The Columbia 300 Savage Life is the pearlized follow-up to the original Savage from last fall. It uses the same asymmetrical Savage core shape as the original, along with the Exciter Pearl coverstock. This pearl cover comes out of the box prepped with 500/1000 Abralon and Powerhouse Factory Finish Polish, providing much more length and angle downlane than the original Savage. Whereas the dull-finished Savage was better for our testers on heavier oil, the Savage Life was best for us on medium conditions.

All three of our testers had no problems getting to the pocket with the Savage Life on our fresh medium oil test pattern. The box finish helped it float through the front of the lane easily, retaining almost all of its energy for the breakpoint. Stroker was the straightest on the fresh, playing the outside part of the lane. His ball started on 12, traveled over eight at the arrows, and got out to six at the breakpoint. Tweener was around five boards left with his feet and target, but he was also getting his ball out to six downlane. Cranker was much farther left, setting his ball on 30, using the middle arrow as his target, and using the seven board as his breakpoint. The ...