a threat to cause ink stained shirt pockets.

 

[Dave Turner]

My favorite Cross style refill is the Private Reserve Fine Point. It writes fairly smoothly and never skips. I'd still prefer a Parker style EasyFlow 9000 but it doesn't fit in the 7mm tubes no matter how hard I push :biggrin:

 

[conandy]

cross refills

I realize I may be hijacking this thread a bit, but I am very interested in the topic of the Cross type refills. I just made my very first 4 pens, 2 were "slimlines" with cross-type refills, and 2 were click pens with parker-style refills.

I have spent a week trying to find Cross-style refills that I find acceptable, and am having a tough time:

1. The kit refills are hit or miss (one writes pretty nice, the other one sucks).
2. I ordered a sampling of 4 Monteverde "liquid" refills for Cross (different colors), and found them to also be hit or miss. Two write pretty nicely, two are horrible (scratchy, don't lay down a very nice line).
3. I bought a Cross brand set of medium point blue refills, and they write fairly nicely.

I have to say that in general, I am not a fan of ballpoints. My weak nerve-damaged hands get fatigued very quickly writing with the ballpoints. So I was really searching for "gel" or "rollerball" refills to fit the Cross-style. No luck, so far. Even the nicer of the cross refills don't hold a candle to writing with a gel or rollerball.

I have to say that the sheer variety of refills available for the "parker-style" is awesome (parker brand Quink gel is amazing), and enough to make me decide to never turn another cross-style refill pen again.

I wonder what the impression of the pen buying public is on the Cross refills (and thus those pens) vs the parker-style refilled pens. I don't want my personal bias against ballpoints to keep me from making them for sale or gifts, if people in general like them and there is a good market for them.