Hamster Vg10 Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-55

The BF-55 Hamster is a 180g VG10 balisong, brass handles with kamagong wood inserts, 12cm blade in a 24cm frame. It is the most expensive of the 24cm knives in our VG10 range, and since several of its neighbours share its exact specification for twenty dollars less, the useful thing to explain here is where that money goes.

Why nearly identical knives cost different amounts

Look down the range and the pattern is odd. The BF-27 Cow is 180g of brass and kamagong on a 24cm frame. The BF-32 Deer is the same description. The BF-53 Golden-Crowned is the same description again, and this one. Same steel, same weight, same materials, four prices.

The answer is not clever and it is not a trick. These are made by hand in small numbers, and the amount of bench time a given batch swallows varies. Fitting inserts flush takes as long as it takes. Some brass finishes cleanly and some fights you. Pivot tuning on one knife can be five minutes and on the next it is half an hour of adjusting and testing until both handles drop at the same rate.

What the extra actually buys

• Bench time on the fit. How level the inserts sit, how tight the seams are, how even the finish runs along the frame.
• Selection of the wood. Nicer figure in the kamagong costs more to pick out of the stock than average figure does.
• Nothing in the blade. The steel and the heat treatment are identical across every VG10 knife we make.
• Nothing in the flip. A better-finished knife does not rotate better. It looks and feels better in the hand while doing the same thing.

So should you buy this one or the cheaper one

If you are buying a knife to learn on, buy the cheap one. The BF-33 Dog.15 will teach you exactly as much as this will, and you will care less about the first time you drop it on a tiled floor.

If you already flip, and you want the one that came out best, buy this. That is a legitimate reason to spend money and we are not going to talk you out of it. What we will not do is invent a technical justification for the difference, because there is not one.

Specification for this VG10 balisong

180g in use

The heavier half of the range. Momentum carries the handle through a rollover, which makes the basics feel smooth early on, and aerials hold their line better than they do on the 150g knives. The cost is that changes of direction take effort and long sessions reach your forearm sooner. If you want speed above all, the Fly or the Eel at 150g are the better tools.

What VG10 steel actually is on a butterfly knife

VG10 is a Japanese stainless developed for kitchen knives, roughly 15% chromium at around 60 HRC. Fine edge, long retention, no rust. It is the cheapest steel band on this site, which almost nobody believes until they compare it with the D2 and Damascus pages. The one honest limitation: a properly dull VG10 edge is slower to bring back than 440C, hardness being a favour that has to be repaid on the stone.

Trainer, sheath and shipping on this VG10 kamagong balisong

Order it unsharpened with the option above the Add to Cart button. Fitted leather sheath with every knife. Free shipping in the US, flat $49 to the rest of the world.

the VG10 is taken to 58-60 HRC, the same hardness we use across the whole shelf.