Can pin placement on your ball affect rev rate?

[Hammer]

You can have your pin placement in a variety of places on your ball. Do different locations of the pin on your ball affect revs as far as being higher or lower? Now I am talking about using the same release but different pin locations. So do some locations slow rev rate and some would increase rev rate? Maybe the different locations wouldn't make that big of a difference to matter. Any thoughts on this?

[Amyers]

layout would be a better term than pin placement as there are other factors involved besides the pin. However you phrase it doesn't matter the rev rate is the same regardless only the start time and duration of the hook phase are effected not the rev rate itself.

[KYDave]

Pin placement no.

How the fingers and thumb are drilled yes.

Example: if you use more forward pitch in the thumb and more reverse in the fingers it will decrease revs. The thumb stays in longer and the fingers come out sooner. This is sometimes used to decrease revs on a rev dominant bowler.

[1VegasBowler]

Amyers and KYDave are on the money here.

One theory says that a ball that is drilled pin up will go longer to read later, whereas a ball drilled pin down will read and hook sooner.

BUT, all that will depend on your drilling angles especially on how much flare you're going to have, and that middle number on the drilling angle determines how much flare you get.

Your rev rate is also determined as to how you have your wrist loaded at the time of your release, or the unload. The more your wrist is cocked to your forearm, the more revs. If you have a flat wrist, then there are practically no revs, as if you were using a plastic ball to throw straight for a spare.

Being able to load and unload your wrist properly is a major key in being a versatile bowler, because if you can't control your ball for the conditions on the lanes it becomes extremely difficult to do much, especially if you're using the same wrist position to convert spares are you are throwing strikes, and all of us see that all of the time.

I've watched Team USA trials and many other tournaments where bowlers are missing their spares because they don't know how to load and unload properly. They are so dependent on hooking the ball, that they are very inconsistent in converting spares, and it's no different watching leagues either.

Just take close notice one night during your league play and watch how many bowlers make absolutely no changes to their game. From the approach, to their release and see how many bowlers can't handle the transition because they make no changes, especially on how/where they release the ball.

[Hammer]

Pin placement no.

How the fingers and thumb are drilled yes.

Example: if you use more forward pitch in the thumb and more reverse in the fingers it will decrease revs. The thumb stays in longer and the fingers come out sooner. This is sometimes used to decrease revs on a rev dominant bowler.

I have the reverse of that, I have a little reverse pitch on my thumb and forward pitch on my fingers.

[KYDave]

I have the reverse of that, I have a little reverse pitch on my thumb and forward pitch on my fingers.

I too have a bit of reverse on my thumb. My fingers are at 0 or 1/16 reverse. I had just used that as an example to show how it could effect things.

Throwing a few demo balls that were at 0 thumb I kinda liked it. I came out clean and believe it or not even a bit sooner than my current 3/8 reverse. I attribute this to maybe a slight reduction of grip pressure. I don't want to go right in for 0 but on my next ball i may try a bit less reverse and see how I like it.

[Hammer]

After doing some research on my computer it seems that pin placement doesn't really do much to revs. I saw a video where they use the same ball with different pin placements and not much changed throwing the ball with the same release. It boils down to what layout you have and what surface you have on your ball. Surface changes have a bigger effect on what the ball is going to do on different lane conditions.