Damascus Balisong Butterfly Knife Original Traditional Filipino Butterfly Batanga Knife Ladder Pattern with Handmade Steel and Stag Handle Black Mamba Knives USA | DB-15

Description

Small, and dense with it

6.2 inches overall on 3.2-inch handles, and still 5.6 ounces. That ratio is the entire character of the DB-15. Short handles rotate quickly, so the same lazy wrist input that gently turns a full-size balisong will whip this one around before you have finished deciding what to do next. It rewards precise, small movements and it punishes sloppy ones immediately rather than absorbing them. There is also less handle to hold, so if you have large hands a two-finger grip runs out of steel in a hurry. Work through the basic roll and fan sequences slowly before you try to speed anything up.

What the blade actually shows

The figure on this one is a pool-and-eye pattern: concentric rings and swirls opening up across the flat where the grind has cut down through manipulated layers. It is a worked pattern rather than a lucky one, which is a useful thing to understand when you are learning to separate genuine forged steel from an etched imitation. The tell is distortion. On a real blade the rings stretch and pull where the grind bites deeper into the billet, because you are looking at a cross-section of something three-dimensional. A printed or laser-etched face stays perfectly regular from spine to edge, because it is a picture sitting on the surface rather than structure running through it.

Stag on a small knife

Stag is the least uniform handle material on this bench, and on a knife this compact that is an advantage rather than a compromise. Ours run cream through the middle with amber and brown at the tips, and no two pieces are cut alike. The natural crown texture gives your fingers something to catch when your palms are damp, which is precisely the moment a light, fast balisong is most likely to leave your hand and find the floor. Polished metal handles offer nothing at all in that situation.

Looking after it

Keep stag away from prolonged soaking and away from heat, and give it a little oil once a year if it starts looking chalky. Dry the blade when you finish with it and put a little oil on the face before it goes into a drawer. The bolsters and pivots prefer being clean to being drenched, since oil sitting in a pivot mostly serves to hold grit exactly where it does the most damage.

The opposite end of the scale

If the small format turns out not to suit you, the 7.2 oz wood-handled DB-07 is the largest knife in this family and behaves in more or less the opposite way. Everything here is forged, ground, etched and fitted in Memphis, Tennessee. Legality differs from one state to the next and from one country to another, so check where you live before buying.

Model: BMK-DB-15