Review: S&W Tactical Pen

This is the first of my birthday-present posts, and I wanted to start them off with a bang: A Smith & Wesson bang. I'll even jump right in with the anticipated "pen is mightier than the sword" comment here, because you can indeed achieve more with a pen than you can with a sword, but it can be a lot more satisfying to do so with a sword.

Then again there are times in all of our lives when carrying around your favourite piece of live steel, say for tree-chopping or perhaps laying waste to anything in sight is not what the authorities, or your workmates, have in mind.


I understand their fears. I don't agree, but I understand.

For those times, however, you can always fall back on your pen. Especially if that pen is machined out of 6061 aircraft aluminium and designed by the likes of Smith & Wesson. This is the S&W Tactical Pen  and one of my lovely girlfriends imported it for me (with all the trouble you might imagine of Australian Customs) but it was so worth it!

The machining and finish are a delight. The groves along the body lend themselves to a very positive grip in a variety of holds, as well as affording a very comfortable writing grip.

As well as a series of grooves machined along its circumference, there is a broad, raised, cross-hatched region which reinforces the achievable grip. The bullet-headed tip is pointy enough to be an aggressive tool for control or compliance, as well as being sizable enough to present a realistic force multiplier in defensive situations. I would not like to be on the receiving end of one of these in even unskilled but motivated hands. That said, it is also rounded and subdued enough that I have no fear of Tactical baby hurting herself with it if I leave it laying around. It's fairly innocuous until wielded. Which is mostly the point.

The pen part is a regular ballpoint ink cartridge, housed in the reverse end, again, all well machined and anodized. The pen end is capped by pressing the cap on directly, the cap has a nylon liner which accepts both pen and pointy end equally securely and firmly. The butt-cap and the retaining clip both feature the
with the Smith & Wesson logo and name which are laser engraved. Two hex screws affix the spring retaining clip without jutting out overly.

There is even a lanyard hole in the butt-cap, so you don't loose your prized writing implement in some ravenous mutie's head, or if you share a workspace, pens seem to go walking.

This is my first piece by Smith & Wesson, and so far I am very impressed, both by the elegant functionality, the ruggedness and the simplicity of this delightful tool. So, when I'm writing up my next set of notes at work, taking a order list at a cafe or signing my next piece of licensing documentation, you'll have to ask yourself: "do you feel lucky, punk?"