Cat Handmade 440C Stainless Steel Original Filipino Balisong Butterfly Knife with Brass and Bone Handle | 24cm EDC Flipper Gift for Him | BF-19

The BF-19 Cat is a 175g, 24cm balisong with a 440C blade, brass frame and bone inserts. On paper it is an ordinary knife in the middle of this range. The reason we point beginners at it is that it is the one we most often sell as a trainer first and a live blade later, so this page is about learning to flip and about the part of that process nobody puts in the product copy: you are going to drop it.

You are going to drop it

Not might. Will. Everyone does, for months, and then occasionally forever. A balisong is a knife you deliberately let go of in mid-rotation, and the entire skill is in catching it again on a schedule your hands have not learned yet.

The cat lands on its feet. You will not, at first. That is fine and it is the reason the trainer option above the Add to Cart button exists.

What dropping a 440C butterfly knife actually does to it

Here is the practical bit, because people worry about the wrong thing. They worry about the blade and they should worry about the handle.

• The edge, on a hard floor. 440C at roughly 58 HRC rolls rather than chips. A rolled edge comes back with a few passes on a stone. This is the main argument for 440C in a flipping knife and it is why we use it here rather than something harder and prouder.
• The handle, on concrete. Brass dents. It will dent. Those dents are the record of you learning and they do not affect anything mechanical.
• The bone panels. Tougher than people expect, but a corner strike on tile can chip one. This is the part worth protecting, and it is the best reason to learn on a trainer in a room with a rug.
• The pivots. Almost never the problem. A dropped balisong loosens at the pivot far less often than the internet implies.

The trainer is the same knife, same price

Select the unsharpened option above Add to Cart. Same 175g, same brass, same bone, same pivots, same rotation. The steel is the same 440C, left without an edge.

People assume a trainer must be cheaper, or worse, or made from something soft. Ours is not. Grinding an edge is not the expensive part of building a balisong, so there is no discount to pass on and no corner we cut to make one. It is the identical knife with the last step skipped.

Learn your rollovers, your chaplins and your aerials on the blunt one. Move to the live blade when your catch has stopped being a decision and started being a reflex. That is not us being cautious for legal reasons, it is the fastest way to get good.

Specifications

Why 175g is a good learning weight for a butterfly knife

Light knives are unforgiving of sloppy input. Heavy knives are forgiving but hit harder and tire you out. 175g sits between the 155g and 225g ends of this series and does neither thing badly.

More to the point, if you learn on 175g you can move either direction later without relearning your timing. Learn on an extreme and everything else feels wrong for a fortnight.

Tension, and the one adjustment worth making

New knives arrive with the pivots set snug because a knife that loosens in transit is a knife that arrives rattling. Most people want them a little freer after a week of flipping. A quarter turn is a lot. Do it in small increments, flip for ten minutes, decide.

If you overtighten, the knife will feel dead and you will blame the knife. It is almost always the pivot.

Shipping the bone handle balisong

Free in the US, flat $49 worldwide regardless of how many knives are in the box. A fitted leather sheath cut for the BF-19 comes with it, live blade or trainer.

the 440C is hardened to 58-60 HRC, which is the window where it holds an edge without turning brittle on you.