I am considering drilling out the backspacer like swiss cheese-- assuming it's not hardened.
Or perhaps milling it down into a pair of pillar-like standoffs.
Are there aftermarket G10 backspacers available yet?
Or has anyone tried to scavenge standoffs from other knives?
I don't know about the Shaman; it's a great knife I just haven't bought one yet.
Allow me to relate one experience I had with a some what similar knife.
The Benchmade 710 special edition with M390. The original 710 came with a back spacer. The special addition they went with blue standoffs and eliminated the back spacer. If you look inside the knife at the steel liners you can see a little hole where the back spacer used to be connected.
Let me back up a bit and say this was a very important purchase for me. It was my main Christmas present for that year and I planned on carrying this knife a whole bunch because of the good blade length for me and the superior M390 steel and the handle profile is just great for me as well. I just really like this knife.
Fast forward to a month or so after I started carrying it. I all but stopped carrying it after that.
Why ?
The action is all screwed up. It has an axis lock that in it's self works very well for me; especially in my other Benchmades.
But
This particular model of 710 has very inconsistent pivot action. When the knife is cool (room temp) it pivots nice and swings free. After being carried a while (body temp) it binds up and doesn't swing nice. it still opens very quick but closing sucks compared to my Ritter Grip and my 940-1 CF.
What's causing this ?
Through discussions here on the forums and with the help of Benchmade's rep here I think we traced it to the swap of the back spacer for the two posts.
As far as getting spacers Benchmade refused to sell me one more blue spacer to place where the little hole in the liner is to finish bracing up the liners / structure of the knife.
I have varied pivot adjustment and can even eliminate or change the problem by varying the pattern of tightness on the spacer screws.
So
What I'm recommending is :
Don't mod the spacer (at least not at first).
Try swapping it out for standoffs and see how it goes. If that messes with the action of the knife you can then put the spacer back in.
It the stand offs work then you could drill the spacer and probably be OK depending on which you ultimately prefer.
