Leopard Cat High Carbon Steel Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-69

The BF-69 Leopard Cat is a 24cm high carbon balisong, 12cm blade, 180g, brass and kamagong. Every knife we ship comes with a fitted leather sheath, and since nobody ever writes about the sheath, we will.

What comes in the box with this high carbon balisong

A leather sheath cut for this frame, not a generic pouch. It closes over a 24cm knife properly, which matters more than it sounds: a sheath cut for a shorter frame leaves the butt of the handles exposed, and a sheath cut too generously lets the knife shift and wear a shine into the leather from the inside.

It arrives stiff. Leather always does. A week of putting the knife in and taking it out will loosen it into the shape of your particular knife, and after a month it will have a slight memory of which way round you carry it.

The one rule: carry in it, do not store in it

This is the part that actually matters and almost nobody says it.

Leather is a hide. It holds moisture, it holds the salts used to tan it, and both of those work slowly against steel. A stainless blade tolerates that. A high carbon blade like this one does not, and a knife left in a closed sheath through a humid month can come out with rust it would never have grown sitting in a drawer.

Looking after the leather

Very little. A leather conditioner once a year if you use it daily, nothing at all if you do not. Do not oil it heavily, because saturated leather holds even more moisture against the blade and goes soft in the mouth so the knife no longer sits properly.

It will darken with handling and it will crease where it folds. Both of those are the leather doing its job. If the stitching ever goes, tell us.

Carrying, and the part that is not about the sheath

A sheath makes a knife easier to carry. It does not make carrying it legal. Balisong law varies by country and by US state, it distinguishes between possession and carry in a lot of places, and it changes. Most of the knife law pages on the internet are copies of a copy from several years ago.

Read the rule that applies at your own address, from a current source, before you carry rather than after. We ship what is legal to ship and the local rule is yours to know.

The high carbon butterfly knife inside

Plain carbon steel: iron, about one percent carbon, essentially no chromium. It takes the finest edge we can grind and comes back on an ordinary stone in minutes. It also rusts, which is why this page is what it is. Wipe the blade dry when you put it down and a light oil once a month covers the rest.

Heat treated to 58-60 HRC, where it rolls rather than chips on impact. The frame is 180g of brass with kamagong inserts, Philippine ebony that is dense enough to ignore damp entirely and needs no care at all.

The name

The leopard cat is a small, quiet, extremely capable animal that most people have never heard of. That is a better fit for a knife like this one than a big cat would have been.

Ordering this high carbon balisong and its sheath

Unsharpened trainer, chosen above Add to Cart. Same steel, same weight, no edge, and every word above about the sheath applies to it equally, since a blunt carbon blade rusts as happily as a sharp one.

Free US shipping, flat $49 to anywhere else for the entire order.