Lead Refills

Lead refills comprise a range of mostly standard diameters and lengths, but with the occasional refill that is designed for a specific model of specialist pencil.

All our 'finelead' ranges - 0.3mm, 0.4mm, 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm - are 60mm long and suitable for use in all standard mechanical pencils of the appropriate size. For 0.35mm use 0.3mm, for 1.0mm use 0.9mm - these sizes are considered interchangeable and some brands of lead, eg. Faber-Castell, actually state both sizes on the pack.

Beyond 0.9mm, the common lead sizes are 1.4mm, 2mm, 3mm, 3.15mm and 5.6mm. The lengths of any particular brand can vary, as at this size the pencil designs vary quite widely. However, we normally state lead length and you can cut down longer leads if the exact length you require is not available.

The grade, or hardness, of leads covers quite a range, and the most choice is available in the most popular sizes (0.5mm, 0.7mm and 2mm). See our article here for information on lead grades, but in a nutshell: the higher the 'B' number, the softer the lead; the higher the 'H' number, the harder the lead, with HB occupying the middle ground and most commonly used as standard. We also have 'F' grade lead in some ranges, with is just slightly harder than HB.

Coloured lead is also available, though with fairly limited choices in any particular size/colour combination.

All our lead is listed below. You can use the filters at left to refine your search, or you can jump into the dedicated pages for the most common lead sizes.