I have several of these FTA fountain pen kits on my desk right now, and I have had consistant problems with them skipping, not feeding, needing to be reprimed and such, even using PR cartridges or Noodlers bottle ink, and even after I replaced the Chinese made nibs with Lou's SF nibs. I have picked up barons and Jr. Gents for the first time in weeks, and had them write immediatly and perfectly using the same ink and nibs.
I just dissassembled one of the FTA sections, one of the $4.50 black and gold sections from CSUSA (discontinued :-( ) and a black ti section from a new Jr. Gent Kit.
The section/feed supplied with the FTA kits is different from the ones that come with the higher end kits and from the ones that csusa used to sell separately. The section body is one piece plastic, instead of the epoxy coated brass housing with internal threads and the separate externally threaded feed section. The interior is round, not keyed with a flat spot to positively locate the bottom channel of the feed. However, the black ti jr gent kit feed section is not keyed either, which is new to me.
The feeds themselves are minutely different, but I can not imagine these tiny differences would effect the performance to this degree.
I would love for somebody to explain this issue, or possibly offer a solution, since it has rendered 10 berea kits unuseable and unsellable. And as they are chrome kits, I can't even swap in the csusa replacement nibs :-(