Hey Gaston. Do you carry your Model 12 in a Gerber BMF sheath?
Yes, but the fit is a bit tight in the blade width: It will produce small rubber shavings for a while... It does work very well (including using the snap almost as is), as the BMF sheath is entirely made of some kind of rubber-like structure, so there is nothing hard to touch the blade, and the blade is never dulled in the least from the contact.
I considered the Gerber sheath superior to the original Randall brown leather sheath, which absorbs water like a sponge, and loses its neat appearance -forever- in one hour of exposure to rain (the leather also eventually softens out of shape)... The black finished Randall sheaths are infinitely more water-resistant, almost like plastic, and seem completely impervious to water, like almost no other leather I have seen, including other black dyed sheaths... In general black dyed sheaths do much better in rain than brown leather, due to the sealant that prevents the dye from staining on you. The Randall black dye sheaths are something else however...: They are dyed right through the full thickness of the leather, which I have never seen done elsewhere, and this seems to enhance the water-resistance even further...
I later modified the BMF sheath to take a very high-quality old 10" blade Buckmaster clone made in Japan (adding a rigid "extension" at the sheath's mouth, and moving the snap up for the extra inch). That turned out extremely well, even if the "clone" is very heavy, but the Randall was now sheathless, so I sold it as I needed the money. There was nothing wrong with the Model 12 or its performance, it just did not fit in the general style of "big" knives that I own, which I like loaded down with extra features... It never failed, or showed the slightest manufacturing defect. I would also like to say my Model 12 was built to
much tighter tolerances than the other Randalls that I owned: Its symmetry, grinds, fit and finish was far, far superior to my other 3 Randalls: 18-14 and Clinton. I was not happy with the workmanship on my other 3 Randalls, especially the Model 18 which had a completely misaligned wonky guard (something truly horrible), and the Model 14, which needed heavy re-working and re-grinding to be even remotely acceptable, starting out with a boat-like point so dull it could only be used for sheathless knife sparring...
The Model 12 seemed on completely another level of build quality: No comparison at all... All 4 of my Randalls were of recent vintage and new from the same accredited dealer.
The only thing that ever happened to the Model 12 was that, after thousands of chops, the silver soldering around the guard cracked and flaked away: This had no consequence except a very, very slight vibration perceptible in the guard: I ran some thin crazy glue where the soldering had flaked off, and the guard was again perfectly vibration free. The edge-holding was among the very best I ever experienced, with more work put on it than any other knife I owned. It was really the perfect knife, except for the original shape of the Commando handle, which was horribly oversized before I had it re-shaped... I would recommend the finger-grooved models, which look very comfortable...
Gaston