-Has My Balisong King Been Dethroned__ - Squid Industries Nautilus V2 REVIEW.

Hey there, mommy dads. This is a bally short that I'm actually going to try to make short. So we're talking quick gags, quick jokes. If you're not quick, you're gone. Brandon Clone, make a joke. My existence is pointless. Too slow. Better luck next time. So those that know me know that the Nautilus V1 has been one of my absolute favorite balisongs I've ever owned. It's been my favorite balisong trainer to learn tricks on, which, as you can see in the B-roll, I still have a lot to learn. Will and I think that it flips great, it looks sick, and I've personally customized mine a ton, as you can see. Also, these are GliderCo scales, but they're not actively making them, so don't bug them about it. They're very cool, though. But in the last several months that the Nautilus V1 was being made, it seemed to start having a lot of durability and tuning issues for a lot of people, even if you were a brand new customer. Have those been fixed with the V2? And should you buy this or not? Yeah, I get it. It's a joke. It's a funny joke. Unboxing. They have a new box design, and it has a little pull tab, so just a little poop, the balisong slides out, and the box is a lot more sturdy, and it's sparkly. Look at the shininess, Will. Look what you're special. It comes with a sticker and a sheet. While the new box is cool, personally, I'd rather take the old, probably cheaper box design and instead of them include some kind of adjustment tool, like the little key chain, little Torx bit that they sell, especially for their higher end stuff. So that gives it a six out of 10. Then we have tuning. It runs on bushings, and mine came with great swing out of the box. However, it does come very lock-tighted. Squid Industries does this to make sure that their factory tune holds, but if you have issues, it can be very difficult to undo, so make sure that you have a good Torx bit handy. Handy. No. Do know that you have to put Torx drivers on both sides for it to properly tighten. I've replaced the scales on this many times, and it was always easy, thankfully, to get this back to pretty much no tap whenever I was using the standard Squid Industries scales. The bottom screws do affect tap if they're not properly tightened, so keep that in mind, but overall, it's a pretty good experience. So we give it an eight out of 10. And speaking of scales, you might be wondering, why the **** isn't it black and red? Stay tuned. Now for the big, important topic, and why this video might not be as short as I dreamed it would. Let's talk about Nautilus durability. So here's the scoop about the Nautilus V1. More people than normal in the community had a lot of problems, mostly within the last six to eight months, mainly with tolerance, blade rub, and handle gap issues. After I did a poll on my Instagram that showed that nearly half of people that responded had some kind of issue, I reached out to specifically Lucas, the founder and CEO of Squid Industries, to get his inside scoop on this. The short version is, Squid Industries made a big move to making pretty much all of their hardware and balisong parts themselves in-house. That came with a bunch of new challenges that affected the quality control that took them a lot of time to get properly sorted. Issues with tang pins led to handle gap issues. They switched to pre-applied Loctite, which made it develop tap a lot easier than they expected and made it harder to tune to no tap. They've also ramped up the amount that they're producing by a lot, which of course can make it more difficult to properly QC everything that's being shipped out. I haven't had any problems in the year that I've had my Nautilus V1, which does include multiple hardware revisions and replacements, and me just ******* with it a lot. Now, if you've had a lot of issues with the Nautilus V1, you have every right to be upset. I know how I would feel because these things cost quite a bit. And if you've sent your Nautilus in for repairs and it came back with the same issues? That sucks. And that's something Squid Industries definitely needs to improve on. But after talking with Lucas about the issues that the Nautilus V1 has had, they are really taking all that feedback and have certainly taken note of how many Nautiluses have come in for warranty repair. Having met so many of the guys over there, they do genuinely have really great customer service and a solid warranty. So if you've had issues, send it in for repair. And if they don't fix your problem, boy, do I have an army of Brandon clones locked and loaded that will do essentially nothing at all to help because they're all pacifists and kind of little bitches. So back to the Nautilus V2, it's been upgraded to 7075 aluminum, which just means that it's roughly twice as strong as 6061, which is what was used in the previous version. The G10 scales are the same as what was on the V1 and are pretty durable, but can get roughed up more easily than metal can. I've specifically durability tested the crap out of this thing. Montage! Yeah, that's essentially no tap. And there's the play. Thankfully, I haven't seen any handle gap problems develop or had issues with tap in the nearly two months that I've owned it and actively flipped it. Note though, that if you have the white scales, they do tend to absorb other colors very easily. It's not that hard to clean, but if you're worried about that, probably go with just black scales. Overall, though, I have faith that mine's going to hold up for a long time, just as my previous one has. And I really hope that other customers have the same experience as me. And I definitely hope that Squid can follow through on everything that they communicated to me and that they are really working to get a hold of any kind of quality control issues that they have. After talking with Lucas, while yes, the number of people having issues has certainly increased, that really hasn't been disproportionate to the number of units that they're shipping. So the actual percentage of customers having issues is still relatively low. But with the Nautilus V1 specifically, they did go through a bunch of different speed bumps that they hopefully won't go through in the future. And if they do, we're watching. As for flippability, YAHOO! That's my line! Not much has changed over the V1. However, it remains one of the most fun battle songs that I have and is by far the grippiest. It just kind of has most of what you would need, from the grippy texture to the cool hole pattern. It has a good handle bias nature. And now, jimping. The weight is very light at 3.6 ounces and is actually the lightest metal battle song that I own, but it does make it very agile. And again, for me, who still has a lot to learn in terms of battle song tricks, and I'm getting there! Ooh! Do it again! Ooh! I kinda did it! Your leg's to the side! Come on! I'm still, this is the most I've ever gone! This is literally the most I have not fucked up. Wow. Okay. That's literally the best I've done with that. So yeah, it's been one of my favorite battle songs to train on. However, the jimping isn't that well implemented in terms of how it's recessed in the handles the way that it is, and it isn't as effective as it could be. It would have been improved if it was actually worked into the actual scales themselves, but it is there and it does help. Also, in my original Nautilus review, I praised the bite handle indicator, which looks very cool. Over time, I've found that it only really digs into your finger during chaplains or certain rollover kinds of tricks. In conclusion, it's one of the best battle songs to learn on by far. And while the light weight takes getting used to, I really enjoy it. But this channel is called Will Hirsch for a reason. What do you think, MrWillHirsch.gay? Well, Sonny, it's good. It flipped good. Personally, for me, I think it's a trainer that's very compelling. You know, the G10 adds a lot of grip. The problem is with this kind of battle song is that traditionally speaking, when you add G10 to a knife, it makes you feel like it should cost less. But the thing is that G10 isn't a cheap material. It's just cheaper than titanium. By comparison, the reason that something like this is less expensive than this is actually because this is all one material and aluminum is slippery in nature. And so to fix that, you have to add a lot of texturization stuff. Honestly, the design here of adding that G10 adds a really, really good amount of grip that you just don't normally get with aluminum. Adding the G10 makes it cost more because you've got to machine the G10 and the aluminum separately. I honestly like this better for training than something like a fully aluminum knife because of that slippery factor, because I really do like it. I just have a bunch of other battle songs that are... I haven't seen them before. While I would like to have a Nautilus, it is a pretty penny. And so if I had one that was the right colorway and spoke to me, I think that would do it. So changing the color of the scales, like I have, might push you in the right direction. Absolutely. And that might factor into the scores that we got coming up right after something. So after all that, we give the Flipability a 9 out of 10. A quick ASMR test. There you go. We're here for the people. All right, Brando, this thing's looking real cool, but can I buy it? Shockingly, oh yeah. It's available every week and in shockingly large quantities. They drop between 50 to 100 Nautiluses per week on average and have pretty much every color variation available very regularly and are much more available than they used to be. And they maintain most of their stock throughout most of the week. So you don't have to be there the second that it drops. And that's not just for the Nautilus. That's like all of their products minus the Tsunami. So this does make Squid Industries one of the most consistent high-end balisong makers in the business and makes the availability of this worth a 9 out of 10. Also they do ship internationally, but as always, the score is based on shipping in North America, the land of the free, the free. Alrighty then, Value Time, the most fun and interesting score for us to figure out. It's the most expensive aluminum trainer that Squid Industries offers. At a starting price of $230, that can be a tough sell for a G10 and aluminum balisong. However, as Will mentioned earlier, there's a lot that goes into this that makes it a pretty decent package. And with the flipping performance on offer, the wide variety of customization options that you can do, and modding possibilities, we think it's a pretty damn solid offering. Especially since they barely increased the price, even with the upgrade to the 7075 aluminum. And to finally answer the very important question that you definitely asked, why isn't this black and red? You traitorous scoundrel! To that I'd say, A, you kind of sound like one of my ex-girlfriends, and B, because the customization options are pretty sick. I was particularly excited by 3D printed plastic ones, but it turns out plastic doesn't like getting hardcore cranked like a bushing balisong requires. I wanted to do a pride one. I had this color, and this color, and this color, and I wanted to do that, and I hope I can in the future. If you've got a bunch of different colors available, let me know. I want results. I want the results! So at $230, starting price, I totally get how this can be a tough sell for a lot of different people. But the flipping performance and customization makes it a really unique offering, so we think that it's a good value. 7 out of 10. FINAL SCORE TIME! Keep in mind that when it comes to the final score, if you want to compare and contrast different balisongs on the BS score list, look at the individual scores. The final score is only meant to show very roughly what balisongs generally score higher or lower. Anyway, the final score is a 47 out of 60, which makes it score pretty highly overall. There are a few key competitors to this, most notably, Squid's own Crack-A-Rackin' trainer. And to the weirdly shocking number of people I've seen that call the Crack-A-Rackin' trainer absolute trash and that you should never touch it or buy it, I would love to know what kind of spicy chick-fil-a sauce you're injecting directly into your bloodstream, because that is a hot take of an opinion. The balance is very slightly different on the trainer compared to the Live Blade version, but not at all enough to make it bad by any stretch of the imagination. So should you buy a Nautilus V2? If you like the look and the customization options, and don't mind the feel of G10, to me, it's one of the best balisongs on the market. But of course, like I said earlier, there's a lot of great competition these days, including much cheaper options from people like MachineWise with the Prisma, or Glider with the Antarctic, and even Chinese companies like Nebalis. But nearly all of the other G10 and aluminum balisongs I've tried, and we've gotten a lot of them from the Amazon wormhole, there's really nothing that comes close to this. However, if you want a more standard experience, I'd say the Crack-A-Rackin' trainer is probably the safer bet. And if you have a Nautilus V1 that's holding up great like mine is, I wouldn't say that this is worth the upgrade unless you really want the 7075 aluminum and subpar jimping. Or you wanted black handles so you could customize it more, which is the reason that I bought this. And of course, to review it for lovely folk like you. Well, Mr. Brandon Baker and I are straight, don't we have an affiliate code with Squid Industries that means that like nothing that we say is valid? That's an excellent question, boy who is suddenly a frog. That is a genuinely valid concern considering we're reviewing one of their products. I can assure you though that nothing we've said is affected by that discount, and as I did in this review, I'm going to call it Squid Industries and talk about any issues that I have with them just as I would with any other company. And if this thing sucked and they really fucked up, we'd probably be the first people to tell you. But that code does really help support us, so consider using it if you want to pick one of these up. Check the description for the most up-to-date code, or use that link right there. Thank you so much to our Patreon supporters, our Patreon people are absolutely incredible. If you want to support us, it's just as little as $3 a month, and that goes a long way in terms of helping us produce more of these crazy reviews. So thank you so much to those guys, and if you're just a regular viewer, thank you for that, we love having you here, we love making these videos, and it's surreal that we get to do this as regularly as we do, so thank you for watching, it means a ton. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to contemplate doing a gun gag because the world that we live in is kind of crazy. So instead, I am going to chug an entire milliliter of Mountain Dew from a willhirstotgay mug for 40 minutes.