Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the Atropos Trapper.

This rather dapper (rhymes with Trapper) balisong has asymmetrical handles that…

…Wait. What the hell?

The Trapper isn’t a balisong at all. And it’s not quite a gravity knife, either. It’s like somebody stuck an Opinel and a balisong in that machine from The Fly, slathered it in beard wax, and this is what came out the other side.

I guess you could call it some kind of handle locker? The Trapper actually has no real mechanical lock at all, but when the handle halves are separated the blade freely pivots and falls out the front. Once deployed, it is held in place by way of a cross-pin that engages with its heel when you bring the handles back together. Your grip on the handle halves serves as the “lock,” and as long as you’re holding the handle the blade’s not going anywhere.

The cross pin is through this large brass thumb screw, which theoretically adjusts the tension on that C shaped flap of brass that ever so lightly touches the larger of the two handle halves and keeps them together with just a kiss of friction.

Atropos Knives – or rather, Atroposknife as they seem to render themselves – is a Russian company that makes a variety of mostly balisongs. Several of which are indeed quite funky. They also make a couple of leather products. Their entire jam looks quite hipster, but this is easily the funkiest thing in their entire lineup.

Well, it was, anyway. The Trapper now appears to be discontinued.

The numbers. The Trapper is 4-5/8" long exactly when closed, and 8-1/4" opened. The 3-7/16" blade has a drop point profile with a full flat grind, made of D2. For some absolutely unfathomable reason there is a fingernail nick in the blade as well, although this doesn’t help you open it in any meaningful way nor is it actually necessary. The whole knife is quite broad as well, about 1-1/8" across. The thickness measurement is confounded somewhat by not only the clip, but by that weird thumb screw sticking out of one side. But without either of those it is precisely 0.30" thick. That is, three tenths.

The handle profile is completely rounded over the edges and is made of aluminum with a satin finish that feels very nice in the hand. The entire ensemble weighs 71.8 grams or 2.53 ounces. It’s very lightweight.

There is a pocket clip on it as you can see which is either titanium or aluminum very carefully bead blasted to look like titanium. It works okay but it’s rather short, and if you pluck it you’ll get a note like plonking a leaf on a rumba box.

Carrying it in your pocket is theoretically a fraught undertaking because like I mentioned earlier it doesn’t really latch shut in any way. It looks like the brass thingy should be able to fold over and hook the opposite side or something, but it doesn’t move and it wouldn’t be long enough anyway. The possibility, then, of this just falling open in your pocket presents itself.

Luckily it came with this stitched leather pouch, which doesn’t feature a belt loop or closure or anything, but might help you slip it into the pocket of your flannel shirt. The color is not an optical illusion in that picture, by the way. The leather really is dyed a deep forest green.

The Trapper is deceptively small. It’s rather svelte, and I think it gives off an art deco kind of vibe. Compared to the usual CQC-6K here you can see that it’s not really much longer, and is actually shorter than a typical balisong knife.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This thing is cool.

Impractical, not terribly utilitarian, and devilishly strange to manipulate, but cool. It is just possible at the outside with sufficient practice and skill you could open and close this one handed. But I’m not about to invest the effort, or the blood. This is for looking at, not for using.