# My Newly Modified Recurve Grips



## Guest (May 7, 2007)

You might consider going back to the original thread and looking at the examples there

Art


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## Progen (Mar 17, 2006)

Corsair, if you reread limbwalker's post in the B.E.S.T. recurve grip thread, post #5, you'll notice the first line says that it's NOT symmetrical.



Mr Magera said:


> The left side is higher than the right, for a RH archer. And the edge of the grip follows the lifeline. This design puts the pressure point at the base of the thumb.


I haven't used or seen it in real life yet but it would appear to me that the base of the grip would be in contact with the lowest joint (in the palm itself) of your thumb.


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

*Progen and artv*

*bownut-tl *suggested I have a look at the section on the Texas Archery website on how to modify grips which I did, and I sort of followed those instructions to arrive at the present shape, which doesn't look too much like the beautiful grips shown in the original thread (which I had read).

The centre of pressure seems to be at the base of my thmb pad so maybe I'm not far off.


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## Progen (Mar 17, 2006)

You have to be as totally unbiased during the new few weeks because it's all too easy to convince ourselves that something we made's the perfect choice. :wink: 

Shoot some, think some, shoot some, think again, maybe sand it down a bit, shoot again, think again, maybe sand it down some more, shoot again, think about it and maybe build the putty up and start again.

It's a long process and although I haven't done it myself, I believe putty or epoxy's a way better alternative to tape which absorbs sweat, stinks after a while and moves on you too.


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

Progen

Thanks for the warnings. I will be taking my time with it, no problem.

For me the two big issues are comfort and repeatability of hand location.

Hope I get it right


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

OK - I've finished rough sanding of the grips and here's what they look like (scratches and all). This is my starting position and the grip feels good in the hand, with a high wrist position and a clear location point via the ridge on the left hand side which runs down the lifeline of my left hand. I haven't shot them yet.:


































Let me know if I'm on the right track, if you'd be so kind. I'll protect myself in case.:toothy2:


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## ksarcher (May 22, 2002)

W&W NX riser.

Jager Grip made from my prototype.


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

ksarcher

He does make beautiful grips. How do you find yours?

I'm glad to see he is doing W&W grips now. Do you mind telling me the price please?

You sent him your prototype for him to copy, I presume?

Great work.


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## wfieldin (Mar 4, 2006)

*Jager Grip on INNO & HELIX*

INNO & Helix Grips from Jager, see pictures


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

*wfieldin*
Beautiful work. Just looking at your grips and those of *ksarcher*, maybe mine are a bit too wrist high at this stage. If so I'll be able to trimi them down a bit.

I gather you are happy with yours???


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## Progen (Mar 17, 2006)

Errr, wfieldin, are those little specks around the shelves of your two bows due to fletching clearance problems or were you doing some filing there?


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## Feral Donkey (Nov 6, 2005)

Keep in mind I do mostly hunting, 20 yard spots, and 3d. I'm just getting started doing field archery. This is the grip that works the best for me. I've found it works like magic for about 1 in 5 people. 2 out of the 5 can deal with it and the other 2 hate it. For me it puts the pressure of the bow right into the bones of my lower arm and I let my hand go dead like a piece of meat. I cut a radius along the edge of the riser towards where the top of the hand goes for comfort and clearance. The pic of the red bow is old and I hadn't added that yet at that time. Down towards the palm I transition it back sharp again so the shooter can feel it the same on your life line every time. Then I pad the grip and compress it with a tight wrap. This makes a comfortable, repeatable, torque free grip. Like I said, it doesn't work for everybody and you also lose a tad bit of draw length because your heeling the bow more and not stretching your hand out. It puts the pressure directly into the bones of my arm and that it's self has helped my shooting a whole bunch.


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## Progen (Mar 17, 2006)

Looks like a very low grip there, Feral. Kind of like a compound bow's kind of angle. Not exactly suitable for target recurve work. Puts quite a bit of tension on the upper part of the forearm too (especially at higher poundages) and there's not much feedback against sideway movement since it's pretty much symmetrical.


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

I did some shooting this pm with the modified grips. Conclusion - the wrist position is way too high.:mg:  

Too much strain on the hand, forcing the fingers to go tense (impossible to relax them at this angle) and a lot of strain on the forearm. NOT FUN!:mg:  

Back to the dremel again for another session.  

Musings:
Who said recurve archery was fun? And why am I, an aged, mature (?) adult doing this to myself?


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## ksarcher (May 22, 2002)

corsair,

it is a more simple and exact process using a belt sander for lowering the angle on your prototype. 

I spent no less than 6 months developing my proto and it may not be there yet. I just received the Jager grip and have had no time to test.

I did send my revised wood grip to Paul. By the way.. I used a wood repair epoxy that is MUCH better to work with than bondo.

Most of what is being discussed in this thread has been said in the thread that Limbwalker started. 

Stan


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

Hi Stan

Yes, I know of lot of this has been covered in limbwalkers thread but this is the first time I've tried to modify recurve grips and I'm still not sure of where I should be heading. I was hoping someone would see some glaring error that I'm not aware of and correct me on it.

As it stands I have very quickly learnt that the high wrist position is not for me and am going for something lower. I just can't seem to find out what the B.E.S.T. method says about grip angles, so I'll keep playing with it until it simply feels comfortable again, and to hell with theory

PS I can't find any wood repair epoxy here. The nearest thing we seem to have is this Knead It.


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## wfieldin (Mar 4, 2006)

*putty*

Corsair,
Two part plumbers epoxy works great, should be able to find it at any hardware type store.


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## Huntmaster (Jan 30, 2003)

Corsair said:


> I did some shooting this pm with the modified grips. Conclusion - the wrist position is way too high.:mg:
> 
> Too much strain on the hand, forcing the fingers to go tense (impossible to relax them at this angle) and a lot of strain on the forearm. NOT FUN!:mg:
> 
> ...


If I may make a suggestion? I've tried something like I see on your grip, and found that it only adds torqe, and that's the build up on the left side of the grip. I'd suggest taking the left side down flush with the existing grip. You'll be happier with no side torque. Take a look at the grips shown from down the grip.

Good luck


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## Progen (Mar 17, 2006)

Here, Mr Corsair, I've taken the liberty of putting the two of them together so that you can have a better comparison if Paul / John's B.E.S.T. grip is what you'd like to achieve.










Huntmaster's right. Seems like you've built up the left side too much and perhaps that's in order to achieve the high bowfingers angle that's been talked about.

Remember what I said earlier about "*Shoot some, think some, shoot some, think again, maybe sand it down a bit, shoot again, think again, maybe sand it down some more, shoot again, think about it and maybe build the putty up and start again.*" :wink: 




Mr Corsair in post #4 said:


> The centre of pressure seems to be at the base of my thmb pad so maybe I'm not far off.





Mr Corsaid again in post #15 said:


> I did some shooting this pm with the modified grips. Conclusion - the wrist position is way too high.
> 
> Too much strain on the hand, forcing the fingers to go tense (impossible to relax them at this angle) and a lot of strain on the forearm. NOT FUN!


 :teeth:

Be patient, Tom. The fact that you took the initiative to try it is one big step towards arriving at the perfect grip for your shooting style. :thumbs_up


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## st8arrow (Apr 25, 2005)

Progen and Huntmaster are right. We have to remember that the further we stray from the center line on either side, the more we are enabling torque. I know we have to achieve some short of comfort level, and positioning aid, by adding width, but it can be taken too far.

Progen has really shown this with his side by side. I think you've got a good start, you're just not through sanding.

By the way Paul's grips are very nice and quite reasonable.

Good Luck


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## Progen (Mar 17, 2006)

Looking at the comparison again, what I noticed is that the edge of the left side is way too high and confirms what I said earlier about it getting the bowhand's fingers into that high angle position but at the compromise of spreading the pressure point onto a much larger area which then magnifies any torquing.

Notice also how the grip on the left is more of a medium to medium / high grip whereas Tom's would be a fairly highly one.

No one has confirmed this yet but it'd seem to me that the contour of the Paul / John grip causes the hand to have a slight outward rotation which is why they have been saying that if you don't place your hand right, you'll know immediately.


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

*Huntmaster, Progen and st8arrow*

Thanks very much for your input. It is much appreciated. 

The reason I started this thread is that I didn't want to hi jack Limbsaver's on this very subject.

What I don't understand is this. If the high knuckle line that they were talking about on that thread is the correct way for the hand to be then the only way I can achieve that is with the type of grip I have just produced. 

My conclusion, so far, is that for my hand, this sort of knuckle line is simply not feasible because the grip to achieve it puts too much strain on the hand -that became clear very quickly. 

My problem is - what am I really trying to achieve???? If Paul/John's BEST grip is the way it is supposed to be, then that's simple - I'll just whittle mine down to that shape immediately and be done with it. Is it that simple? 

I had the impression that the Paul/John grip was just one example for a particular archer. I also read that Texas Archery article on modifying the grip and what I got from that was that the left side needed a *lot* of building up to get correct hand orientation. 

I've had a lot of experience over the years building orthopaedic grips for target pistols as I used to do a lot of that type of shooting and always when doing this my aim was to come up with a grip that suited my hand, the type of pistol being shot and my style of shooting it. It always worked well.

This is the first time I have ever tried to build a grip according to a *theory*, and it's a theory that really doesn't specify what the end product *should* be!! And it is confusing the hell out of me. 

It isn't the work involved that concerns me - it's not knowing what I'm supposed to be trying to arrive at. Hence my feeling that I should just go back to what I can do and that is to make a grip that is comfortable for me and to hell with the BEST theory.

I hope you can understand my dilemma and I truly appreciate your help and advice. Perhaps I should have just stuck to compound, which is something I don't have a lot of trouble with, rather than try to recapture a long gone youth by trying to do recurve again. SIGH!


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## bownut-tl. (Sep 21, 2003)

Tom,

When you place your hand in the grip to achieve the angle, are you rotating just the hand at the wrist of the entire arm? If you are rotating just the hand, you will get a lot of strain. If you rotate the hand, arm and a little bit of shoulder to the right (RH shooter) as one unit, your hand should comfortably fall in place. It won't with the grip build up you have now. To work correctly, your grip needs to slope downward from left to right.

Terry


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## Feral Donkey (Nov 6, 2005)

Progen said:


> Looks like a very low grip there, Feral. Kind of like a compound bow's kind of angle. Not exactly suitable for target recurve work. Puts quite a bit of tension on the upper part of the forearm too (especially at higher poundages) and there's not much feedback against sideway movement since it's pretty much symmetrical.


I don't know, man but it sure works fine for me. It seems like the less grip I have, the better. I just need a wide flat on the back to distribute the pressure a little for comfort. It seems like any other contact point I have with the bow torques it in some way. I am going to tilt it more forward on other bows, maybe to 15-17 degrees. 

Tell me, why does that grip angle woks so well for compounds and it doesn't for target recurves? I'm curious. My friends who were serious target compound shooters back in the early '90s shot bows with 50%-65% let-off giving them 30# holding weight or more and soft stops. They all pulled the grips off their bows and shot right off the risers because the grips sucked so much.


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## bownut-tl. (Sep 21, 2003)

The grip we are talking about was designed to support a specific shooting style. It may be useable with other sytles but the initial version that Limbwalker and Paul came up with was being used with the BEST method of shooting.

Terry


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

Hi Terry

The problem is that this high wrist position, forces my hand into a position where the full reactive force of the bow is directed into the Vee of the thumb and forefinger and makes my fingers stiffen reflexively around the grip. It also tenses up the muscles of my bow arm.:mg: 0

You are correct in what you say about the angle of the grip, L to R.

This is all going to change soon. I've decided to do what I do best and that is to make a grip that is comfortable for me to shoot and ignore the theory. In this case, if you'll pardon the pun, the BEST isn't good enough.:thumbs_do  

What you have done to your grips appears to be far more suitable for correct fitment than my effort and I shall learn fron that.


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## Corsair (Nov 21, 2005)

I've jsut posted this on the "BEST Method Recurve Grip" thread and am repeating it here because it may be useful to W & W bow owners.

*For Win & Win bow owners*

If any of you have been reading the "My Newly Modified Recurve Grips" you will know that I shoot a W & W Xpert and have tried to do the grips in line with the BEST theory.

First effort was a bad FAIL.

After a lot of work on the Dremel this am the shape I ended up with was close to the Paul Jager rendition of the BEST grip.

What was very interesting that this second attempt isn't all that different from the factory W & W grip - just a bit of extra putty on the bottom and a bit of the low left side and you're there. That is, assuming I understand what the BEST type of grip looks like.

Anyway, the point is that the grip is comfortable and for W & W owners, I would say that there really isn't very much wrong with your factory grips just as they are. Not surprising I suppose - they are Korean after all


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