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Gamma Hellbender Paddle Review

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GAMMA Hellbender Paddle Review

I had the opportunity to try out the GAMMA Hellbender paddle. Here is a link to the Hellbender on their website.



About my style and paddle preferences historically...

To give you a brief idea about my paddle preferences, I have played with Selkirk paddles for the last 5 years. I have also played with the Selkirk S1G and S2 paddles exclusively for about 4 years. I wasn't in the market for a new paddle because I like the S2 so well, but if someone sends me a paddle for free and they say "Try it out and see what you think", I'm going to try it out. I wasn't expecting to like this paddle. The main reason I like the S2 is that it has a very large sweet spot. It also has a short handle. I hold the grip high. My forefinger knuckle and thumb rest above the bevel where the grip connects to the neck. When I play with paddles that have longer handles, I frequently hit my leg with the butt of the handle which messes up my swing. So I have a bias for paddles with a large sweet spot and short handle. The Hellbender has a short handle. They also claim a large sweet spot on the Hellbender, but we shall see..

With regard to my play style, I am a doubles player. I have never played singles in a tournament, and I don't play singles in rec play unless someone twists my arm. In doubles, I'm a strong 4.0 player, trying to bump my rating up to 4.5. I mix up power and the soft game. I have a fairly reliable drive and I hit some decent drops and resets, but I'm no where close to the top players. I do engage in the dink game. I also use a lot of spin. I impart top spin and backspin slices on ground strokes from the baseline. I use underspin on forehand and backhand dinks. I use some topspin on forehand dinks. I use topspin, sidespin, and backspin on volleys at the net, both forehand and backhand. Spoiler alert: the Hellbender was excellent for imparting spin. More on that later.

Okay, so here are the specs on this paddle. If there was a difference between the manufacturer's measurement and the measurement I took, I have noted it. 

Specs

  • Price
    • $150
  • weight
    • 7.6 oz (official)
    • 7.7 oz (my scale)
    • 218 grams
      *weighed slightly less if I laid it flat vs on the end of the handle
  • length
    • 16 1/8" (top of head to the butt of the grip)
  • width
    • widest part
      • 7 5/8"
    • narrow part
      • 7" (before it tapers to the neck)
  • thickness
    • 5/8"
  • grip
    • length
      • 4 1/2"
    • circumference
      • 4 1/8" (official)
      • 4 3/8" (my measurement)
  • shape
    • rounded top
    • slight elongation
    • slight teardrop
  • materials
    • core
      • polypropylene "NeuCore"
    • face
      • graphite
    • grip
      • "GAMMA Honeycomb"
      • rubber with small cutout circles
  • USA Pickleball Approved
  • Made in USA


Appearance

The color scheme and graphics were well chosen. There is a navy blue background with yellow and white text and graphics. There is also a series of light blue dots that create a sense of movement like a wave or smoke behind the text graphics. It's subtle, but without this, the paddle would have a much flatter appearance.

The grip is black and rubbery. The cutout holes are round, but they are surrounded by a honeycomb-hex shape, and there is a nice contrasting yellow under the cutouts. There is a black rubber band at the top of the paddle handle with yellow GAMMA branded text (more about this rubber band later).

In summary, I like the look of this paddle. I would go so far as to say it's one of the better looking paddles on the market. Good job to the GAMMA graphic design department.


How the Hellbender felt

I was surprised and impressed. When I first picked up the paddle, it felt a little head heavy to me. My Selkirk paddle weighs 8.3 oz (234g) and when I got the Hellbender out of the packaging, I thought it was heavier than the S2 I'm used to playing with. The grip is a little thinner than I usually play with, but I usually have an overgrip wrap on my Selkirk. Bouncing the ball off the face (before I hit the court) the sweet spot was definitely smaller on the Hellbender than on my S2, but it's a little complicated. On the S2, there is a broad area in the center of the paddle that give a fairly consistent pop. On the Hellbender, there is an area at the center top that has a lot of pop. I would say more than I get from the Selkirk S2. Below that area on the Hellbender, there is an area with less pop, but it's not dead.

The image below shows approximately what I'm talking about. The red area gets a lot of pop. The orange area has less pop. The transitions between the areas are obviously not as clear cut as that, but hopefully you can get the idea.



I put the Hellbender behind my S2. You can see that there is almost a half inch difference in the length. That half inch moves the sweet spot further out on the paddle blade, which gives it more torque. You can also see the worn spot where I'm making contact on my Selkirk. I'm hitting the majority of balls at the highest point on the blade anyhow, so most of my hits are making contact exactly where the hottest sweet spot are located on the Hellbender.



The image below shows the S2 behind the Hellbender just to show the teardrop shape contrasted with the S2's more straight shape, peeking out behind the lower portion of the Hellbender paddle head.


I was also curious about the thickness of the Hellbender compared to the Selkirk Amped and Vanguard series. The NeuCore from Gamma is thicker. The Hellbender is a tiny fraction of an inch thinner than the Amped S2. I measured it with my caliper and the decimal point on the inches was so small that it was meaningless to me. I redid the measurements with millimeters so I could at least comprehend a proportional difference. The Hellbender measured 16.05 mm thick. The Amped S2 measured 16.3 mm. The Hellbender is 0.25 mm thinner than the Amped S2. 

How did it play?

Like most people, I started warming up with a buddy by hitting some dinks at the net straight across from each other. I wasn't missing many shots and it didn't take me long to feel fairly comfortable and controlled in my dinks. I wouldn't say the Hellbender particularly shines at straight dinks, but it was fine. When we moved to opposite diagonals at the net to do some cross court dinking, I started to play with spins. This is where the fun began. I was able to impart more rotation on the ball with the Hellbender than with my Selkirk S2, presumably because that little extra length means the paddle is moving faster when it makes contact. I had no problem controlling the ball with cross court dinking. I might have been slightly less consistent with the Hellbender than with the S2, but I suspect it was due to the fact that I have played with the same paddle for so long and hadn't completely adjusted.

I backed up and worked on some drop shots from the baseline. This was probably the facet of my play where I felt the least confident with the Hellbender. Transition shots are difficult to execute consistently anyway. It felt to me like I was putting my drops a bit high (perhaps because I haven't yet adjusted to the extra pop off the sweet spot). When I did put my drops high, if my opponent hit them with pace, it was difficult for me to take pace off their shot and advance up the court. I might be able to hone that with practice, but it did cause me and my partners trouble in our rec games later.

Still in the warmup, my buddy now backed up to his baseline to hit drops while I stayed at the kitchen line on my side to hit "fourths" (by which I mean volleys if his drops are high enough to take out of the air, or groundstrokes if I need to let his drop bounce in the kitchen before I hit them back). This is where the Hellbender really started to shine for me and where it stood out as superior to my S2 by a wide margin. I was able to whip my roll volleys with so much spin, it really made it difficult for my friend to put a controlled paddle on them. Backspin cuts and topspin rolls are amazing with the Hellbender. I was able to generate an incredible amount of spin and pace.

The other thing I noticed during games was that my drives and smashes had more pop and power, and I didn't feel like that power came at the expense of (much) control. Again, given that this was the first time I was playing with this paddle, I would expect for there to be some adjustment necessary in my strokes, but the errors I hit were not a lot more than I might have hit with my old tried and true paddle. I was able to rip some really hard topspin drives from deep in the court.

I have also been experimenting with using the new 2021 serve rules. Because the swing motion rules are nullified when you hit the serve off a bounce, you can hit the ball with a downward cut stroke and generate backspin for the first time. Did I try out some backspin drop serves using the Hellbender? You better believe I did. Once again, that extra length seemed to allow me to impart more spin on those serves.

Were there any negatives? Yes. In addition to the difficulty I had taking pace off fast balls in the transition zone, it seemed like I had less control with fast volleys at the kitchen line.

Here are some clips from a practice session with some local friends. I'm the player in grey shirt and black pants with the grey knit cap. Sorry about the music. It was not my night to choose. ...probably by popular demand. Hahaha.


This is an example (above) of a third shot drive. I love the sound it makes when I fire off those drives. Okay...  I may have enhanced the sound in this clip. The only thing more fun than blasting a third shot drive is scoring off a third shot drive. The Hellbender excels at backcourt power strokes.

Here is another drive that results in a pop-up and I finish with a backhand smash.



Here (below) is a clip where I take a series of volleys at the net with my opponents back. The Hellbender's little extra length helps give extra torque for my shots and makes it difficult for my opponents to gain the net. I sent these shots with a lot of topspin.




Here is a backhand drive from mid court. I genuinely feel like the Hellbender gives me more power on these shots. 


Samples of a variety of serves. It really took me no time at all to adjust from the S2 to the Hellbender for serves.


Piddling complaint

Another very minor issue that is fixable is the branded rubber band they put at the top of the handle. It tended to slide around on my as I was playing. I was wearing a glove because of the cold, but I think without that, it might have caused some friction and irritation. I have put a new overgrip on top of the standard grip the Hellbender comes with. I like a bit thicker handle anyhow, and I removed the GAMMA branded band. For players who do not choke up on the grip as high as I do, the band might not bother you at all. It seems a little odd to me that they spend the money to have those bands made and applied to all their paddles. Surely there is some utility to it...? I suppose it is intended to protect the finishing tape from pulling up. I have not had that problem very often, and if it was an issue, I would grab a roll of electrical tape and replace the finishing tape. It takes all of 30 seconds and fixes the problem. 



Summary

Would I recommend the Hellbender? Absolutely. Give it a try if you're looking for a slightly elongated paddle with a sweet spot that is larger than many (probably most) other elongated paddles. I expect that I will be able to work out kinks in the transition zone. The GAMMA Hellbender has the potential to unseat my Selkirk S2 as my go to paddle. If I was playing in a tournament tomorrow, the Hellbender would be in my bag, and I would likely play at least some of my games using it. If I was having trouble transitioning to the kitchen because my opponents were putting a lot of pace on the ball at my feet, or if we were getting into a lot of fast paced fire fights at the kitchen line, I would probably switch back to my Selkirk ...having only played with the Hellbender twice. A few months from now, those control issues may have worked themselves out. We shall see.


Afterthoughts

I have played a few more times. I have removed the band from the top of the handle and I put an overgrip wrap on the handle. It's super comfortable now and I have played with and without a glove. No issues at all. I'm also feeling more confident in the problem areas I cited above.

Friends I have played against using the Hellbender seem to think it's upped my game. One friend has referred to it as the demon paddle. 

I have not picked up my Selkirk since putting the Hellbender in my hand. This paddle is a gamechanger.

More afterthoughts

It's been a few months now. I bought a second Hellbender and sold my Selkirk paddles. The Hellbender is all I use now. 



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