Filipino Traditional D2 Steel Shark Blade Butterfly Balisong Knife USA Made Gift For Him With Stag Horn Handle BF-119

The BF-119 is the shark blade in the Filipino Traditional line: 24cm open, a 12cm D2 blade, 220g, brass with stag horn. It is the only knife in the range with this profile, and it is a shape most people have opinions about before they have held one.

What a shark profile actually is

A high, flat spine running most of the length, dropping to a shallow point near the end rather than tapering toward one from halfway. The blade keeps its full width almost all the way forward, which is why it looks blunt-ended in photographs and does not behave that way in the hand.

It sits in the same family as a sheepsfoot or a wharncliffe: shapes that give up piercing in exchange for a straight edge and a spine you can put weight on.

What that buys you

The row people underestimate is sharpening. A straight edge is dramatically easier to keep sharp than a curved one, because you can hold a consistent angle without rolling your wrist through an arc. On D2, which is stubborn to begin with, that is a genuine practical advantage.

Who it suits

Anybody who mostly cuts by pressing rather than by piercing, which is most people most of the time. Boxes, cord, tape, food, anything on a flat surface. It is also the profile we would hand somebody who is nervous about a point, because there is very little of one.

Who it does not suit: anybody who wants a knife that looks traditional. This is the least classical shape in a series named after tradition, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If the silhouette is what you are buying, the plain blade is the one.

Stag horn as a balisong handle

Shed antler, cut and fitted into brass. It runs pale cream through deep brown, the ridging and pitting are different on every piece, and it cannot be matched closely even across the two handles of a single knife.

The surface texture is worth mentioning on its own. Stag is the least slippery natural handle we work with, better than polished horn and comparable to jigged bone, because the natural ridging gives your fingers something to sit against. On a heavy knife in a warm room, that is not a small thing.

• Normal: colour variation, uneven ridging, two handles that do not match, surface you can feel.
• Not normal: a crack, a loose insert, a gap you can catch a fingernail in. Ours to fix.
• Care: out of long sunlight, do not store the knife wet, no oil required.

D2 butterfly knife steel at 58-60 HRC

An air-hardening tool steel: roughly one and a half percent carbon and eleven to twelve percent chromium, which sits just below the threshold for calling a steel stainless. It holds an edge longer than anything else we sell and it wants a diamond plate when it eventually needs work, which on a straight edge like this is a much shorter job than usual.

We run it at 58-60 rather than higher because a carbide-heavy steel taken further chips when the knife meets a hard floor, and every balisong meets a hard floor.

Two hundred and twenty grams

The heavier weight in this series. The rotation carries itself and gives you real time to correct a mistake, at the cost of changing direction more slowly than our lighter knives. On a blade profile that is largely about controlled cutting, the extra mass helps there too.

Ordering this stag horn balisong

Unsharpened trainer, chosen above Add to Cart. Same stag horn, same 220g, no edge, and the same price because grinding an edge is one operation in a long build.

The leather sheath is cut to this frame and included. Nothing to pay on delivery inside the States, $49 flat everywhere else per order. Knife law differs by country and by state, and it is worth reading the current version rather than an old one.