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Microtech Tachyon
A tachyon is a particle that travels faster than light, which physicists consider hypothetical and balisong flippers consider a design brief. The Microtech Tachyon is the company's butterfly knife, a line running from the original Tachyon of 2000 through the Tachyon II of 2012 to the Tachyon III, the 2015 re-engineering that many flippers still treat as a benchmark for production balisongs.
It is machined in the USA with the same obsession as the rest of the Microtech lineup, which is exactly why examples on this page rarely stay long.
Tachyon III Flipping Hardware
The handles are single-piece channel construction milled from 6061-T6 aluminum, so there is no liner flex and nothing to loosen. The pivots ride a ceramic ball bearing race with Viton O-rings for load dampening and heat-treated stainless retainer plates, an assembly that eliminates handle play while letting the knife rotate almost frictionlessly. A spring latch keeps it closed, and a stainless spring pocket clip is designed to stay out of the way while you flip, solving the problem balisongs have carried forever: how to clip a knife you also need to spin freely. An adjustment tool comes in the box.
The Tachyon III Blade in Elmax
The 4.5-inch clip point bowie wears a traditional Marfione fuller and a swedge-ground tip, ground from Bohler Elmax in a 10-inch package that weighs about 4 ounces. Elmax is a powder steel Microtech has long trusted in its automatics; our comparison of every major knife steel shows why that is a serious choice for a knife that gets dropped for a living. The model has also run as an unsharpened trainer, also in Elmax, so new flippers can learn without donating fingertips.
Why Flippers Rate the Microtech Tachyon III
Production balisongs with custom-grade hardware are rare, and American-made ones rarer still. With production runs long gone from most retailers, the Tachyon III now moves like a collectible: what lands on this page is what exists, and Marfione Custom versions sit at the very top of the range. If one is here and you have wanted one, that is the whole decision.
