Steve - Somewhere on this computer or my previous computer, I have a photograph of a bow that is very similar in design and materials to this shoot through the hole in the middle of the riser flight bow. This design is really not that uncommon.
The shoot through the hole in the middle of the riser design dates back to the 1800's in American bow designs. The earliest of this design that am aware of is a 3-piece take apart. They have a metal handle with a hole above the grip, and sockets to accept the wooden limbs.
Over the past 130 years, many different bows were made utilizing this basic design. The earliest reference I have are two bows with the patent date referenced as 1878. These bows are an adult model and a youth model. In addition to the metal handle with an arrow hole and wooden limbs, they both also incorporate metal nocks that were cast in the horn-style design.
This same basic design was utilized in the 1930s and incorporated the additional idea of slot above the arrow hole to accommodate an adjustable sight. It too has metal horn-style nocks.
The shoot through a hole design was further enhanced during the 1950s when arrow holders were incorporated into an enlarged hole in the metal handle... creating what I affectionately refer to as the…
“Repeating Recurve”
The inventor called it "Repeating Shot Archery Bow with Double Sight". Another unique feature of this bow design is that it had an optional front and rear sights (not shown in photograph below), I'm not a sight shooter.
It has also been called the “Gatling Bow”, but as you can see, this bow bears little resemblance or functionally to the Civil War era field weapon of R.J. Gatling, which used multiple rotating barrels turned by a hand crank, and fired loose metal cartridge ammunition using a gravity feed system from a hopper.
“Repeating Recurve” is the best descriptive name I have come up with. Perhaps someone can come up with a name that better describes its appearance or functionally.
This is also the 50th birthday / anniversary of this bow. Its inventor was granted a patent for it in 1959.
As Rodney Dangerfield would say, "Show some respect", if you have a suggest name.
Happy 50th, "Repeating Recurve"...
Radically different than Fred's 1959 Kodiak.
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