Dixon Tri-Conderoga Triangular

These Dixon Ticonderoga pencils are very strange. First I will mention the VERY serious flaw, or defect, in the pencils I received. After I sharpened it and started writing I immediately noticed that the lead is way too hard. It says it is HB #2. That is the most used softness/hardness and is commonly used for scantron tests. THIS Tri-Conderoga black does not feel as “Soft” Ticonderoga #2, it feels like H or 2H hardness. I tried writing side by side with other Ticonderogas, Mirado, Oreole, and some crappy No brand Chinese pencil. Those pencils had decent softness that is more or less within the range of HB. Actually the average Dixon Ticonderoga pencil is slightly softer usually. But THIS one is just much harder. You would have to apply much more force on the pencil to get the same dark line which you get from other HB number 2 pencils with very little force. There is another problem with these particular pencils. When I sharpened them they were never sharpening accurately or precisely. There is always some wood left on one side of the lead point. Normally you would get that on the cheapest pencils which are made from compressed shavings or recycled materials as opposed to real wood. This pencil appears to be made from real wood but there is always that annoying piece that the sharpener isn’t able to remove. This was after using their own supplied sharpener as well as a premium Staedler sharpener for larger pencils. Esthetically they look and feel nice. They REQUIRE a bigger hole pencil sharpener. My pack of these came included with a sharpener. Not a problem. Triangular shape is interesting. I cannot tell whether it helps writing since I never had issues with round or hexagon pencil. Unfortunately no matter how nice this series of Dixon pencils look, functionally they are way below the expected Dixon Ticonderoga pencils.