Bastion sells a stainless steel bolt action pen for US$44.99 and calls it “the pen that started it all”. We went looking for the usual gap between what a maker claims and what anyone outside the company can confirm. We found something smaller and stranger: Bastion’s own page cannot agree with itself about what this pen writes.
Maker: Bastion. No company address or country of manufacture appears on the product page.
Price: US$44.99, Silver or Black, on the maker’s own store. The page calls it a sale price and shows nothing to compare it against. Confirmed on 14 October 2026 and may change.
Where to buy: the maker’s own store. Every price here was read there on 14 October 2026.
Fine, or medium?
The product page has three tabs. Two of them describe the cartridge that comes loaded in the pen, and they do not match.
| Tab | What it says |
|---|---|
| Features | “0.55mm medium-point black ballpoint pre-loaded” |
| Specifications | “POINT TYPE — Fine” |
Same page, both read on 14 October 2026, two clicks apart. The only hard figure is 0.55 mm, and the page never settles which of the two words it means by that.
Nobody is being cheated here. A pen is not ruined by a mislabelled nib. But it is a cheap thing to check, and the page got it wrong anyway — which tells you something about the figures that are not cheap to check.
The refill trap
This one matters more, because it costs money to get wrong.
Bastion says the pen takes Parker G2 ISO refills — Schmidt easyFLOW, Parker QuinkFlow — and warns in capitals that it does not take the Pilot G2.
Those two names have nothing to do with each other. Parker G2 is a cartridge size. Pilot G2 is a gel pen you can buy in a supermarket. One is a standard, the other is a product, and the famous one is the one that will not fit.
Bastion then muddies its own warning. One of the product images on the same page, read the same day — a panel headed “World Class Craftsmanship” — carries the line “Universal G2 Refill Compatible” in large type. Universal, next to a warning that the most widely sold pen called G2 does not fit. The text is right and the picture is wrong, and the picture is the one people see while scrolling.
We can say the text is right because somebody outside the company tried it. Andy Jacobs at The Gadgeteer put three cartridges into the pen in April 2020. A Parker Jotter refill fitted and wrote. A Pilot G-2 05 was too long. A Fisher Bullet Space Pen was too short.
Jacobs’s review is titled “Bastion EDC Bolt Action Pen”, and Bastion no longer uses the EDC name on this page. We are treating it as the same pen because the material, weight and length he reports match the stainless steel model’s published figures. If the pen has changed since 2020, we have no way to see it.
Where the maker’s numbers hold up
Jacobs measured the pen himself, which makes the specification tab checkable.
| Bastion publishes | The Gadgeteer reports | |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 2.8 oz | 2.8 oz |
| Length | 5.25 in | 5.28 in |
| Diameter | not published | 0.45 in |
The weight is exact. The length is 0.03 in apart, which is a catalogue figure against a ruler. So this is a page that contradicts itself on a word and gets its numbers right. That is an editing failure, not an inflated claim, and the two are worth telling apart.
One number deserves more attention than the page gives it. 2.8 oz is about 79 g. That is heavy for something you clip to a shirt pocket. Jacobs treats the heft as the point of the pen. He may be right. It is still 79 g.
Both reviewers were sent a free pen
We found two independent accounts. They are at the same publication, and both say at the end of the piece that Bastion supplied the sample.
Jacobs, in 2020, filled in the “What I’d change” box with a single word: “Nothing”. His one complaint was a slightly crooked pocket clip out of the box. A review that finds nothing wrong, written on a gift, is not evidence of a good pen.
We are citing it anyway, for the part a press release cannot invent: three named cartridges, three different outcomes, and a tape measure. Take the measurements. Leave the verdict.
The MINI is not this pen
Julie Strietelmeier reviewed the Bolt-Action MINI in November 2023, also on a supplied sample. The detail that matters: it does not take the same refill. She reports a Bastion-branded cartridge rather than the D1 that most mini pens use.
She also found the small body awkward — “due to the size, it can feel a little awkward to activate the bolt without dropping the pen” — at 3.54 in long.
Bastion sells aluminium, stainless, carbon fibre and titanium pens, in full and slim widths. Everything above was established on one of them.
What you are actually paying for
US$44.99 puts the stainless pen in the middle of the range: aluminium is US$34.99, carbon fibre and steel US$54.99, titanium US$59.99, in both full and slim widths. Replacement cartridges are US$8.99. Three aluminium colours were sold out the day we looked.
Two things about the price are worth saying plainly.
“Sale price” with no previous price is a label, not a discount. There is nothing struck through.
And the free gifts are valued above the pen. A “Boost Your Productivity” e-book at a stated US$19.99, a handwriting mini-course at a stated US$30.00 — US$49.99 of claimed value attached to a US$44.99 pen. Bastion wrote those prices for its own files, and no one else sells them. Treat them as zero, then decide whether the pen is worth US$44.99 by itself.
What is real: a spare cartridge in the box, a stated lifetime warranty, free shipping on eligible US orders, and quantity discounts of 15% at two, 20% at three or four, 25% at five or more.
Pros
- Published weight and length match an outside reviewer’s measurements
- The refill warning is specific, rarely published, and confirmed by somebody who tried it
- Parker G2 ISO is a standard you can refill anywhere
- Spare cartridge included; replacements US$8.99
- SUS 304 is a named alloy, not “premium steel”
Cons
- The page contradicts itself on the point size, and its own product image contradicts its refill warning
- Both independent reviews ran on free samples; one lists no fault at all
- 79 g is heavy, and the page never frames it as a trade-off
- A sale price with nothing to compare it to
- US$49.99 of bundled “value” priced by the company selling it
- No address, no country of manufacture, no diameter
- Refill compatibility does not carry across the range
Where this leaves you
Buy it if you want a heavy steel pen that takes a refill you can find anywhere, and you are paying for the mechanism rather than the bundle. Do not buy it for the e-book. And if you already own a drawer of Pilot G2 refills — they will not fit, and that has been tested, not just claimed.
FAQ
Fine or medium?
Bastion’s page says both. The number, 0.55 mm, is the only thing it states consistently. Ask before ordering if it matters.
Will my Pilot G2 refills fit?
No. Bastion says so, and Andy Jacobs found a Pilot G-2 05 too long. A Parker Jotter refill fitted.
How heavy is it?
2.8 oz, about 79 g — published by the maker and measured independently at the same figure.
Does the rest of the range take the same refill?
No. The MINI uses a Bastion-branded cartridge.
Is there a warranty?
The page says lifetime. The terms are not on the page and we have not seen them.
Where to buy
US$44.99
Silver or Black. Spare Parker G2 ISO cartridge in the box; Pilot G2 refills do not fit. Lifetime warranty stated, terms not published.
Loupe has not handled this product. Every figure above is linked to the source it came from.
