I got a Pel M605 today, and I am pretty dissapointed, to be honest. The pen skips often, and it isn't nearly as smooth as I expected it to be. My Phileas Medium nib is smoother than my Pel Medium nib. I aligned the tines (they were just barely out of alignment), and flushed the pen with water, and I have tried Pelikan Black and my Noodler's Blue/PR Tanzanite mix. I have heard that many Pels have baby-bottom problem, but I would think that the pen would be smooth if this was the case;but I'm no expert, so I could very well be wrong. Anyway, does anyone have any ideas to what the problem could be, and what could be done to fix it? Thanks.

Sounds wacked to me.

Other than some extreme flushing, maybe with some ammonia. . . you oughta just return the thing.

UPDATE: It seems like the pen writes better when held at a very high angle, but now one writes (at least that I know of) at a 90 degree angle from the paper. Also, I looked at the nib under a loupe and it seems like a lot of the iridium is smoothed off, at least compared to my other pens. The nib seems almost flat at the tip. This is the baby-bottom problem, right?

From richardspens.com: " Hard Starting: This is the condition that occurs when a nib does not start laying down ink immediately upon contact with the paper. The most common nib-related cause of hard starting is slit edges that are improperly ground. Look at the shape of a round nib in cross-section, shown at the left below. Note the slight rounding of the edges where the slit is cut through. If these edges are not rounded, the nib is likely to be scratchy. Many inexpensive modern pens, and some not so inexpensive, have nibs that suffer this fault. But if the slit edges are rounded too much, capillary action will hold the ink too far away from the paper instead of drawing it toward the paper as intended, and the nib will have trouble starting. This condition is shown on the right in the figure here:
"

So, assuming that this is the problem, do I send the nib to Chartpak for a replacement, or is there something that I can do about it?

I had a similar problem when I first got my m605, but before I even flushed it I played around with the way I was holding the pen and found that if I thought about tilting the end of the pen more toward myself (right-handed) the problem completely vanished. I don't think that the pen is actually tilted in my grip much at all, my guess is that the problem was due to my inexperience with larger style nibs. I don't know if you've tried this yet, I saw you were playing with the up and down angle of the pen, but if you haven't yet, try tilting it to the side a bit.

I had the same problem with my M605.

Am planning to send to Chartpak for a replacement nib.

Yes, I have had this problem - with other nibs - not necessarily Pel Nibs. I wrote on a 8000 grit micromesh (from a wood workers hobby store) and the bottom was not so round no more. Alternatively - you can also try writing on a brown paper lunch bag - that should also help.
Chartpak is a very good solution - they are fabulous to deal with - just do not damage the nib prior to sending them such as by grinding it down too much- as that may void any warranty.

O.K., so I guess Pelikan has quite a problem with Q.C.

That's one of the reasons why I now buy from Richard Binder. He makes sure the pen write very well before he ships to you.

I second this. Buying from a nibmeister is usually a good way to go. My Sailor 1911 from Mottishaw performs better than any out-of-the-box Sailor could imaginably perform, and Sailors have significantly fewer QC problems than Pelikan.

I also think you should ship it off to Chartpak. They are fast and communicate well. Also, they tend to ask very few questions, so there should be no warranty quibbles. I only wish the same were true of Houndstooth, the Sailor distributor.