Chiappa Little Badger - Wood Forend Grip

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RMStyler

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So I love the Little Badger. I bought it as a dispatching gun for trapping and it is an absolute perfect backpack gun. But I have always hated the cheap plastic pic rails they put on the forend. When I first got the Badger I just took the plastic off. I wasn't happy with that and the ugly open screw holes. I needed a fix. I've see many others post pictures on the internets, but nothing that I liked.

My brother does wood working and has a wood lathe, so I bought him a chunk of walnut and told him to make me something...This is what he came up with and I love it. Inspired by the Ithica model 37's corn cob slide. He also does photography...that's why the photos are fancy hahaha.









Finish is boiled linseed oil. Installation was easy. Take off the plastic thread protector, use an Allen key to remove the setscrew and front sight (setscrew indexes into a hole so the sight will relocate on reassembly). Slip the grip on, use the three factory screws and holes in the bottom, reinstall sight. Beauty!!!



Let me know what you think. I told my brother that he should make more and sell them. ...but would people pay to add this to a $180 gun? I was a thinking $50... sounds steep, but this takes material, time and a proper finish. Not mass produced in China. He could do some different shapes, different wood, different finish...whatever floats your boat.
 
Looks very nice. $50 seems reasonable to me; perhaps also offer unfinished items for a bit less. Do it in black walnut for a tacticool look and you'll sell a ton of them :)
 
Looks pretty good, you might as well get him to make you a little walnut grip improvement to cover the rail by the trigger guard.
 
That looks cool, any way you could do a wood butt pad to match, replace the steel or plastic one, just the end piece.
 
Can he put in a slot to allow the release tang and trigger guard to nestle down into the wood for a tighter fold? Other than this little niggle it looks great.
 
Chiappa sells a full wood version now but it sort of defeats the purpose of a minimal folding rimfire. The peep sight is OK but the front sight is pretty lame, it would be nice if someone after marketed better sights with an option for changing out the front to what ever preference the shooter has. I've found these guns to be quite accurate and worthy of scope mounting options as well.

A shorter version of this would be nice, doesn't need to be a full grip just something to get 2 fingers on like a baby glock....... :)

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The little badger is a popular gun to modify and there are some pretty cool creations out there along with some crazy stuff.

Here's another smaller grip.

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Thanks for the input guys.

It currently folds to about the same size as factory. It still easily fits in the bag it came it. I also thought about a hole for the break lever to go into, but it doesn't fold much further. Even bare, the trigger guard hits steel pretty quickly. I was more thinking about it not scratching the wood.

Can-down. I do like those trigger grips. The one the barrel nests into is neat. I'll get my bro to start on that next. Haha.

The front sight could certainly be improved. But I still think the sight arrangement is decent for what you pay for. And with some time behind the trigger you get use to it. It certainly seems robust enough. I carry this thing around in a backpack and give it some good bouncing around. I figured the front or back sight would break in the first year and I wound need a replacement...but so far so good. And for the price, it is what it is. Just look at the bulls#it sights keltec has been giving us on the sub 2000 (yes, gen 1 and 2!) ...and the Badgers front sight would be a hell of a lot easier to swap out.

I also thought about some sort of butt stock. It would be tough to do and not defeat the whole point of a small, light backpack gun. That one requires some thinking. And I can't get too carried away or I may as well buy a 10/22 breakdown. (did you guys see that hogue is now making 10/22 breakdown stocks...again with out the barrel band..I may have to go get one now anyways.)

Otherwise, we have some other ideas for different grip shapes. One was the shape of an old m16 grip. Or tactical looking...drill some holes in it for "heat disapation". ;)
 
I added a small dab of white paint to the top of the plastic front sight blade and it really helped the sight picture for me..... I've considered carving out a concave radius along the top and glueing a small fibre optic rod in as well but mostly I've been running a small red dot.
 
I like that two finger grip option. Done in a nice looking wood with the turned forestock from the first post this would make for a really slick looking folder!
 
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