PJM, if I remember correctly you bought my SuperFreak. It handled heavy oil just fine. The Phenom though is definately more of a heavy oil ball. Kick the MB close to your VAL and it will roll very early and very strong with no quit. I like the Phenom better because it is more playable from a deep inside line.

PMJ300,

The Super Freak definately rolls earlier and more stable while the Phenom is able to get down the lane and store more energy.  If you have a sufficient amount of dry in the backend with heavy fronts, the Phenom may actually be able to turn over and cover more boards then the SuperFreak.  If it's a complete flood, the SuperFreak would be a better choice.  The Mutant is still for med to med-heavy depending upon your tilt, speed and rev rate.  

Here's a description I give my customers.  Imagine driving our car w/ all season tires on them doing 65 left around a bend and we hit 10 feet of light snow, the tires would actually lose friction, spin up(store energy) and slip for a second until we hit dry road again and the car would then physically grab and jump left once it grabbed dry pavement causing the backend to fish-tail. This is the effect of any object that can store energy and once it can create friction, it will jump toward the direction it is aimed.  Now imagine we had snow tires on our car going through the exact same scenario, instead of the tires slipping, we'd just gradually make the turn around the bend as if nothing were there.  This is how I define the difference between basic resin or anything that can store energy vs heavier particle or something dull that is designed to create early friction and traction.  This is why there's some confusion at times for bowlers who purchase high load particle balls and think that they create the same look as their resin equipment but in heavy oil.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.  When we change our cars to snow tires, we don't want the car to slide 40 feet and then pick up.  We want immediate friction and traction, well, that's what we get when we pick up heavier load particle balls.  Due to this type of reaction, there is also another deceiving part of this, at times, depending upon the condition, a resin ball/polished particle can actually open up a backend more then a dull/heavier particle ball.  If the pattern is flat (1 to 1 for 38feet) hypothetically speaking, a resin or polished particle can store up revs for the 38 feet and once it hits the backend end, it makes a tremendous jump to the left where a dull particle ball actually looks to remain more stable.  What's happening is that the dull particle ball is making the same imprint from oil to dry therefore causing it to remain stable and have more of a constant movement vs the snap, just like our snow tires transition from light snow to dry pavement again.  Hope I didn't confuse you with this, feel free to contact me if you need any further assistance.
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Rick Leong
Ten Pins Pro Shop
Track Pro Shop Staff