New member, First time gun owner

[Patrick Chadwick]

My original plans were to take this and my wife's 1937 Mosin-Nagant in for custom thumbhole stocks

OMG NOOOO!!!!

Ok it's your rifle, and you can do whatever you like with it - use it to dig the garden etc. At the moment, it looks like a professionally sporterized rifle. Start messing around with any more alterations (other than restoring the original configuration) and you will be spending money in order to devalue it. Pleeeease don't do that!