Tach Bali Scorpion SV

Cheap flea market junk. If you want a balisong that won't fall apart after a few days of flipping, look into a Benchmade 42 or Microtech Dragonfly. The price will probably stun you, but they'll last a lifetime.

Because unfortunately, unlike folding knives, there really aren't any quality, low price balisongs. For example, you could spend $30 on a Kershaw Vapor or Benchmade Monochrome instead of $150 on one of their higher end knives. They're not as high quality, but they're still very good knives, especially for the low prices.

For balisongs however, quality starts at about $80-90 for a Spyderco Spyderfly. $110-130 for a Microtech Dragonfly. The "benchmark" balisong is the Benchmade 42, the knife all other balisongs are measured up to, and made by the company that pretty much invented modern balisong production (most "classic" looking knockoff balisongs are copies of Benchmades). A 42 is around $130-140.

These evaluations are not snobbish, elitist remarks. While many of us are content to spend $350 on a folder like a Chris Reeve Sebenza and might look down on "lesser" knives, it's still easy to reccomend a Kershaw Vapor at less than 1/10 the price. But it isn't possible to reccomend a cheap balisong. Sorry.

The thing is, these knockoffs are made overseas. But importation of balisongs into the USA (part of the switchblade laws) is actually banned. So what they do is mass produce this junk, then flood customs with them. Some get siezed, but most don't. They cost so little to make (we're talking pennies here), and the ones that get through customs they sell for $15-40 a pop. THat's how their business works.

If you absolutely must get a balisong, but can't swing the cost of the ones above, get a Jaguar copy of the classic Benchmade/Pacific Cutlery/Bali-Song (all the same company) patterns. These are junk too, but generally a higher quality junk than M-Techs like the one your friend has (that knife BTW is a copy of the Microtech Tachyon). The Jaguars you can at least repin after it breaks using nails and a hammer.

If you must buy your friend's knife, don't spend more than $15, which is approximately what they sell on ebay for.

Also, check out the Balisong board on this forum, especially the stickies posted at the top. Lots of good info there.

And welcome.
 
If you wanna make one, knifekits.com's typhoon is very nice quality, but ya gotta do a little filing
 
If you want a cheaper Made In USA Balisong, Bear MGC has a few available. They're nowhere near Benchmade in quality, but they will beat out the Chinese-made junk by quite a bit.

DD
 
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