Reasonable Tactical Pen Evaluation

Good post one thing that I think we are over looking is grip and the ability to remove it after penetration. When you stab someone their body grabs onto the blade. Being a knife board I assume most of us are familiar with the physiology behind that.

Now while a pen is not going to go deep enough to get a major degree of grabbing even a couple of inches deep will be enough to get resistance that we wont get out of a chunk of dead meat. Also consider that if we are doing our job our grip is going to be wet and slippery. Last thing I want to do it poke some guerrilla one time and tic them off. The likelihood of one hit stopping an assailant is near nil unless you are a top tier operator or your name is Bruce Lee. I have never seen anyone ever die from a single stab wound and I have seen a fairly large number of stabbing. These pens hardly have the stabbing effectiveness of even a mediocre knife. Point of the long winded post is while you are testing be sure you can get it in and OUT alot of times. I suspect that is where our typical writing pens will fail.

IMO a cane would be a far more effective defensive weapon in areas like planes where weapons are prohibited.
 
elkins45 said:
I think you would stand a better chance of getting one of them onto an airplane in your carry on bag than in your shirt pocket. I suspect that much metal would (or at least should) set off the metal detector. When that happens then you can be guaranteed that someone will personally handle your pen.

Under the x-ray, I would think it would look like any other radiologically opaque pen. They must see hundreds of those a day.

How to test one? Sharp Phil seemed to give a pretty good answer. It's supposed to be a pen used to stab people, so shouldn't you test it on meat? Buy a ham or beef roast and give it some really hard stabs to see how well the pen body holds up.

An interesting comparison would be to test a couple of 'tactical' pens against the typical metal-bodied pen from Fisher, Cross or Parker. Wonder if there would be any appreciable difference?
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Throwing one of these in the plastic bin with my wallet, keys, belt, watch, change, ring, phone, ipod, etc etc will keep it from getting handled. All metal goes in the bin, if you walk through and it goes off because you were foolish enough to forget it, you're gonna walk back and put it in a tray that goes through the metal detector.

I was under the impression these were meant to be used on the metacarpals of the hands, joints, and skulls; hard parts that hurt when struck instead of flesh that will have mixed results. They're meant to be multi-task kubatons and fistloads, not shivs.
 
rifon2 said:
Then why have the (long) stylus point at the back end?
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These are primarily just Tacticool pens....made for adverse terrrain writing actually....but may serve a purpose as a control device if needed. they are not meant for stabbing.
 
Karda said:
These are primarily just Tacticool pens....made for adverse terrrain writing actually....but may serve a purpose as a control device if needed. they are not meant for stabbing.
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Yes and without very specific training in their use, they are of little value to the average user. Any weapon for that matter should include some formal training but pulling a knife verses a pen in a sticky situation could have very different reactions. One has to remember that a weapon is most often a deterrant and in the majority of cases is not employed.
 
Karda said:
These are primarily just Tacticool pens....made for adverse terrrain writing actually....but may serve a purpose as a control device if needed. they are not meant for stabbing.
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I don't know, you can buy all kinds of pens for "adverse terrain writing" (I do like that phrase BTW) that don't have that wicked looking point at the butt end.
I'd love to see Benchmade also offer a version without it that could still be useful as a control device without IMO a high risk of confiscation.

Something like the previously mentioned Rotring 600, now discontinued, which I noticed are fetching big prices on the 'bay.
 
Tactical pens should not be confused for covert pen-like stylus/ice picks which have have their history written in blood (and btw do not function as writing instruments).
Stuff with pointed ends are designed for puncture.
These disguised weapons have their roots in WW2 "secret agent" organizations like the American OSS and British SOE.
There used to be something called an auto scriber which is not unlike the current Guardfather Spike/ auto ice picks or GG&G's Blackstone and to a certain extend the Penatrator models.
A tactical pen however is more in line with a Japanese Kubon disguised as a writing instrument.
With one huge difference - it is not meant to puncture and be effectively labeled a disguised/covert stabbing weapon.
It must by all accounts, be visually identified and function as any pen would.
A thick fat body with finger grips and a tapered end would be too obvious a feature.
 
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What about my steel Cross pen or the nice one I have in Blue Lapis?
I don't think I would need something marketed as a Tactical Pen.
I've always thought of the pen/pens I carry in my pocket would be a last defense for me.

mike
 
2brothers said:
What about my steel Cross pen or the nice one I have in Blue Lapis?
I don't think I would need something marketed as a Tactical Pen.
I've always thought of the pen/pens I carry in my pocket would be a last defense for me.

mike
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I carry a Ruger LCP in my front right pocket and a folder in my back right. I think a uber extreme sexy tactical pen would be a bit over the top unless I was using to take down the info of a person I was just in an accident with. Marketing crappola!
 
Does a tactical pen just need the ability to penetrate flesh? What if you need to hammer it through a steel plate to extricate your buddy from a burning vehicle, or you ran out of bullets, broke your knife (you were hitting it with a hammer), and now have to deal with 4 bad guy vampires that all have vests with plate armor. You have to stab them right through the armor to eliminate them.

Wouldn't there be just as many goofy scenarios where this would be needed with a pen versus with a knife? Why choose a pen that can't take it when someone may have one that does? :D Since so many feel a tactical/survival/hard use knife needs the ability to be beat on with a steel hammer, I'm a little surprised that no one is insisting on this out of their tactical pens!
 
Broos said:
Since so many feel a tactical/survival/hard use knife needs the ability to be beat on with a steel hammer
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as opposed to one of these
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:D
 
"theonew"
Wonderful.
It's the perfect solution with a harmless design - if it were fabricated out of pure 100% metal...
 
Broos said:
Since so many feel a tactical/survival/hard use knife needs the ability to be beat on with a steel hammer, I'm a little surprised that no one is insisting on this out of their tactical pens!
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That's a flawed statement, Broos. How many people actually "feel" that, as opposed to merely being interested in seeing whether or not a 'hard use' knife can stand up to it?;)

Regards,
3G
 
Interesting thread. I do have 1 "tactical" pen & admittedly got it just for the heck of it (A black aluminum Hinderer Extreme Use), on a trade.

It writes fine (Gotta love those Space pen cartridges) & is comfortable in my hand, but I have large hands, so it's actually useful in that respect. I have used it for work, but the only use I have gotten out of it is writing. I have not stabbed anything with it, yet.

While my pen does not have any manufacturer name on it, I don't think I'd try to pass it through at the airport, but then, I do carry a cane with me, so I think THAT would be my 1st line of defense anyways.

I've tried to read most of this thread, but don't recall seeing anything come up on if there have been any testing procedures to come out of this.
 
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