Staedtler Graphite 777 Mechanical Pencil 0.5mm Blue

I generally opt for Staedtler drawing products as I have used them for design and draughting since the late 1970’s. I needed a budget propelling pencil for on site and factory cabinetry marking, hence my purchase of the Graphite 777, it is a nice pencil to use, the shortcomings for my application were two fold, firstly I found the “leads” very brittle and with anything but great care they were constantly snapping, not something I have experienced with other 0.5HB refills, so maybe that is overcomable, second, the tip taper close to the point makes marking along converged planes tricky, as unless exactly the right angle is employed and maintained, the line is veered away from the desired edge by the tip taper pushing the lead away, I think I will next seek a 0.7 pencil with 2B lead and a narrow tubular tip support to overcome these issues . Price point was good, and reliability of mechanism a plus point, ergonomics to the hand is also favourable.