I've had some carry problems with my existing equipment on medium heavy oil, so for the upcoming season, I built a tandem out of an Eraser Boost and a Granite Gargoyle in complementary layouts. The goal was to wind up with two balls with roughly the same total move but a different look. I intended to use the Boost to open up the lanes, then take out the Gargoyle for transition and carrydown.
I’ve thrown it for a few dozen games now on the intended condition, and the Gargoyle is far and away the superior oil ball. In my somewhat limited experience, it's the best particle ball I've thrown.
Mine started life as a 15#2, 3.36 top, 3 1/2" pin. We laid it out pin above the ring, stacked, mass bias just right of the thumb. This layout is always a good combination of control and energy retention for me. Ending statics are: 3/4 side, 5/16 finger, 1 1/8 top.
I don’t want anybody to buy anything that they’re going to hate. Bear two things in mind when reading any of my reviews: First; I’m a better writer than a bowler. Second, I’m biased toward non-flippy, early-rolling equipment with a lot of surface and smooth, mild backends. That's exactly what Gargoyle is. 'Flippy' is not in its vocabulary. Neither is 'carrydown', nor 'spotty'. It speaks 3 words: bite, roll and crush. This is a straightahead wet lanes ball; no other shades of nuance are necessary to describe it.
You'd never believe you could get a ball with so much surface as long as you can this one. I initially assumed I'd polish it but after throwing it a while, I like it as-is. I may pick up another one to keep polished. Gargoyle has the feel of something that could work in a lot of different layouts and surfaces.
I thought my dull urethanes went into a heavy roll. No. Gargoyle is a whole different dimension. I wish I could be Zola for a paragraph or two so I could paint a word picture of how crisply and cleanly the core stands up at about 35', how it goes into a dead roll that threatens to dig a trough in the mids, makes a long, smooth turn and burn for the hole, then hits like a force of nature.
What it's good for:
- Lots of oil in the heads. I have tried it on up to 40' of max 65 units in the middle/8 - 10 units outside with good success. Gargoyle is not a hook monster by any means, but so far, it seems to be able to handle nearly anything in the mids and backends.
- As long as you give it some oil in the heads, it will reward you with a smooth, predictable move off a consistent breakpoint. If you buy into the analogy of bowling ball as a tool, then Granite is the equivalent of precision watchmaking tools for wet lanes.
For this reason, don't overlook it as a sport ball. When I was on a sport pattern, I felt stuck between balls all the time. I wanted more ball than a polished Thunder Flash in the heads and mids but a bit less in the backend. In hindsight, Granite was exactly the ball I was looking for.
What it's not good for:
- No head oil. It'll hook at your feet.
- Longer oil. It's a strong ball, but I just don’t think it’s optimal on a shot much longer than about 40'.
- People who like to throw a ball in the bag and forget about it. It needs a lot of bathing and touchup work.
This will be the second ball I've given an overall 9 to. Insofar as it's meaningful in this era of specialization, Gargoyle is the overall the "best" ball I’ve thrown so far. I’m 2 for 2 with Visionary now versus some spotty experiences with Storm and Columbia. After this experience, my next reactive will almost certainly be a Charcoal Executioner.
Control: 9. Repeatable, reliable, exceptional behavior at the breakpoint. Oblivious to the state of the mids and backs. This is important to me, because the key to my own scoring is to minimize the length of time I get lost in transition, and this ball helps me do that.
Responds very well to changes in release. You can shape the backend to be pretty much what you want.
Caveat: If your shot needs a lot of angle, this probably isn’t the ball you want. My shots seem to discourage this.
Versatility: 9. Here, I’m not treating versatility as "How much ground could you cover if this was the only ball you had?" Frankly, people in its intended audience tend to build arsenals, and a person would be out of his gourd to buy it for a typical league shot. This would rate about a 5.
Instead, I treat it as "How useful is it on the shot it was intended for?" In this case, there's probably not a normal wet condition you couldn't find some kind of shot on. This would rate a 9.
Hit and Carry: 9.5. In the immortal words of John Madden, ‘Boom.’ Think in terms of a big rock falling from a great height. Wile E Coyote cringes beneath his umbrella.
Hit and carry are exceptional. I never understood what BTM was talking about when they said that a ball "seems to swell up when it hits the pocket." That's exactly what GG does. It gives you area on oil, when your other balls are leaving weak corners. A monster on the off hits, as everyone else has stated.
