Mamba Premium Natural Gut - Review

[Say Chi Sin Lo]

So, I've had Mamba's Premium Natural Gut in my frames for a few days. By now, I have an idea of how they behave. All tension are reported after factoring the initial tension lost.

I am comparing everything to Gaucho Classic. I haven't used those big daddy gut (babolat, wilson, klip).

My old setup was Gaucho Classic 15L/Head RIP Control 16, 52/50

Like I have previously mentioned in the Mamba tennis thread, Mamba Premium Natural Gut feels dry to the hand. They can be tricky to string because they're so dry, especially at the knots. They're so dry that the simple bending/twisting action of tying knots can cause cracks and unravel the strings. BUT, it's nothing a little lotion won't fix. I applied some lotion at the very end when I was tying the knot.

Gauge was fairly consistent. Most of the inconsistency, if any, occurs on the ends of the strings. And they don't even go on the racquet. So who cares. Otherwise, they string onto the racquet without any problem, other than the excessive dryness.

Let's get to how they play! They're natural gut, and play like it. The ball pocketing, touch, feel, comfort, and most of all, the POWER are all there.

But holy crap, these strings are stupid powerful to me. Way more powerful than the Gaucho stuff. I was taken back by the power of these strings. At first I thought I was still cold and not swinging through the ball. But no, these strings are really powerful. Good or bad, that's for you to decide. For me, I don't like much power coming from my frames. Luckily these are gut, so I can up the tension without worrying much about the associated shock to my arm.

I'm also in the middle of trying out some "soft" polys, so far I've strung up:

1) Mamba premium gut 16/WeissCannon Silverstring 17, 52/46. Didn't care for it. Sort of glad it snapped on a framed shot.

2) Mamba premium gut 16/Tourna Big Hitter Silver 17, 52/46. Not bad, not the worse thing if I was stuck with this setup.

3) Mamba premium gut 16/Polystar Energy 17, 50/46. It felt awesome on impact, but then I had uncontrollable power with these tensions.

Once I settle on the poly crosses, I will revisit the tension and power issue. I know I haven't hit with the brand name stuff, but these are scary powerful. You're probably wondering why I'm sticking with gut. I like everything BUT the power gut provides. And there are ways to go around the power issue.

Finally, these strings seem to be able to withstand quite a bit of weather . One of my hitting session was on a misty night. We stopped after 20-30mins because the lines got slippery, but surprisingly, the gut is not ruined! But I wouldn't recommend you to hit longer than 30mins on a misty night with these gut.

Can't comment on durability yet. I will update as I go through these strings and different poly crosses setup.

To sum up, good quality gut with a ridiculous amount of power!