Thanks for all of the info everyone.
Should I keep going or start over? Yes, I'm a little disheartened.
I remember someone looking for "stencils" and it seemed like everyone wanted that person to draw it himself. I drew a couple of carvings and kind of liked the simple one I came up with. I guess I could always file it smooth and start over. I just didn't want to build another "smooth" rifle. I think they look great, but I have nothing but time and enjoy it actually.
That is a natural reaction, I think, but don't be too disheartened and don't pick up that rasp just yet. I think you are doing pretty well, overall. A lot of folks won't even try...
I really, really don't want to be the person giving you design advice, as I've only carved one rifle, about twenty years ago, which was mediocre at best, and my recent attempts at carving war clubs produced, um, mixed results...Having said that, how about something like this? It could probably be improved and finessed a bit (Ignore that little blob over at the 3 o'clock if you want - I was thinking about what could be done with the extra wood there, and the ink I was using for visibility couldn't be erased.)
That keeps your original design more or less, reshapes your leaves, and improves the taper of your C-scroll, at least to my eyes. I'd leave off that inside volute that you've only drawn in, but that is just me. Hopefully someone who actually knows what they are doing will chime in...
In any case, one of the really nice things about relief carving is that you can rework and refine things as you go along - lots of room to fix mistakes, really. Easier than incised carving and much easier than checkering in that respect...
The cheekpiece moldings and the two volutes you did last night are quite nice, BTW.