Finished my combo project - trigger safety work and new recojl pad

I was excited last weekend to spend some time finalizing this project. It needed the trigger bars reshaped to properly the Greener safety and not wedge against it in the post firing position. Some fine file work solved this issue. Thinking I was finished I gave the rifle a once over. To my surprise i found that some sort of bug has been eating on the buffalo horn recoil plate, putting little worm holes through it. I decided given its age and condition that i would replace the pad with a Pachmayr 500B presentation basketweave pad. First decision was to sand stock flat or build a spacer and grind to fit the curve. I went with a third option which was heating the pad with a heat gun and bend to match curve. I did this and it was surprisingly easy. Mounted pad on rifle and taped off stock. Used a belt sander held in a vice to grind the bulk of the excess pad from the edges. It takes time and you have to be patient. I got the edges down to the two tape lines so i peeled one layer back and hand sanded with fine paper the least 5%. I think it turned Out great, i will know later in the week when I get it all back together. I am gluing dowels in the old screw holes to fill them in. I just need to polish the pad edges when finished

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