It will stay in,but it does rattle a little without the lanyard attached.I removed my lanyard but ended up redoing everything back to the way it was because the rattling was bugging me. Given my time back,I would have just removed the scale and taken the lanyard and pin as a complete unit and lived with the hole in the handle.It's just a standard hangmans noose....but it's a bugger to retie just right.