Although the Lamy range of rollerball pens offer the user a great writing experience with solid performance relative to their price points in the market, the Lamy m63 ink refill is more controversial with many people feeling that as an ink refill, it underperforms for its price tag. Due to this, we constantly see people reaching out and asking for advice on the best Lamy m63 alternative in an attempt to reduce the cost of their refills as well as improve performance if possible.
With so many people feeling that the Lamy m63 ink cartridge is sub par and with it working will all of the following Lamy pens, it is no surprise that we see so many people looking for a more cost efficient replacement option.
- Lamy 2000
- Lamy Scala
- Lamy Accent
- Lamy Studio
- Lamy LX
- Lamy Aion
- Lamy Al-Star
- Lamy Safari
Unlike the Lamy fountain pen range where you can refill it with a large number of high-quality, third-party inks, their rollerball pen range is more restrictive. The m63 refill uses a unique, proprietary design too so competing pen brands so not make exact alternatives to it that you are able to quickly and easily switch it with.
Thankfully though, there is one alternative that is becoming more and more popular amongst the Lamy rollerball pen owning community. Although it is a good alternative for the m63 refill, it is not an exact replacement so you do have to do a little work to get the refill to work with your Lamy rollerball of choice. Unlike some of the other options on the market, it is quick and easy to do though and we will be going over the whole process below to show our readers what they need to do to get the alternative working with their pen.
The Best Lamy M63 Alternative
Although some people do choose to go with either the Pentel Energel refill or the Zebra Sarasa refill, we personally feel that the Pilot G2 refill is the best Lamy m66 refill alternative available on the market right now. The G2 refill is also the most popular refill alternative for Lamy rollerball pens too due to its lower price, excellent performance, and extremely simple conversion process.
If you hold the official Lamy m66 refill side by side to the G2 refill, you will notice that the G2 refill is slightly shorter in length but almost exactly the same width. This is the main advantage of the G2 refill over the Zebra refill and the Pentel refill as you can do something as simple as place one or two Cylinder Magnets in the barrel of your Lamy rollerball pen followed by the G2 refill and it will fit the pen perfectly.
If you are going to use some magnets for your conversion process, just ensure that they are less than 1.22 inches wide so they will seamlessness fit inside the barrel of the pen. We only recommend the magnets due to many households already having them on their fridges or magnetic whiteboards already. They are also cheap and easy to source if you don’t already have them but you are able to use a number of other items to pack out the barrel of your Lamy pen to ensure that the G2 refill has a snug fit and can serve as an alternative to your m66.
Although you are able to go through a similar process for the Pentell Energel refills, as well as the Zebra Sarasa, refills, they are slightly wider meaning that they may not fit all of the Lamy rollerball pen models that the Lamy m66 has been designed to work with. This is where the Pilot G2 refill pulls away from the other two options due to its width being almost identical to the original m66 pen refill.
The YouTube video below offers a quick and easy follow along guide on how you are able to use the G2 refill with any Lamy rollerball pen that can use the Lamy m66 refill. It is easy to follow along with and also shows you some alternative items that you are able to use instead of the magnets to help the G2 refill have a firm fit in the barrel of your Lamy pen.
Lamy M66 Alternative Color And Size Options
Like the Lamy m63 black and Lamy m63 blue refills, the Pilot G2 refill is also available in a black and blue as well as red, green, and some other rarer colors. As the vast majority of our readers are probably using black or blue ink with their Lamy pen, there should be no issues with sourcing the G2 refill color that you require.
The Pilot G2 refill is also available in both medium and broad too, just like the Lamy m66 refill ensuring that there will be no disruption to the font you use when writing when using an alternative ink refill option too. As pilot pens are Japanese, their nib sizes are a little smaller than the nib sizes for pens made by western companies but this is not as noticeable for rollerball pens as it is with their fountain pens.
Ink And Ball Mechanism
As the Pilot G2 refill uses a gel-based ink, it also has a few advantages over the m66 with its ink being much better for any jobs where you may have to write outdoors in the rain without your writing running. With the ink being based around copper phthalocyanine, iron oxides, xanthan gum, and tragacanth gum it will rarely run if it gets wet while also offering a slightly smoother writing experience too.
Speaking of the writing experience of the Pilot G2 refill, relative to its price point in the market, it really does offer a very smooth writing experience when compared to its competition. The ink will rarely bleed or ghost, even on lower quality, thin paper and it is extremely rare that the ink in the G2 refill will have issues with feathering too.
Conclusion
Both the Pilot G2 refill and the Lamy M63 refill are budget-friendly rollerball pen refill options so their performance is not comparable to an intermediate or premium level ink refill but for its price point, the G2 really is an excellent option. In our opinion, it is definitely the best Lamy m63 rollerball pen refill option on the market right now and should be the first option for our readers looking for a cheap refill for their Lamy rollerball pens.
