Nicpro 1680 PCS Lead Refills 0.5mm HB #2 Break Resistant Mechanical Pencil Refills 0.5 mm, 24 Pack Per Tube, 70 Tubes-Come with Storage Box

Love the quality… love my fine point pencils

Good value buy. But also I’m pretty sure this is enough for a family of 6 to send all 4 kids from Jr. High to high school and still have some left over.

It looked good, speedy delivery.

Purchased this for my childs class. Great quality and perfect for the teacher to give a container to each student !

Smaller than I thought but very much happy with the item. Easy to carry and love the individual packaging so points are protected.

Good refills and they do last

Great product. Recommend.

There is actually more to mechanical pencils than I realized. What's more, they apparently predate wooden pencils. I have some nice mechanicals, but gave up on them years ago, especially in .5mm because the leads kept breaking. I never took engineering drafting classes, but wondered if some part of that curriculum might be dedicated to the proper care and feeding of these delicate tools of the trade!!I ordered these because they were really a very good deal and *break resistant* in the listing caught my eye. For this review, I spent a good deal of time with them and made a number of observations.I really can't tell if they break any more or less than the others I've used over many years. These .5mm refills seem to work especially well with coarser papers used to test them. That would be the typical school supply papers available to the consumer. Copy paper would be another example. I like to use these on the back side of quad paper for drawing rough schematics, etc. The coarser papers don't require as much force to get legible writings and markings. These leads will tear and hang on lighter duty papers starting at about the thickness of newsprint. Kind of reminded me of the general difference between #1 and #2 wooden pencils back in the day, except it was the #1s that didn't break.Another difference that seemed important is the angle the pencil is held to the writing surface. At about 50 degrees from the horizontal, there was less breakage than at shallower angles. Between 50 and 90 degrees, a bit more force is tolerated, but the steeper angles can cause the lead to retract into the pipe. Finding the balance between no breaking, readable writings and retraction took more than I expected.Maybe even a greater deterrent to lead breakage can lie with the pencil itself. Some incorporate lead guard systems to prevent breakage and seem reasonably priced at around $10. I will try one.I'm a relatively heavy handed former wrestler and wrote a mock review in cursive on 2 pages of 10.5 x 8 college ruled paper with only 3 breaks. I was fairly satisfied with that. The lead also erases well with no smudging.Who would ever think that using a mechanical pencil might require the touch of a surgeon? At any rate, I'm a fan and these are really a great deal. There is probably more lead here than I will need for the rest of my life.