I'm looking to step up from my solid fiberglass bow. The martin rebel is looking pretty appealing to me.  I was just wondering if anyone would recomend it for a beginner.

what is your draw length?, i have owned one but it did stack at my draw length, it is not the most forgiving bow which could make it tricky as a beginner. they are good little bows never the less

cheers Andy

Andy's right, they do stack badly over about 27" The Wife shoots a 30#@26" bow, at my 30" draw it's fells like it's around 60#!! I also find the grip to be uncomfortably small. I think you'd be better off with a good second hand bow of higher quality from the classifieds. If short recurves are your thang, you can pick up an old Shakespeare X30 or similar for much less than $200 & end up with a far, far superior bow.

Rob, has it right. A nice used bow is the ticket. Ya can even put a post on the classifieds that  you are looking for a nice recurve in a certain weight range and length and see what guys offer. Shawn

i am 16 and pull 26 inches. i took two does with a rebel recurve. i now shoot a fred bear montana longbow and it is much smoother to shoot because of its length. the rebel does have some string pinch but is very maneuverable

I shoot a rebel some and have no problems with it. It shoots where I look and hits hard (50# @ 28") It likes the 5575 gold tips with 100g. brass inserts and a 125 Magnus 2 blade. It obviously has some vibration. I had a kwickee quiver on it and I was getting lots of noise from the quiver. Taking it off solved the problem. The shelf is not set up correctly when you get it, and I like the grip because I have sort of smallish hands.

Richard

you would be muuuuuuuuuuuuuch better off with a kodiak magnum!!

For a beginner especially,I would recomend a longer bow.

Yep, definately go for a longer bow if you're only starting out. Rebel is a great bow, but as said above, can be quite unforgiving and is more difficult to short due to length of the bow.