Common Buzzard Handmade VG10 Super Steel Original Filipino Balisong Butterfly Knife with Stainless Steel and Kamagong Wood Handle | 24cm Lightweight Flipper Gift | BF-26

It suits the person who wants a real Batangas-made balisong, cut and fitted by hand, without spending close to two hundred dollars to find out whether flipping is going to stick as a hobby. Stainless steel handles with kamagong wood inserts, a 12cm VG10 blade in a 24cm frame, 155g in the hand.

What you give up at the bottom of the range

Almost nothing that matters, and we know how that sounds coming from the people selling it. The blade steel is the same VG10 as every other knife in the range. Same heat treatment, same pivots, fitted by the same hands on the same bench.

What moves the price is the handle work. Stainless scales cost us less to cut and finish than brass, and kamagong offcuts are what we have most of. The Buzzard is cheaper because of what it is wearing, not because of what it is.

Stainless handles do not behave like brass

Most of the VG10 range runs brass handles. Three knives run stainless: this one, the BF-28 Crab and the BF-49 Gerbil. The difference shows up after about three weeks of carry.

• Brass darkens. It takes on your fingerprints, your sweat and your kitchen, and goes from yellow to a dull bronze. Some people love that. Some people scrub it back every fortnight and quietly resent it.
• Stainless stays put. Year three looks like day one. If you want a knife that does not develop opinions of its own, this is the one.
• Stainless is harder. Brass dents when a knife lands on tile. Stainless mostly shrugs, which matters more than it sounds when you are still learning.

That last point is the real argument for the Buzzard as a first knife. Beginners drop things. We have yet to meet one who did not.

155g, and what that does to a flip

Across the VG10 range the weights run from 150g up to 225g. At 155g the Buzzard sits near the light end, and light knives rotate quickly and stop when you tell them to. There is less momentum carrying a handle round for you, so sloppy timing shows up immediately instead of being smoothed over. The upside is that your wrist is still willing after an hour, which is when practice actually turns into progress.

The steel, briefly: VG10 on a butterfly knife

VG10 is a Japanese stainless developed for kitchen knives. Around 60 HRC, roughly 15% chromium. It takes a very fine edge and it does not rust in any normal life. It is also the cheapest steel band on this site, which surprises people who have read the phrase “super steel” on a forum somewhere and assumed it meant expensive.

The honest catch: once VG10 is genuinely dull, it is more work to bring back than 440C. Hard steel cuts well and sharpens slowly. For a knife you will flip far more often than you cut with, that is a trade worth making.

Specification for this VG10 balisong

Trainer version of this VG10 balisong, same price

Use the option above the Add to Cart button and the Buzzard ships unsharpened, exactly what the live blade costs. Not cheaper, not dearer. If this is your first balisong, order the trainer. We would rather say so now than sell you a sharp knife and a fortnight of plasters.

Every knife ships in a fitted leather sheath. Shipping is free inside the US and a flat $49 anywhere else.

the VG10 is hardened to 58-60 HRC, which is the window where it holds an edge without turning brittle on you.

The Common Buzzard moves up to VG10, and how VG10 compares with 440C and D2 is worth reading if you are deciding between that steel and the 440C used across the rest of the catalogue. It sits in the VG10 Balisong Butterfly collection. The BF-28 Crab is the closest match, same VG10 steel over stainless bolsters and kamagong wood.

Buying for groomsmen? This balisong also comes as a matched set of 6, 15% less than buying six singly, and each one can carry its own engraved name.