I've always had fond memories of GM since the first very bat that a I ever owned.... an amazing Maestro that was a present from my parents when I was a lad
So it's nice to see them getting a bit of love on the forum at the moment. They do seem to offer great value in the mid grades. Well, I couldn't decide which one to go for so grabbed a few to test.
They come in at:
Eclipse: 2.9.5
Chroma: 2.9.3
Zelos: 2.8.8
Diamond: 2.8.8
First impressions:
All of them feel great and well balanced at the weight and to be honest they all pretty much feel the same weight to me. With the lower middled Zelos the lightest of the bunch and the higher middled Eclipse the heaviest, that's probably about right. The flatter blade of the Eclipse is very noticeable next to the others, it does have a very slight bow but not much compared with the others. Also it's Hex grip feels much grippier to me and I know it's always a very personal thing with grips but feels like one of the grippiest grips around to me so would probably have preferred that on all of them for the sake of 0.2 Oz or whatever the saving is.
They all have a rather plank like quality on the mallet with the hard press that others have mentioned previously and I know it's a long time ago but can't remember GM bats feeling anything like that back when I used to use them. They all tap up nicely with a ball and it is interesting how bats can feel so different between the mallet and the ball. That said, they all feel like they are going to take a fair bit of work with the mallet to truly get the best out of them.
Initially the Chroma feels like the pick of them to me as although the Eclipse and Diamond also share full profiles, the Chroma has a much more generous middle and I can feel it is likely to offer a lot more value in off centre hitting with it.
Well, that's my early thoughts
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Topic: new GM crop (Read 6603 times)