Trigger Guard Modification & Inletted:

The original trigger guard was rather bulky for this youth rifle and was not in character for this Virginia rifle. 

Since I did have a Grandstaff trigger guard that I had repaired and keep it in my shop for reference, I decided to modify this trigger guard to resemble the Grandstaff guard.

With a lot of filing, this is what I ended up with.

Not perfect, but we do not want perfection as I only wanted to typify the guard, not copy it totally.

Before I could inlet the guard, I had to shape the  forearm belly and lay out both the lock side panel and the opposite side of the stock. 

To do this, I removed the lock and laid a piece of paper on to the lock area and traced out the lock panel area after I removed the surrounding wood. Then I cut out the traced paper and laid it on the other side of the stock. Traced out the wood and removed the surrounding wood.

After the wood was removed I divided the belly of the forearm into fifths and started rounding the belly. This will be the area where the trigger guard will be installed.

Here I held the guard up to the stock for fit.

Here you can see the roundness of the belly and the locations where I marked the slots to be drilled to for the triggerguard tabs to be inletted into the stock. I measured the thickness of the tabs, and matched this to my drill bit. Using tape on the bit, I drilled to the depth of the tabs.  Once the holes were drilled and slots cleaned out, the guard was inlet to a depth of 1/32". The forward tab was drilled and pinned with a 1/16" pin and then the rear tab was drilled and pinned the same way.

For kicks and giggles, I started shaping the butt stock, too.

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