Have you ever thought about all the beautiful Recurves that were destroyed years ago back in the 70's?

After the compounds came out, a company was started where you could buy a kit and cutoff the ends of your Recurves and attach bracketts to the ends of your Bow and install Heaven forbid wheels too all of those Beautiful Recurves!

What a shame, I just wanted to let some of our younger Archers to know about this little bit of Archery History!

Good Day to all of my Archery Friends!

Ole thumper Tom Sr

BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!

Ouch! I didnt know that... does anyone have any of these old recurves that were cut up and converted? JW

I wonder if anybody did it to a 59 Kodiak. There's a good example where progress isn't always a good thing. What a shame. Good thing some guys had the foresight not to jump on the compound band wagon. My hats off to anyone who never went to the compound bow.

Actually some companies first compounds were exactly that! Cut off recurves with "wheel" brackets on the ends. Darton and Browning are two I recall.

A lot of archery gear has been and will continue to be destroyed in the relentless pursuit of perfect arrow flight. While those recurves made the ultimate sacrifice and are no longer with us. Such sacrifice is necessary for archery to evolve.

Just like all those beautiful Fords and Chevies from the 50's and 60's that met the crusher and were turned into Hyundais! Yecc!!

Bjorn,Or ended up on the stock car track!

I believe Allen Archery offered the conversion kits in the mid-late 70's. You cut off the limb nocks and attached hanger brackets. I love the way things have come full circle with guys now warfing compounds to make them recurves.

COMPOUNDS ARE A PASSING FAD!

Frank

Harold Groves at Groves archery had a compound conversion kit around 1975. You could send him your recurve and he would cut the limbs and install the brackets, wheel and cables for around $50.00. My buddy did it and it didn't shoot so good as I remember.

And now we take old compound risers, warf them, and put recurve limbs on them. What goes around comes around

My Wife found one at a garage sale last weekend, It's a nice Damon Howatt with a stripe down the middle. I'll post a pic later.

Back in the day, if you had a warehouse full of recurves that wern't selling and people wanted compounds, what would you do? Indian Archery sold converted recurves in the late '70s, also.

If you live around the Allegheny/Westmoreland County areas of Southwestern Pennsylvania, running into chopped and compounded BlackHawk/Cravotta Brothers recurves is quite common. I've seen quite a few; most look barely used. Where I see them, though, is NOT at shoots or Archery events, but on tables at swap meets, with rather high asking prices. I've been told countless times by sellers that they are/were "antique and collectable pieces of Archery history, ((hence the prices)) that SHOULD NOT be shot now"...! (BlackHawk/Cravotta Brothers was based in McKeesport, eastern Allegheny County, close to the Westmoreland County line.)

I put my Herters sitka recurve in the attic of my folks house when I got my "new" allen compound in 76. Herters sold one of those kits, but that was not as "ccol" as the original allen. S sometime later my sister threw the old herters out with my old Outdoor life collection. Still mskes me sick to think about it........

Why are auto "chop shops" illegal while recurve bow "chopshops" are/were allowed to exist?

Wheely? I didn't know that either.

I think there is one in the local shop. I still have a Cravatta bros bow. Not cut but whole. Too bad, but it did happen

Here's a pic or two!

I don't know if I'm going to be sick or just have nightmares for the rest of my life. I had not known that and wish I didn't now.

Agreed...

I was alive back then and witnessed it and thought it a shape. I had almost gotten the sacrilege. Now I will be haunted by it another 40 years. J/K

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