In the mood to buy a few knives: Balisong and/or Karambit

steve-in-kville

steve-in-kville

Joined
Dec 25, 2001
Messages
1,139
Been a while since I bought something nice. Back in the day, I owned a few Benchmade balisongs. I understand they are now untouchable. Would love to own one again. As far as Karambit type knives, would like to have one of them, too.

Give me suggestions. Nothing custom or high end. Keep it reasonable.

Thanks.
 
These are reasonable. The handles are kinda not reasonable, but worth it. They make the stock knife much lighter and flip a lot better. I love mine.

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Kershaw Lucha with Flytanium handles.
 
for karambits i would recommend the crkt provoke compact, it actually works very well and also the spyderco karahawk, both very well made

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Yep you can do a lot worse than a Lucha even with their stock handles. I like mine a bit better than my Benchmade in a lot of ways.
 
It's not a traditional style of Karambit. But check out the Spyderco Swick 5.

Large hole is fine. Small hole, smaller hands, skinny fingers.
 
I had a Fox 479 Karambit and it was a great knife. The Defcon Raptor looks pretty awesome too.
 
Going to echo people here, the lucha is a good price and you can find it in outdoorsy type stores from time to time to get a feel in hand
 
Steely_Gunz said:
Yep you can do a lot worse than a Lucha even with their stock handles. I like mine a bit better than my Benchmade in a lot of ways.
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Slice-E said:
Going to echo people here, the lucha is a good price and you can find it in outdoorsy type stores from time to time to get a feel in hand
Click to expand...
The stock Lucha is pretty fantastic for the price. It was just too heavy to flip very well. That gives it an exceptionally sturdy feel in the hand, though. They make a great EDC bali as-is.

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If any of you get more into flipping give the Flytanium handles a look. At $115 they aren’t cheap, but they make it a first class badass flipper. Shave off a lot of weight and have an awesome feel and sound.
 
I own a variety of balisongs & karambits from cheap ($100-200) to expensive ($400-600).

For an entry level balisong, the Kershaw Lucha & Bradley-Kimura immediately come to mind.

The freer action of the Lucha would make it more suitable for doing "tricks," if that's your thing, but they are both considered "too heavy" for those are seriously into "doing tricks" but they would be good starter balisongs nonetheless.

For an entry level karambit, I'd recommend something like the Fox Model 479 folding karambit.

All of these knives can be bought new in the $100-200 range; less used if you can find them.
 
I'd recommend the Reate Exo K, kind of covers both bases. It's not actually a balisong but the way you flip it open is reminiscent of one. You can essentially only do one trick with it but it looks cool when you open it and it locks up in a way that it can't close on your fingers. They're reasonably priced, too, I believe they're the least expensive Reate knife out there.


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Also, are you planning to get a balisong as a general knife that you can flip a couple tricks on, or are you planning to really get into doing tricks with them? Because if you're really into tricks, the Squid Industries Krake Raken is about as good as it gets and isn't too expensive. Other options have harder handle materials, pocket clips, a latch, and better steels that make them more suitable for EDC, though.
 
+1 on for Squid Krake Rakens.
I have a Kraken trainer 1:1 "clone" from Armed Shark.
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I have two live blade Balis:
Upper is an LDY Sirius V2
Lower is a Machinewise Serif
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What's your Bali budget?
 
If you're looking for something you can use every day, the Spyderco Karahawk is definitely a useful karambit. Edc karambit is possible, I learned this with Karahawk. If you're looking for something cool and cheap, the hibben claw ii is a great karambit. Claw ii has a design that suits the real purpose of Karambit knives.
 
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