Video Overview

Taylor Martin at Best Damn EDC starts with a pen he did not plan to carry. Big Idea Design sent him the Bolt Action Multi Pen, and he dropped it in a drawer for more than a month. He already kept a pen on him for receipts, quick notes, and the fidget, not for pages of writing. Journaling changed the job. Four ink colors let him separate personal notes, channel work, shop notes, and a side project without carrying four pens. Thanks to Taylor Martin for walking through why this one finally stayed in his pocket. The description marks the Big Idea Design and Work Sharp links as ads.

Items & Gear List

• Big Idea Design Bolt Action Multi Pen – View at Big Idea Design

Editor’s Insight

Thanks again to Taylor Martin for staying with a pen he first dismissed. He has carried a pen for years, but not because he writes all day. He signs a receipt, jots a line, or hands the pen to someone else. The pens he likes are fidgety. A four-color pen sounded like a high-school multi-pen, so the Bolt Action Multi Pen sat in a drawer for more than a month.

The pen that held the pocket before this one is the Lil Sancho Bolt Action Pen, a Big Idea Design collaboration with Knafs. The captions say Soncho and Navs. The maker page spells it Lil Sancho and names Knafs. Taylor Martin likes the small size. Tweezers and a toothpick hide in the top. Long journaling made his hand cramp, so he went back to the drawer. Hitch and Timber notebook caddies had been riding with blank pages. Peter McKinnon’s journaling videos gave him a setup he wanted to try. The Base Line Bolt Action Pen was one of the first replacements: thicker, still compact, and better for longer notes.

Taylor Martin splits his notes into buckets. Personal and family notes go in black. Channel work and Gaslight Industries, his other company, go in blue. Shop work and the skills he is learning go in green. Hard Habits, the project from his previous video, is the fourth bucket. He does not name that fourth ink color on camera. The window shows blue, red, black, and green. Color on the page tells him the subject before he reads the line. He says he has written more in a few days than in several years.

The mechanism is a bolt, not a click. Push the bolt, slide it to lock the tip out, and push it back to retract. The body rotates either direction. He compares the inside to a revolver cylinder: the body rotates, then the bolt advances. The clip is a thicker milled clip than older Big Idea Design clips, and the retention is strong. He shows five finishes: brass, stonewashed titanium, raw titanium, copper, and DLC black. He expected to prefer brass. The titanium is the one he wants to keep. He measures the multi pen at 12.5 mm across, against about 11 mm on the Base Line.

The pen he opens ships with Schneider Take 4 refills in black, blue, red, and green. He also calls that refill Schmidt. The maker page lists Schneider Take 4. He prefers Uni refills because the tip is finer. Red is obvious in the window. Blue, black, and green look the same, so he finds red and counts from there. He also takes the pen apart after the maker tells him not to, and he is not sure he can put it back together. Treat that as a warning, not a teardown guide.

He filmed this while the Kickstarter was still open. He said the campaign closed on October 13, with delivery expected in October 2026. The campaign page now says the first batch is sold out. The product page linked above is a pre-order, and it lists an estimated delivery of April 2027. This post does not call that an in-stock checkout. The description also posts a store-discount short link. That link opens a different Big Idea Design product, so this post does not use it.

Closing Remarks

Watch Taylor Martin put the Bolt Action Multi Pen to work on real notes, not a desk demo. He shows the color window, the bolt, the thicker clip, and why four inks beat four pens for his buckets. The link above is the Big Idea Design product page for that pen. He filmed this while the Kickstarter was still open and named an October 2026 delivery. The page now is a pre-order with an estimated delivery of April 2027, so do not read it as an in-stock cart. Hit play, then decide if color-coded notes are reason enough to carry one pen instead of four.