Dragonfly Vg10 Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-36

The BF-36 Dragonfly is a 180g VG10 balisong, brass with kamagong wood inserts, 12cm blade in a 24cm frame. It sits in the middle of the animal series on price and near the top on weight, and it is the knife to look at if you have decided you want mass rather than speed. Dragonflies are famous for changing direction mid-air, which is precisely the one thing a 180g knife is not good at, so we are going to be straight with you about that instead of writing around it.

Weight is the real difference in this series

These knives share a steel, a frame and a blade length. What separates them is what they weigh, and nobody puts that in a comparison table, so here is one.

What 180g does for you and to you

The mass carries the handle through the arc. Once a 180g knife is rotating it stays rotating, which is why rollovers feel smoother on this than on any of the 150g builds. Aerials benefit too, because the knife holds its line in the air instead of getting knocked off it by a clumsy release.

Then there is the other side. Fast reversals need you to stop 180g and send it back the other way, and that costs effort every single time. Long practice sessions cost your forearm. If your ambition is a rapid trick chain filmed at sixty frames a second, buy one of the 150g knives and thank us later.

The steel, and why VG10 suits a balisong

VG10 is a Japanese stainless developed for kitchen knives, roughly 15% chromium and hardened to around 60 HRC. It takes a fine edge, it holds it, and it does not rust in a warm hand. It is also the cheapest steel band on this site, which people rarely believe until they check the D2 and Damascus pages.

One genuine downside. VG10 is hard, and hard steel is slow on a stone. Once an edge is properly gone it takes more patience to restore than 440C would. That is the price of the edge retention, and on a knife most people flip rather than cut with, it is a price worth paying.

Specification for this VG10 kamagong balisong

Brass and kamagong over time

The brass will darken from your hands within weeks. Polish it back if that bothers you, or leave it and let the knife look used, which is what we would do. The kamagong inserts are near-black ironwood, dense enough that they take a knock without complaint and finished so they need no oil or care at all.

Which of the heavy ones, then

A dozen knives in the range sit between 175g and 185g and they flip close enough to identical that we will not pretend otherwise. The Dragonfly.25 is neither the cheapest of them nor the dearest. The BF-32 Deer undercuts it.60 with the same materials and the same 180g. The BF-52 Goat runs narra wood instead.

So choose on the handle, not on the flip. That is an unusual thing for a shop to say and it happens to be true. Within a weight tier, what you are buying is the look and the feel of the material under your fingers, and anyone telling you that one of these rotates meaningfully better than another is selling you a story.

Trainer, sheath and shipping on this VG10 butterfly knife

The option above the Add to Cart button orders this knife unsharpened. Same 180g, same pivots, no edge. At this weight a trainer is a reasonable choice even for people who are not beginners, because mass and mistakes compound.

Every knife ships in a fitted leather sheath. Free shipping in the US, flat $49 everywhere else.

the VG10 comes out of the quench at 58-60 HRC. Harder than that and it chips; softer and you are sharpening it every fortnight.