By Rean Steenkamp

At the traditional shoot that was recently held close to Pretoria I noticed a very interesting take-down recurve design. Without any adjustments the bow could be shot from the left or the right hand.

While I was visiting Derek Nourse’s tent to buy my little daughter a fibre glass longbow, Deon Begemann told me he recently built a children’s recurve bow. When he brought me the bow to see, I was much impressed, since I noticed that the bow could be shot with either the right of the left hand. He also showed me a 50 pound bow of the same design he made for himself.

Deon’s take down design is basically the same as any other take down recurve. The only exception is that it has a fairly straight grip in the centre of the riser, with (and here is the big difference) an arrow shelve on both sides of the grip. Both arrow shelves are on the same side of the riser, with the opposite side of the riser made extra strong. This is to compensate for the two arrow shelves on the other side of the riser.

This is an excellent bow to have when introducing people to archery. The take-down design makes it possible to use different limbs, depending on the strength of the trainee, and the two arrow shelves can accommodate left and right hand shooters. With three sets of limbs and one riser one can accommodate nearly any archer.