PHX-Pen : A Timeless Stainless Steel Pen

I have found little rust inside the cone (the pen's tip) of the PHX-pen I received (from China).

Despite repeated inquiries about which grade of the stainless steel that the pen is made of, I haven't got any reply from BigiDesign so far.

I found little rust inside the cone (the pen' tip) of the PHX-pen I received (from China).

Despite repeated inquiries about the grade of the stainless steel that the pen is made of, I haven't got any reply from BigiDesign yet.

I like the simplicity of this pen. There is not much to it which is a plus for me. I did have several incidents that have made this pen stay in the bag more than in my pocket. I work in a power plant and the area temperatures go from 68 to over 100 depending on whether I spend time in the field or not. It appears that this pen exaggerates a problem with gel ink. Gel is activated by the friction in the tip to turn the gel into a more liquid state due to the heat. This pen is all metal and it looks like it conducts heat straight to the pen tip. This might not be a problem but the pen is constructed keeping the tip down when in your pocket. I had several times after spending time in the plant that when the pen was used next, the cap was full of gel. I did full tear downs and cleaned it fully. I tried several refills that were on the list including what it came with. All leaked. I have limited its use to being on the desk or when I carry it, I won’t use the pocket clip to keep the tip up. I have not had this same issue with other Big Idea pens. I carry a copper slim bolt action and the capped black titanium one that holds millions of refills. I forget the name. Those are carried daily and have never failed. Each refilled dozens of times over 2-3 years. The plastic near the pen tip must keep this issue in check with those pens. I love the form, function and simplicity of the PHX. It just doesn’t work as an edc pen for my profession. If you have a constant temperature at work, you should be happy with the pen. Please understand the three star rating is for my application only.

Not ideal refill keeps leaking not recommended

By and large I liked this pen. It’s a clever design and the ink cartridge that it came with is fine and smooth and feels nice in the hand while writing. I also like the titanium clip since clips tend to get caught on things unexpectedly. But I have a few problems with it. First after the first few days of having it. The ink cartridge leaks something awful. Every time I take the cap off, it’s oozing black ink. I even changed the ink cartridge and it’s still doing it. I have no idea why this is. Maybe the ball is being pressed from inside the cap or something. Further more.. I like how the end of the pen is threaded to hold the cap but I think they should be threaded in reverse. Every once a while the end cap comes off in the cap and that’s very annoying with the spring and cartridge flying out along with having to fish the end cap out from inside the pen cap. Honestly I dread using this pen at the moment expecting an inky mess or springs flying out.
I’m pretty disappointed.