- Joined
- Nov 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,184
Wanted to do a quick review on this knife. Myself, and many others have been burned by Bear Ops / Bear and Son in the past. Of the 3 balisongs I've owned by them, they all ended up being over priced garbage. Poor tolerances, deformed tang cups, tang pins not properly sized, the list of complaints from the community goes on with these knives. Bear and Son acquired the rights to the Bradley Kimura and did their own rerelease of the iconic balisong. And it was seriously, meh.
I give this background info to create context as to why I approached this new batch of knives with trepidation, and why it seems they've turned a new leaf in their balisongs... Sort of.
BladeHQ says the following : "Experience flipping action like never before—via the use of ball bearings, the Bear Song VIII has managed to obtain flawless, smooth motion while eliminating blade-play completely. That's right: the Bear Song VIII has no play in the blade whatsoever. "
https://www.bladehq.com/item--Bear-Ops-Bear-Song-VIII-Butterfly--110207
Out of the box, the knife in fact had zero handle play, but the action was too tight. After loosening the pivots, the action became extremely smooth, and the knife was still left very little handle play. Theres no blade tap/rub, and everything came already doused in oil and loctite.
The blade has a nice satin finish, clean lines, and came with a very sharp edge, mostly. You see, either out of carelessness or a stroke of genius, they left the very first 1/4" or so of the blade unground. This was either a major flaw, or they did it with the intent of leaving the "flippers" less likely to get themselves if they did a twirl on the wrong handle. Either way, I was pretty disappointed to see this.
It has a good size, bigger than it's obvious inspirations of the original Kimura series, and the Benchmade 6x series, but not as large as the other big names in the game, BRS, HOM, etc. It feels nice and substantial in the hand, it flips really nice, if thats your gig, but it's not as long as other balis made purely for tricks.
The latch is spring loaded, just like the older benchmades. It pops open when you squeeze the handles together, and keeps the latch out of the way as you manipulate the knife. The safe handle uses a barrel spacer. The bite handle has the spring latch assembly, therefore the assembly itself acts as the spacer. If you squeeze the bite handle together, theres a tiny bit of play, but not that big of a deal.
The pocket clip is small, and unobstrusive, but it's only drilled for the safe handle so it came off within minutes of coming out of the box.
Overall, I feel like this is a quality knife, and a great entry level option into the balisong world, where quality options under $200 are almost non existant. I definitely wouldn't say Bear and Son/ Bear Ops have redeemed their reputation with this release, but a few more solid renditions such as this may give people a reason to give them another chance.
I give this background info to create context as to why I approached this new batch of knives with trepidation, and why it seems they've turned a new leaf in their balisongs... Sort of.
BladeHQ says the following : "Experience flipping action like never before—via the use of ball bearings, the Bear Song VIII has managed to obtain flawless, smooth motion while eliminating blade-play completely. That's right: the Bear Song VIII has no play in the blade whatsoever. "
https://www.bladehq.com/item--Bear-Ops-Bear-Song-VIII-Butterfly--110207
Out of the box, the knife in fact had zero handle play, but the action was too tight. After loosening the pivots, the action became extremely smooth, and the knife was still left very little handle play. Theres no blade tap/rub, and everything came already doused in oil and loctite.
The blade has a nice satin finish, clean lines, and came with a very sharp edge, mostly. You see, either out of carelessness or a stroke of genius, they left the very first 1/4" or so of the blade unground. This was either a major flaw, or they did it with the intent of leaving the "flippers" less likely to get themselves if they did a twirl on the wrong handle. Either way, I was pretty disappointed to see this.
It has a good size, bigger than it's obvious inspirations of the original Kimura series, and the Benchmade 6x series, but not as large as the other big names in the game, BRS, HOM, etc. It feels nice and substantial in the hand, it flips really nice, if thats your gig, but it's not as long as other balis made purely for tricks.
The latch is spring loaded, just like the older benchmades. It pops open when you squeeze the handles together, and keeps the latch out of the way as you manipulate the knife. The safe handle uses a barrel spacer. The bite handle has the spring latch assembly, therefore the assembly itself acts as the spacer. If you squeeze the bite handle together, theres a tiny bit of play, but not that big of a deal.
The pocket clip is small, and unobstrusive, but it's only drilled for the safe handle so it came off within minutes of coming out of the box.
Overall, I feel like this is a quality knife, and a great entry level option into the balisong world, where quality options under $200 are almost non existant. I definitely wouldn't say Bear and Son/ Bear Ops have redeemed their reputation with this release, but a few more solid renditions such as this may give people a reason to give them another chance.
