Water Pistol Pens
(DISCLAIMER: Be safe. Never aim for someone’s face. Wear goggles if you’re incapable of containing your enthusiasm. Use your brain. Don’t be a bonehead. Don’t let my antics be a bad influence on you. I am not responsible for your tomfoolery—only for my own.)
It was a cold, bleak morning several Novembers ago when I awoke with a question burning in my mind:
I wonder how far I could get a fountain pen to squirt?
Insane creature that I am, I was not content to leave this as an idle question rolling about in my head. I had to act upon it. I needed an answer. I needed to experiment.
It’s rare that I manage to leap out of bed with such childlike eagerness. Insomnia and all that. But anything involving pens typically perks me up.
So out I leapt to my back patio in PJs and a fleece robe, armed with two pens, a cup of water, and measuring tape—because squirting pens loaded with precious ink is a foolish thing to do. Water is safer. Cleaner. Doesn’t spoil the patio.
These are the pens I used for the experiment: the Noodler’s Ahab is on the top, and the Kaweco Sport is on the bottom.
Now, most of my pens have twist-converters, which don’t allow for enough force to get a satisfactory squirt range—they’d give a weak dribble at best. The only pens I owned that seemed up to the task were a Noodler’s Ahab and a Kaweco Sport. Those were converters I could smack with gusto.
Just smack that piston and squirt away!
The Kaweco was a predictably wimpy disappointment. It has the smallest converter on the planet, so, not enough ammo to really work with. I believe I only managed to get it to spit roughly 14 inches away at most, if that. Yawn.
As for the Ahab, that massive peg-leg-inspired pen has a generous reservoir and an unpredictable temper. That baby lived up to its fearsome name and gave me some decent results. Each consecutive squirt had a little extra power. I ended up getting a range of up to 92 glorious inches. Most pleasing.
There’s a refreshing diversion for a hot summer day, I thought. In November. Of course I never think of such things when it is seasonable to do so.
It’s also something nice to have on hand when you find yourself stuck in a sinister alleyway. Er, not that I recommend that or anything. (I don’t. Truly.)
Anyhoo. Perhaps you have more effective weapons than I. Who knows how pens with different filling systems would compare? I suspect any self-filling pen that holds more ink would do admirably. As I only have cartridge/converter pens, someone else needs to do that experiment!
Fountain pen pistols: the latest in secret stealthy super soaker surprise warfare, only mildly inspired by Indiana Jones. I wonder if it’ll catch on. New event for the Olympics, perhaps?
