Tactical Pens and Watches

By "Tactical" I mean go anywhere virtually bullet-proof, utility-oriented. I happen to be an avid pen, watch and knife collector and would love to know what other people carry in the line of watches and pens for daily and/or survival/wilderness/outdoor use. My daily watch is a G3 Alarm/Chrono water resistant to 660ft(200m). I wear a Casio Wademan in the outdoors as it has, amongst other things, a digital compass and is virtually bullet-proof!!! I carry a Waterman Carene fountain pen daily and a Rotring in the outdoors, along with all my knives etc which include my Swisschamp SAK. What do you pack???

Watch: Breitling SuperOcean Professional. It's built like a tank, water-resistant to 5000ft (yeah, I know how pointless that is!), and most importantly it's mechanical. So it's resistant to Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) and I don't have to worry about finding a spare battery out in the wilderness. The rotating bezel provides a basic timing function. I use a Hirsch Carbon-Fibre on Rubber strap with deployant clasp; this is fantastically rugged, while incredibly comfortable, and doesn't feel bad in either hot or cold weather.<br><br>(The EMP resistance thing always strikes people as a bit paranoid, but in fact I first switched to using mechanical watches when this actually did matter to me. I was working with power supplies that generated an intense EMP spike, and any quartz watch in the area just fell over and died. Mechanical just ain't worried about this stuff.)<br><br>Having said that, I also carry a Casio G-Shock as spare. I have disabled the beeper; for some reason, Casio have removed the ability to turn off the button beep on the newest G-Shocks. There are many times when I just do not want my watch to be broadcasting a loud noise every time I hit the button. Very annoying indeed.<br><br>I carry a pencil as my survival 'pen'. Much more versatile and field-maintainable than a pen; you can see exactly how much 'ink' you have left, and you can use it for other useful things.<br><br>For a knife, I carry a Leatherman Wave on my belt, and a Leatherman Micra in my pocket.<br>

Watch: for outdoors and casual wear I use Luminox Navy Seals watch. Prime choice due to clear dial and great night reading. Backup for diving is my Citizen SeaQuest with depth gauge.<br><br>Pen: Rotring mechanical pencil and fountain pen, which gave me big troubles at the airport due to possibility of being used as a stabing weapons. <br><br>Flashlight: Blue Photon<br><br>Knives: Buck Crosslock and Boker Top Lock spring loaded<br><br>Tools: Wave, I broke numerous numbers of tools (Gerber, Shrade) and Wave seems like the strongest one and all around yet still not perfect. <br><br>Lighter: WindMill jet lighter (for my pipe) I used to carry zippo but gave up. <br>

I'm not the kind of person to spend 4-figures on a watch, so I wear a Timex Expedition. It's water resistant to 50 meters, has indiglo illumination and more alarm/timer stuff than I need for around $50. It may not survive a nuclear blast, but of all my survival gear, it's probably the least likely thing to fail and also the least crucial to survival.<br><br>For a pen, a Fischer Space Pen would be my choice, although I rarely carry a pen.

Knives: I have way too many of these, but the following are the most valuable to me:<br><br>Backpack kit: Cold Steel SRK, Leatherman WAVE, Benchmade 710. <br><br>The SRK is deal because it's a cheap, incredibly strong knife, the sharpest I own. The sheath is designed to hold securely to the belt, but can be removed quickly when needed. This can be important when traveling in populated areas. The SRK is perfect because it is at once both eminently usable and "ditchable."<br><br>Everyone knows the Wave is great, I have 2, another one in the briefbag. The newest ones have strengthened pliers and a notched serrated blade so you can differentiate it by touch. <br><br>Next to the Sebenza and the Mission MPF, the Benchmade 710 is the strongest folder out there. <br><br>All three of these knives have no fetish value for me, either I have duplicates or their toy value has worn off. This is important since I won't want to keep taking them out and playing with them, so they stay in the kit when I really need it!<br><br>My EDC knife as of now rotates between a Chris Reeve Mnandi, a John Kubasek Damasteel folder, and as of this weekend, a CRK small Sebenza NICA tanto point. In an alert or post-quake period, I suspect I'd carry the Sebenza full time. It's the only folder I have, apart from the 710, that can shred a large postcard in 2 secs. It also looks like it could go through a car door. Now I understand why people are nuts for these. I also have a small SOG Jetedge I no longer use. It's well made enough, but I wouldn't recommend carbon fiber as a knife handle material.<br><br>I also have a Pro-Tech Runt, a street-legal switchblade, in a small tin I keep in my desk with a wire saw, 24 feet of paracord, a Swisstech tool, an Inova keyring light, a dust mask and a pair of nitrile gloves. The Runt has a less than 2" ATS-34 blade that's like .15" thick. This also stays in the briefbag sometimes. <br><br>Then there's the Utilikey on my keychain. My current outdoor day trip knife is the Mission MPF. <br><br>Pens: I replaced the stub pencil in my Penrith PSK with a Fisher Space Pen refill. I also keep a Space Pen in the backpack. My "work" pen is a Lamy 2000 set, nice but no crisis value. <br><br>Lighter: Vector KGM Viper, one in pack with firelighting equip., one in briefbag. I highly recommend these. <br><br>Compass: Brunton Eclipse, in backpack<br><br>Flashlight: Princeton Tech Impact in backpack, Inova X5 in briefbag. Mini-Mag AA in home storage. <br><br>Watch: Omega Seamaster GMT, mainly a status bauble but very tough, usable as a solar compass, etc. I also have a Seiko Military automatic as a spare - maybe I should move it to the pack...

I think I'll never get caught up on all these posts <sigh>...<br><br>I am brutally hard on watches for some reason and have destroyed every mechanical watch I've ever owned, including some spendy ones. I have been unable to kill a Casio G-Shock so far, though, and it's still using the original battery from early 1993... the beep is disabled on mine as well. Ugly watch and the watch bands of this sort don't hold up all that well - especially the attachment pins. I've gone through a lot of pins and several bands.<br><br>EDC pen is a Mont Blanc ballpoint for a variety of reasons.<br><br>"Woods" pen is a Diplomat Grip pressurized ballpoint ("space pen") plus an unsharpened #2 pencil (no paint or oil on the wood). Check out the Grip if you haven't seen one. Tough anodized aluminum barrel 3.3" OAL retracted and about 0.4" diameter. Small, tough, and writes very well on about anything. Seems to me that they run around $10 US. There is a bulkier (slightly more expensive) version that has an ergnomic rubberlike outsert around the body, but the one I carry is plain.<br><br>I consider my Palm M500 essential EDC that lies in another plane in-between the watch and the Mont Blanc. I won't consider a more bulky Palm device after getting spoilt by the M500 size. (Actually, the Palm goes in the woods as well, but I don't consider it critical - I just like it. Data is synched at least daily on two computers - work and home.)<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Tom<br><br>

I also carry my Palm on outings. But have not needed it in an emergenct or survival situation. But I am finding that I'm starting to use it more and more. Even so, I would not label it a critical piece of gear. Here's how I used mine this summer at Scout camp.<br><br>I mainly use it for looking up scout rank and merit badge requirements (via an AvantGo synch with pages from MeritBadge.com. <br><br>This summer I added a medical database for every member in our troop. It listed any allergies, medications and the emergency contacts. Fortunately, I only referenced it a few times and none were an emergency. I created the database in Microsoft Access, perloaded many of the fields from a Troopmaster roster export file, entered medical data, and then imported it in a HanDbase database on the Palm. I then modified the design slightly to accomodate lookup fields in HanDbase.<br><br>I also shared Doug's PSK content list with the Wilderness Survival merit badge councilor (and gave him the URL to the site). I have it loaded twice, once as a memo file and again as QuickSheet spreadsheet. The QuickSheet file is easier to format the data for viewing.<br><br>Lastly, the camp staff announced a "World's Best Cobbler" competition. I have a bunch of recipes in memo files and there is one that I've been wanting to try out. So I whipped out my Palm and rattled of the recipe to the other leaders, who promptly "hired" me as the official cobbler chef. Unfortunately, our entry did not win and I was promptly "fired," as they all stuffed their faces with Cherry/rasberry Basque Cobbler!

I really would love an extremely high quality wind up watch. Since I dont have one, I just keep any non-digital that holds good time. <br>I live very close to a quite large Georgia Wildlife Management Area and I spend a lot of time there. My watch is my primary compass when I dont have my wife or 7 year old son with me.

If you like the SuperO, take a look at the new Breitling Avenger Seawolf. It looks similar to the SuperO, but with the Avenger style dial numbers, it's titanium, and it's water resistant to 10,000 feet (eek!).<br><br>Of course, if you really want to be anal about it, back it up with a good quartz movement, since even a cheap quartz will be far more accurate in the very short term (good for timing events), but over the long term, a COSC certified chronometer will do really well, and doesn't need to be opened as often for maintenance.<br><br>As far as a pen goes, it's hard to beat the Fisher Space Pen. I like the original bullet style for an emergency kit, and a more dressy pen with a Fisher refill (which are available for many different pen brands).<br><br>Pencils are good, but a good leadholder is better, especially if the lead is very thick (thicker than the standard 2mm drafting leads), as this increases the likelihood that the point will not break down when writing on rough surfaces. Hey, you never know where you might need to leave a message, right?<br><br> If you can get a water resistant lead, so much the better. I'm still looking for a good one, but that shouldn't take too long, as I used to be an art supplies buyer. I just haven't concentrated on that yet.

Oh yes, the SeaWolf is a lovely looking little(!) watch. I already have an Avenger, so the new one is a bit like a cross between two great Breitlings.<br><br>I carry a quartz watch (a Casio) on my key ring, which I use for timing stuff and general accuracy. My GPS also serves as a good source of time.<br><br>

knives, emerson comander(smooth is an understatment)leatherman supertool,and crkt peck(cliped to my watch band)<br><br>watch, seiko divemaster automatic, mill issue timex<br><br>lights, 2 photon two(one red, one white) surefire e1<br><br>pen, edc cross set, od plain old carpenters pencil

Thor,<br>have you got the survival pouch for the SAK champ? Quite good, very srong and contains things like, compass, sharpening stone, bit of rope, plasters, safety pins etc.<br>But because of the thick leather it is large and cubersome.<br>reinhardt

Ive never given it much thought before, but this particular thread has caused me to pay attention to pens at office supply stores and the like. After comparing, observing and studying the pen situation I have finally decided on a route. <br>I come home and found a slightly used bic disposable and shortened it to about 3 inches. After five days of carrying it I have decided that it is actually quite handy. The price is right for about 5 minutes of effort.<br> See what you have done. Now I have something else I have to carry around all day.

I've posted this before, but it's been awhile. This pen has been part of my EDC for some years, now:<br><br>http://store.yahoo.com/herrington-catalog/e125.html<br><br>It's rather expensive, and it's not perfect (retracting is a little primitive), but it takes up zero space (living in your wallet fold), and more importantly (to me) it requires zero attention. I very seldom actually use it, but the real benefit is that I just never have to worry about whether to carry a pen or not, and I'm never at a loss for how to carry one if I don't happen to have a shirt pocket.<br><br>The new Fisher Stowaway "space pen" model is just barely small enough to carry this way, a lot cheaper, and is probably a lot more robust, but the clip does not allow for this carry- the top would stick out. Too bad. I have one in a larger kit... it gets you a "space pen" for less bulk than a "golf" pencil.<br><br>I also use a Pentopia stylus with my palm that has a built-in ballpoint pen. I only recall actually using the pen once, but it's a nice fallback.<br><br>Around the office I use Fisher "Military" pens. It's a "space pen" that click-retracts with one hand, has a pocket clip, and it's uniform flat-black "steath" finish works anywhere. Nothing else I've tried has come close to it's reliability and versatility at any price- and it's cheap.<br><br>http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&productId=13006933&parent_category_rn=11470744

My cell phone keeps time for me. I've always hated wearing a watch. My EDC pen is the Fisher Bullet. IMO you just can't get any better. It sits in the bottom of a pocket nicely and best of all, writes on nearly anything.