Barb 440c Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-10

The BF-10 Barb is the heaviest 24cm knife in this series: 195g in a frame the same size as knives that weigh 165g. Brass handles, kamagong inlays, 440C blade. It is for a flipper who already knows what they are doing and wants something with more momentum than the knife they learned on. If you have never flipped before, read the section near the bottom before you buy this one.

195g in a 24cm frame is a lot

Thirty grams does not sound like much written down. In your hand it is the difference between a knife that turns when you flick your wrist and a knife that keeps turning after you have stopped asking it to.

That extra mass does three things, and only two of them are good.

• It is more forgiving of a lazy wrist. Once the Barb is rotating it wants to finish the rotation. Sloppy input still produces a clean full turn, which is why heavy knives flatter intermediate flippers.
• It punishes timing errors harder. The same momentum that carries a rotation through will carry the handle into your knuckle at full speed. A 165g knife taps you. This one leaves a mark.
• It gets tiring. Forty minutes of continuous rollovers with 195g is real work for your forearm. That is not a flaw, it is just a thing to know before your first long session.

Where the weight comes from

Brass. That is the entire answer. Brass runs roughly a third heavier than stainless for the same volume, and the Barb has more of it in the handle channels than most of its siblings. We did not add weight to hit a number. The frame is built the way it is built and it comes out at 195g.

The kamagong inserts contribute almost nothing to the total. Ironwood is dense for a wood, but it is still wood.

Specifications for this 440C kamagong balisong

The cheapest heavy knife here

Worth saying plainly:.25 the Barb is one of the least expensive knives in this series, and it is also the heaviest of the 24cm frames. Those two facts are not usually friends. Weight normally costs money because brass costs money.

The reason it works out this way is that the Barb has no exotic insert material. No horn, no bone, no deer antler. Kamagong and brass, both of which we buy in quantity and both of which grow or get poured close to the workshop. You are paying for the metalwork and not for a rare panel.

The name, and the blade

A barb is the backward-facing point on a hook or an arrow: the part whose only job is to not come back out. The blade here is a 12cm grind with a fine point, and the name is about that point more than about anything mystical.

440C at around 58 HRC holds a fine tip better than most people expect from stainless. It will still snap if you pry with it. Every fine point on every knife ever made will snap if you pry with it, and we would rather tell you that than let you find out.

If you are new, buy this as a trainer

Use the option above Add to Cart to order the Barb unsharpened. We are more insistent about this on the Barb than on the lighter knives in the range, for one reason: 195g of brass moving at speed does not care that you are a beginner.

The trainer is mechanically identical. Same pivots, same balance, same 195g, same feel in the roll. You learn exactly what you would learn on the live blade, minus the part where you learn it in an urgent care waiting room.

Shipping and sheath on this 440C butterfly knife

Free shipping inside the US, flat $49 to the rest of the world regardless of order size. A fitted leather sheath is cut for the BF-10 specifically and comes with the knife.

the 440C is taken to 58-60 HRC, the same hardness we use across the whole shelf.