Legrand Rollerball Refill Sucks...

[Fleetlord]

I love the pen. It's a beautiful thing, but that refill is LOUSY. It skips and is scratchy...

 

Are there any other options besides the OEM refill?

 

Remember this is the LARGE size LEGRAND refill..

[pen jubky]

Short answer, No.Long answer, still No!

[pennamer]

I have the same problem. I took the pen and refill back to the authorized MB dealer from whom I buy all my new MB things. The dealer looked at the tip of the refill and told me that I had pressed down too hard on the refill's ball tip and essentially pushed the ball up into the tip, so that it no longer "rolled" when I moved the tip across the page. In the dealer's words, a rollerball is not a ballpoint, and it cannot take that kind of pressure while writing. The dealer kindly replaced the refill for free, and the pen then worked beautifully -- until a couple of weeks later when the problem returned. I trust my dealer, so I assume that I had again pressed too hard, but I was being careful and do not recall causing the problem. I have never since used my rollerball. If the dealer is correct, I do wish MB refills were designed with idiots like me in mind.

[Dr. Eriko]

Hello.

I had the same kind of problems with my MB rollerballs, but I do not have the "Le Grand" Model. I took everyone of my MB rollerball refills and with a srynge, I injected some Waterman Florida Blue Ink, and anothers with Pelikan 4001, from my fountain pen ink bottle of course. And then, the magic began. I just pulled out the metal section of the refill, just in the joint with the plastic threads, and put some ink inside the cartridge.

I knew some other people tried another brands and another colors with succes. Maybe the ink inside the refill became dry too fast inside the cartridge, it is only a theory.

Regards.

Dr Eriko

[novarider]

Get another refill. Blue ink is always less scratchey for some reason. I hated the black because of the way it writes. Bought a blue and its great

[Chrissy]

Conversely, I must have had this black rollerball refill in my Solitaire Le Grand for years now, and it still writes as well today as it always did. I can't remember when I last had to buy a Le Grand refill. However, this is my only Le Grand rollerball.....

[agentdaffy007]

Get another refill. Blue ink is always less scratchey for some reason. I hated the black because of the way it writes. Bought a blue and its great

 

+1

[Pen Nut]

I have posted long & hard on this before. The answer is yes. The threaded section will take on other refills they cut their own threads onto the plastic section of the refill inserted when pushed HARD into the nose section. I have done this for years and never had a problem. Some of the refills need their 'pointed ends' pulling slightly proud then securing in position with a dab of glue.

 

My pen is a 162 Le Grand in burgundy with a vermeil cap though I have done it with a 'basic' resin model.

[OC Mike]

I have posted long & hard on this before. The answer is yes. The threaded section will take on other refills they cut their own threads onto the plastic section of the refill inserted when pushed HARD into the nose section. I have done this for years and never had a problem. Some of the refills need their 'pointed ends' pulling slightly proud then securing in position with a dab of glue.

 

My pen is a 162 Le Grand in burgundy with a vermeil cap though I have done it with a 'basic' resin model.

What non-MB refills have been successful for you?

[Genius]

My Legrand Rollerball refills never had any problems with either black or blue. I wonder what's causing all these problems..

[penmanila]

I agree about the MB rollerball refills being awful. I have a very nice-looking 100th anniversary RB and it would be great if the refill wrote a decent line. My cheapo RBs write much better.

[Shelumiel]

I have had this problem w/ almost all of my rollerball refills, montblanc, waterman, parker, Visconti and Schmidt...hadn't thought that it might be a problem w/ my writing pressure. The rollerball always works for a couple weeks before skipping...

 

will try writing w/ less pressure to see what happens.

[Shelumiel]

my best experience with rollerballs was a Visconti refill which is in my Visconti Silver Metropolis. A black medium point that came stock with the pen.

 

However, when I bought another Visconti rollerball refill, the same kind of skipping happened.

[CS388]

I've had poor experience with Montblanc rollerballs.

 

I find it distressing when cheap off the shelf rollerballs write better than my pen, which cost hundreds of pounds.

The final straw was during a scratchy, dry writing session - a colleague handed me one of her rollerballs (cost 99p) and it wrote smoothly and effortlessly.

 

I ended up selling my rollerballs and now the only Montblanc products I have are fountain pens.

[bernardo]

Interesting. I've never had an issue with my Le Grand RB; it writes just beautifully

[orfew]

I also have had no problems with my legrand rollerball. I have the UNICEF version. It is a beautiful pen and the refill works very well indeed. Sorry the OP is having these problems.

[hpk90]

Personally, I am hoping that, at some point, MB decides to issue a fine liner refill for the Le Grand Rollerball. I love the fine liner in my Starwalker when I feel the need to use it.

[jdpenman1990]

Yeah I didn't buy an MB's rollerball because I heard about that issue. When it comes to rollerballs I'm a fan of vintage USA made Cross Rollerballs. Smooth as silk. I have an 18kt gold filled one which I take with me where I need to write extremely thin lines. The rest of the time its my 149. I contemplated if a Cross rollerball refill would fit in a MB rollerball though. If it did that would probably tempt me to buy one.

[suhao]

This is something that I have been trying to figure out for a while now. In one of my earlier posts on the same topic there were two suggestions; first was a G2 refill which requires grinding top step down, the better one is the cross rollerball refills. I cur a 4 mm same tigon out of my legrand refill cap and placed it in the barrel. This seems to work...the question is whether the cross refill is any better?

I will try the felt tip refill next week to see how that holds up.

If any one is interested Icahn provide photos.

[meiers]

I personally do not like any rollerballs.