Quality control of bowling balls

[bowl1820]

On an episode of How It's Made they visited an Ebonite or Storm facility and stated that they produced millions of these balls a year. Could have just been marketing hype but I don't think it's too far fetched to say one mfg (Ebonite, Brunswick, Storm) manufactures over a million balls a year. Or am I totally off base here.

According to this video at the Ebonite factory, they can produce "Up To" 5,000 balls a day. But that's not actual production numbers, just what they could do if needed.j

[NewToBowling]

According to this video at the Ebonite factory, they can produce "Up To" 5,000 balls a day. But that's not actual production numbers, just what they could do if needed.j

Yes, that was the video.

[vdubtx]

Ok, they produce a lot, but millions.... not gonna happen.

At the Nationals, they check for hardness, weight, static weights, and potentially balance hole sizes.

They aren't going to find the kind of defects the story talked about.

At Nationals they only check weight and static weights. They don't check hardness or balance holes.

[vdubtx]

It's possible if you consider world wide, but sanctioned bowling in the US is in too much of a down hill slide to require that many balls.

The majority of bowlers are older, not improving, and not buying new balls.

Maybe in your retirement community.

Over here, plenty of young bowlers buying the latest equipment at each release.

[NewToBowling]

I wonder how many bowling balls does a PSO sell/drill in a day?

2-3 on regular days, 5-6 on league nights?

Seeing as most of the revenue comes from the drilling and not the ball (I'm guessing a 10% markup on balls?)

I know a local shop here had a good sale last month. I saw Storm Rocket for $90 and Optimus for $110 or so. Online they are $30-40 more. And only $40 for drilling so those were great prices. Unfortunately didn't buy any of them

[Mike White]

At Nationals they only check weight and static weights. They don't check hardness or balance holes.

Many years ago in Reno (pre stadium) I had a ball that was just a hair over the 1 1/4 balance hole size.

When working with an onsite pro shop to deal with the issue, the result was a ball that had a huge flare (long before dynamic cores)

For me it was unusable because it hooked too much, but it was a learning experience.