Removing the keeper spring from the sheath...

[mikeythebull]

I couldn't find where this had been outlined here on the forums before, forgive me if I missed it somewhere and it's already been covered. As I'm sure all you Buck 184 owners know, the keeper spring in the sheath leaves some ugly marks on the blade after more than a few insertions. As part of the KG Gunkote service I offer, I get a lot of requests from customers to either remove the keeper spring or tell them how to do it so that their newly coated blade doesn't get marked up. If you remove the two screws on the back of the sheath which attach the nylon webbing/belt loop, you'll find a small round "glob" of plastic. There's a square plastic clip just inside the throat of the sheath which holds the metal spring in place, and it's simply pushed through the back and melted into place. If you take a 1/4" drill bit or small grinding stone to that melted glob, and carefully drill in about 3/16", you can pop that plastic clip out, and with it the metal spring should fall out. I've found this procedure to be the cleanest one, very little damage is done to the sheath, and once you reinstall the nylon webbing/belt loop it covers up the hole you've drilled. And if you prefer the way it looks, you can apply a small amount of epoxy to the plastic clip and reinstall it back into the throat of the sheath. The trickiest part of the whole thing is not to let the drill get away from you, even that's not a big deal, and it gets covered up anyways. Hopefully someone finds this a useful tip.

[porterkids]

The only problem is that without the spring the knife will fall out of the scabbard if it is inverted.

[mikeythebull]

Yes, absolutely, it will fall out much easier, you'll have to keep the strap snapped in for sure when it's not in use. I'm not suggesting that everyone do this, I just had enough people ask me about it that I thought others on here might be interested.