Ever since picking up my Spartan in the beginning of the summer, I have found it a bit of an enigma. From What I had read on it, It seemed like it might be a good fit to go along with my Purple Ice Executioner, and my Gladiator Solid and Gladiator LE. I assumed it would be "stronger" overall than the glad solid and hoped it would be weaker than my purple ice. For me, the purple Ice has always been a very strong ball---back when I first got it when my home center had different ownership and was putting out a lot of oil with lots of carry down(they didn't strip much in those days) the purple was always what I used if my midnight scorcher was too much...that is how strong the purple was for me, so I figured the Spartan would handle less oil overall than the purple ex but hoped it would fall in the middle of the glad solid and purple.
Some of the reviews and posts I had read on the Spartan said there was enough difference between that and the glad solid , and some said there was very little difference. I decided to hope for the best and bought it. Since the new ownership has put out less oil with cleaner back ends than this center used to put out, since they took over the place 5+ years ago, I had since changed the cover on the purple to as tame as I could with max polish..only way I could use it these days...and 2 or 3 years ago or so when I picked up a glad solid and a glad le I put it at the same surface and same drilling and was happy with them...I really match up well with all 3 of them when I use the right ball on the right oil amount. So when I drilled the Spartan I put the same drilling on it --I am a lefty--and all 4 balls are drilled pin over the middle finger with the cg in the grip center or there abouts.
I was heading out of town to visit family when I picked up the ball from my proshop, so I first tried it out at a center I hadn't bowled in in years..I had a good score but I was bowling in the middle/late afternoon before they oiled for the evenings bowling....I should have been more concerned about that at the time but really didn't dwell on that. When I got to use it in my own house for league, I found that it was weaker than the purple as I suspected, but it was much much closer to the glad solid than I had hoped. AT same surface it seemed to be "slightly" more aggressive cover, but with very little to no backend reaction. So over a few weeks I made various surface changes...knocked off the polish with same fine grit level as everything else---not really any better...took the grit down a little bit....still not much...then had a flare hole put in the ball ...increase about half way to as much flare as could be added...this time it was a little bit better but still not what I thought it should be. Since the Christmas break in my league my proshop guy sugeested to plug the flare hole and start over with the surface--he said that because over the past year I have increased my speed by aprrox 1 mph....so before this week I changed the surface again..this time to a much lower underlying grit level and applied much polish , just to see what that would do and if it would help the reaction better... so once I decided to bag the purple ice I went with thew Spartan and I hated that too...this time got no backend reaction(I don't think it was rollout--didn't look like it) so after a few frames went to my glad solid and got a much better reaction.
The once thing I haven't done yet is change the drilling on it. I am hesistant to do that because I Like the drilling I use with this core that I have on the other three balls..and if it is possible that I just got a bad "specimen" changing the drilling probably wouldn't change much? I understand there is a time when one ought to just give up...I guess I am just a bit surprised that a ball that has a core I match up with well--that I put a drilling on that I like with that core is very much "underperforming".
The Spartan is reactive and the purple Ice is supposed to be a particle pearl over a straight urethane base(no reactive in it like the scorcher) if I remember correctly, but I have gotten a better and stronger backend reaction out of the purple than I have the Spartan no matter what surface I have had it at--really weird. I really can't justify the cost of plugging and redrilling to a more aggressive layout.. I don't know...any thoughts??
Brad
