Brunswick Crown 78U Bowling Ball Review

The Brunswick Crown 78U shares the Tiered Hexagon weight block with the Crown Victory and the Endeavor. This ball’s urethane coverstock changes the densities, resulting in the RG increasing slightly from 2.540″ to 2.549″ and the differential increasing slightly from 0.045″ to 0.046″. The Crown 78U, as its name suggests, uses a 78D-hardness urethane coverstock to allow it to be used in most USBC-sanctioned competitions, with the exception of a few select major events that ban urethane balls completely. This solid urethane formula comes out of the box at a very dull 500/1000 SiaAir finish. Its higher differential core is something that is usually avoided with urethane because of how early traditional urethane covers tend to pick up. With the harder urethane cover, we found this ball to offer more downlane continuation and a little more total hook than other 78D urethane bowling balls, but it wasn’t as angular as some older and softer pearlized urethane bowling balls. This ball provided excellent control and consistency on our shorter test patterns.

Cranker

There aren’t too many bowling balls where Cranker has the best reaction out of our three bowlers on the dry test pattern, but the Crown 78U was one of them. He loved the continuation this ball had at the back end and all the control he had at the breakpoint. He started farther left with his laydown point than he has with other 78D urethane balls, making sure his angles were open and that the ball was going to the right off his hand quickly. The Crown 78U covered up a lot of his mistakes and allowed him to use his normal release and ball speed. Shots that didn’t get as far out as he wanted blended enough at the end of the pattern to trip the 4 pin