- Honor

First Impressions
The Ebonite Honor presents itself as a high-performance asymmetric bowling ball that catches the eye with its striking and attractive color combination of royal, teal and silver. At the heart of the ball works the proven CB-2 Asymmetric core, a design that already drew attention in the manufacturer's successful Pivot series. The hard technical specs at a reference weight of 15 pounds show an RG (radius of gyration) of 2.48, a differential of 0.049 and an intermediate differential of 0.017. These core numbers point to a very quickly revving ball motion with clear flare potential, laid out for strong asymmetry. This dynamic engine is wrapped in the in-house RCH 5.0 coverstock. This cover is a hybrid blend of solid and pearl components, finished at the factory with 500, 500, 500 and 1000 Abralon plus a final Powerhouse Factory Finish Polish. This intensely high-gloss polished surface should let the ball glide through the heads almost without resistance and cleanly, in order to efficiently save its stored rotational energy for the backend. The combination of a strong, early-rolling core and a smooth cover is fundamentally aimed at generating a pronounced ball motion with plenty of hook on the back half of the lane and creating a steep angle into the pins.
Comparison
In direct comparison with the Ebonite Code of Honor, which uses exactly the same CB-2 core but a fully matte solid surface, the Ebonite Honor shows a significantly different and complementary profile. While the Code of Honor builds strong traction early in the oil and throws a more even, controllable arc, the Honor generates noticeably more length through the heads. Once the Honor reaches the dry part of the lane and finds friction, it reacts noticeably more aggressively and with more angle toward the pocket. If you bring in a classic symmetric benchmark ball like the Storm Phaze II as another example, the Honor behaves considerably more agile and responsive on the backend. The Storm Phaze II stands out for its consistent, easy-to-read motion over the entire lane, whereas the Ebonite Honor holds its energy much longer and then makes a far sharper and more explosive change of direction. That does make it somewhat more prone to unwanted over-under reactions on very fresh or inconsistent patterns, but it gives the ball enormous advantages when the outside boards are already burned up and you're forced to move deep into the middle of the lane.
On the Lanes
The Ebonite Honor finds its absolutely ideal application on medium to lightly oily lane conditions as well as on typical house shots. Its pronounced ability to create clean length in particular makes it an excellent tool for dealing with transition. When the outside boards get progressively drier over the course of a tournament or league night and balls with matte coverstocks lose energy too early or simply react too strongly, the Honor can be moved through the heads without trouble. Its extremely dynamic backend reaction should ensure an excellent carry percentage, even when the entry angle into the pocket becomes noticeably steeper due to the deeper line. Player types who naturally create little length of their own, or who like to play deep out of the middle of the lane with plenty of rotation and depend on a reliable, hard response at the breakpoint, benefit massively from this layout. For extremely oily conditions or heavily flooded long oil patterns, on the other hand, the factory high-gloss polish is often too smooth, so the ball could miss the decisive friction here and slide past the pocket. Still, the hybrid structure of the cover offers a high degree of modification potential. By lightly scuffing it with fine sanding pads, the ball can be adjusted as needed so that it reads a bit earlier and also adapts to more demanding sport requirements or specific house leagues, without completely giving up its basic character of a strong backend hook.