42 reviews
Last updated March, 2020
Again, this is our top choice. For under $10 and free shipping (at the time this article was published), this pen has it all. It’s build out of high quality aviation aluminum. The pen is so light you’ll forget your carrying it (which maybe isn’t a good thing?) and yet strong enough to inflict injury or break a window in an emergency situation.
The other thing I really like about this pen is that it doesn’t have a big bold logo on it that makes it look like a weapon. Ideally, a combat pen should blend in and look like a normal pen, but with a big Smith & Wesson or other defense or aggressive style logo (think skulls or guns or sharp teeth – yep we’ve seen ’em all!).
It has the necessary flat top for bracing a thumb during tactical use, and it also has a twist on cap with a clip.
This military pen also takes standard refills, and has a seemingly standard carbide-tipped glass breaker.
Pros
This was the only defense pen we saw that mentions it is water proof – I assume that means when the cap is screwed on, the pen body is an air-tight sealed cartridge.
Another big plus (that some of the more expensive pens didn’t have) is a lifetime warranty!
Cons
This tactical pen doesn’t seem to be available any longer.
When using the pen as a pen (strange to think about, but really, that’s the every day function of this tool), the cap doesn’t screw onto the back of the pen. Instead, it just presses on, but pops off easily unless you really push the cap on.
We can imagine that if you keep pushing the cap on the other end tightly it will start to leave a scratch and/or ridge in the body of the pen. One method would be to simply leave the cap clipped to your shirt pocket while you write with the pen.