ball surface vs core

[boatman37]

Seems like kind of a rookie question but after last week I'm wondering here. Lanes were very dry last week and scores were down across the board for about 90% of the bowlers. My typical night is start with the Uppercut (3000 grit) at about the 10 board but adjust from there if needed. Towards the middle of game 2 I usually have to start moving in and game 3 I'm using the Igniter (3000 grit) but the Igniter has a weaker core. Last week I started with the Igniter after the Uppercut was rolling out early. I moved in a little but couldn't get anywhere near my target. So aside from the lanes being like the Sahara I was having an off night too. Grabbed the Conspiracy (1000 grit) and was going to get closer to the middle but decided to stay with the Igniter and power through it. The only weaker ball I have besides my plastic T-Zone is my Rhino pearl. With my low tilt and medium rotation the T-Zone goes almost straight so decided against that (in hindsight that may have been a good move which is the reason for this post). I have a Black Widow Gold that I haven't used in quite awhile but used to be my drier lane ball.
So my question is this...With my lower tilt and medium RPM is the Rhino a bad choice for me? Am I further ahead using maybe the BWG with a polished surface since it has a stronger core to get it to turn? Currently the BWG has about a 3000 grit but can't remember now. I'd have to dig through my spreadsheet to see. But it is not polished. I have my CTD 5000P pad in my bag (the BWG is at the center now) so may hit that before we start just in case we are really dry again. Thinking with polish on it it may have been perfect for last weeks conditions? Or even my Squatch pearl? Same thing there with polish? Both of those balls are at the center but might be able to throw one on the PSO's spinner with polish before we start tonight. Or maybe no polish and the 5000P? Thinking if I use polish then go with about a 1000 o 2000 base then polish? We don't typically see these conditions but 2 weeks in and both weeks have been different. Meaning week 1 I started out with the Uppercut out around the 6 or 7 which usually never works way out there. I can get away with the Igniter that far out but rarely ever the Uppercut. Threw 22 strikes that night so that line worked well. Now last week my weaker ball was rolling out early. Yeah I know I could have moved in more but the more I moved in the worse I would miss my target. Week 1 was a 619 and week 2 a 549 so even as bad as last week was I ended up salvaging a so-so night

More in general...is it a good idea for lower tilt medium or lower RPM to stay away from weaker cores?

[RobLV1]

I find it very interesting that you refer to the actual surface grit on each of your bowling balls, but only refer to the cores in terms of weak or strong. How are you defining the strength of the cores? What are the low RG's? What are the differentials? Are all the balls drilled using the same layout? Tell me about the actual specifications of the cores in your arsenal, and I'll gladly answer your questions for you.

[boatman37]

I find it very interesting that you refer to the actual surface grit on each of your bowling balls, but only refer to the cores in terms of weak or strong. How are you defining the strength of the cores? What are the low RG's? What are the differentials? Are all the balls drilled using the same layout? Tell me about the actual specifications of the cores in your arsenal, and I'll gladly answer your questions for you.

I have added the data but more or less what I was wondering is should a low tilt medium rev bowler avoid a ball like the Rhino pearl with a weaker core? But I am interested in hearing what you have to say about these balls. I tend to migrate towards pearls with lower RG. I also had a solid Conspiracy and a solid Kingpin but they pretty much never come out of the bag. I feel I don't do well with solids but that could be a mental thing too. Or is it that my release just doesn't fit a solid well?

Uppercut has a smoother arc with a little snap at the end of the pattern. Igniter rolls a little straighter with a little more back end snap. BWG rolls the straightest with the sharpest snap. Squatch very similar to Uppercut. Rhino goes almost as straight as my plastic ball.

Brunswick Uppercut: RG = 2.487, Diff = .050 pearl sym - pin above ring finger but about 1" closer to the PAP

Brunswick Igniter: RG = 2.508, Diff = .043 pearl sym - pin up but centered between finger holes

Radical Squatch: RG = 2.482, Diff = .054 pearl sym (hardly ever use this ball) - pin directly above ring finger

Hammer Black Widow Gold: RG = 2.50, Diff = .058 pearl asym (hardly ever use this ball) - pin up directly above ring finger

Brunswick Rhino pearl: RG = 2.524, Diff = .030 pearl sym (hardly ever use this ball) pin up but closer to the middle finger

The Squatch and Uppercut roll very similarly. Not all are drilled the same. I don't have the stats on the drilling as I have never had my PAP checked but really like the shorter pin with the pin just above my ring finger but a little closer to the PAP. Here is my Uppercut. Really like this ball and everything about it

[RobLV1]

Two more questions before we get started:

1. You've told me the pin positions, but where are the CG's on your bowling balls? (the little crown shape on the black ball pictured)
2. What is it about the Rhino pearl core that makes you think it's a weak core? (higher RG, or lower Diff)

[boatman37]

Two more questions before we get started:

1. You've told me the pin positions, but where are the CG's on your bowling balls? (the little crown shape on the black ball pictured)
2. What is it about the Rhino pearl core that makes you think it's a weak core? (higher RG, or lower Diff)

I have tried several surfaces on the Rhino and get no hook. According to Brunswicks site this is by design. My thoughts are it is a higher RG with a low diff so the core is weaker. I would be curious as to how something with a higher RG and higher diff might work but I have bought enough new balls that I don't really want to buy more to 'experiment'....lol

Here is the BWG:


The Rhino:


The Kingpin:


Conspiracy:

[boatman37]

part 2:

Squatch:


Uppercut:


Igniter:

[RobLV1]

Okay, let's get started. Unfortunately the condition of my back limits how long I can sit at the computer, so this will take more than one session on my side.

The ball goes through 5 stages of motion in its trip down the lane. Hopefully you only see four of them. It starts by skidding through the oil, propelled by the momentum generated by your legs and armswing. This is called the skid phase. The skid phase continues until the ball starts to find friction and the force of the rotation imparted by your release becomes equal to the force of the forward motion of the ball. When the two forces become equal, the ball enters the hook phase. Keep in mind that the hook phase is dependent on the physics of the ball motion. It is not a measure of the amount of hook. When the ball stops hooking (hook-out), it begins to roll. When the ball begins to roll, it is at its most powerful. The goal is to get the ball to roll just before it enters the pins. If it rolls too early, it enters the fifth stage; roll-out. This is not a good thing. It results in weak sevens, solid nines, and washouts. Sound familiar?

As you have stated, you have low axis tilt. Bases on what you've said in the past, you also don't have a lot of axis rotation (your ball does not hook a lot). Because of your low axis tilt, the ball tends to reach the point where the side rotation and the forward momentum become equal for the simple reason that your low axis tilt combined with your lack of axis rotation means that the direction of the rotation of the ball is very close to the direction of the momentum. Because they are close, it means that the point of equality between the the two forces of forward momentum and side roll happens very quickly. In other words the ball starts to hook too soon.

With this in mind, is should be apparent to you that everything that you are doing to get the ball to hook more is counter-productive. Low RG balls and lots of surface do not make your balls hook more. They make your balls hook sooner. Now since the beginning of the hook phase is the beginning of a series of phases that cannot be altered once it starts, your use of low RG balls with lots of surface just result in a loss of energy that kills your ability to carry.

To get the balls further down the lane, you need cores with higher RG's and less surface. You need to learn to make use of the friction that exists past the pattern, rather than that which is outside the pattern laterally. I can tell you as another bowler with low axis tilt, the balls that I use regularly have low RG's of 2.60, 2.56, and 2.53. Even the ball with the RG of 2.53 has to be thrown very hard to get it far enough down the lane before it starts to hook.

Another misconception that you and many other league bowlers have is that the Differential is important. Differential is very important to high rev players. As rev rates go down, so does the importance of the differential. As an example, look at the Storm IQ Tour; one of the most popular Storm balls ever. Before the IQ Tour, Storm came out with original IQ. It had a very strong cover and a core with a very high differential. The touring pros found the ball to be too aggressive to be useful, so Storm came out with the IQ Tour, a ball with a much lower differential. Low and behold, the IQ Tour became one of their most popular balls among league bowlers despite its low differential. Bottom line, is that differential means very little to lower rev players.

When my back recovers, I'll get into layouts. Questions?

[boatman37]

Okay, let's get started. Unfortunately the condition of my back limits how long I can sit at the computer, so this will take more than one session on my side.

The ball goes through 5 stages of motion in its trip down the lane. Hopefully you only see four of them. It starts by skidding through the oil, propelled by the momentum generated by your legs and armswing. This is called the skid phase. The skid phase continues until the ball starts to find friction and the force of the rotation imparted by your release becomes equal to the force of the forward motion of the ball. When the two forces become equal, the ball enters the hook phase. Keep in mind that the hook phase is dependent on the physics of the ball motion. It is not a measure of the amount of hook. When the ball stops hooking (hook-out), it begins to roll. When the ball begins to roll, it is at its most powerful. The goal is to get the ball to roll just before it enters the pins. If it rolls too early, it enters the fifth stage; roll-out. This is not a good thing. It results in weak sevens, solid nines, and washouts. Sound familiar?

As you have stated, you have low axis tilt. Bases on what you've said in the past, you also don't have a lot of axis rotation (your ball does not hook a lot). Because of your low axis tilt, the ball tends to reach the point where the side rotation and the forward momentum become equal for the simple reason that your low axis tilt combined with your lack of axis rotation means that the direction of the rotation of the ball is very close to the direction of the momentum. Because they are close, it means that the point of equality between the the two forces of forward momentum and side roll happens very quickly. In other words the ball starts to hook too soon.

With this in mind, is should be apparent to you that everything that you are doing to get the ball to hook more is counter-productive. Low RG balls and lots of surface do not make your balls hook more. They make your balls hook sooner. Now since the beginning of the hook phase is the beginning of a series of phases that cannot be altered once it starts, your use of low RG balls with lots of surface just result in a loss of energy that kills your ability to carry.

To get the balls further down the lane, you need cores with higher RG's and less surface. You need to learn to make use of the friction that exists past the pattern, rather than that which is outside the pattern laterally. I can tell you as another bowler with low axis tilt, the balls that I use regularly have low RG's of 2.60, 2.56, and 2.53. Even the ball with the RG of 2.53 has to be thrown very hard to get it far enough down the lane before it starts to hook.

Another misconception that you and many other league bowlers have is that the Differential is important. Differential is very important to high rev players. As rev rates go down, so does the importance of the differential. As an example, look at the Storm IQ Tour; one of the most popular Storm balls ever. Before the IQ Tour, Storm came out with original IQ. It had a very strong cover and a core with a very high differential. The touring pros found the ball to be too aggressive to be useful, so Storm came out with the IQ Tour, a ball with a much lower differential. Low and behold, the IQ Tour became one of their most popular balls among league bowlers despite its low differential. Bottom line, is that differential means very little to lower rev players.

When my back recovers, I'll get into layouts. Questions?

That makes sense and goes along with what I was asking about the lower RG solid balls. They just don't seem to work well for me unless the lanes are saturated. Haven't used one in a few years but I rarely leave corner pins and when I do start to I know I need to change something. I probably average 2-3 corner pins a night (thankfully cause I hate those suckers...lol).
Will wait to hear the rest of your response before I ask anymore. I have thought about a ball like the Radical Counter Attack for later in the night (2.575 RG and .023 diff) but am afraid I will see the same results I see with the Rhino, which is a straight ball. In fact there isn't much difference between my Rhino and my plastic T-Zone in terms of shape

[RobLV1]

I just have a few minutes right now, but here's a little information about layouts. Your initial response indicating the position of the pin only tells me that you really don't understand much about layouts. The layout is a determination of how the core is positioned within the ball. When you purchase a new ball and look at the RG and Differential numbers, these numbers apply on the an undrilled ball. Once the ball is drilled, the numbers change depending on the cores position within the ball. Here's were it gets tricky. Some layouts raise the RG, others lower the RG. Some Layouts raise the Differential, others low the Differential. Unless you use one or, at the most, two layouts exclusively, you have no way of comparing the core numbers of your bowling balls. For instance, if you have one ball with an RG of 2.51, and another with an RG of 2.48, the actual RG's after drilling may be 2.52 and 2.47, or they may be 2.50 and 2.49... there's really no way to tell. So, if you want to be able to really understand the core values of your bowling balls, you have to limit your layouts so that the core numbers are comparable.

Another thing that I highly recommend is getting rid of the notion that some cores are weak, and some are strong. Our culture tells us that strong is good, and weak is bad. That's just a fact of modern life. In bowling, some cores are designed to roll early, and some are designed to go long. A combination of the lane condition and the way that the bowler bowls determine what works and what doesn't. There's no room for weak or strong, only right or wrong!

More later.

[boatman37]

I just have a few minutes right now, but here's a little information about layouts. Your initial response indicating the position of the pin only tells me that you really don't understand much about layouts. The layout is a determination of how the core is positioned within the ball. When you purchase a new ball and look at the RG and Differential numbers, these numbers apply on the an undrilled ball. Once the ball is drilled, the numbers change depending on the cores position within the ball. Here's were it gets tricky. Some layouts raise the RG, others lower the RG. Some Layouts raise the Differential, others low the Differential. Unless you use one or, at the most, two layouts exclusively, you have no way of comparing the core numbers of your bowling balls. For instance, if you have one ball with an RG of 2.51, and another with an RG of 2.48, the actual RG's after drilling may be 2.52 and 2.47, or they may be 2.50 and 2.49... there's really no way to tell. So, if you want to be able to really understand the core values of your bowling balls, you have to limit your layouts so that the core numbers are comparable.

Another thing that I highly recommend is getting rid of the notion that some cores are weak, and some are strong. Our culture tells us that strong is good, and weak is bad. That's just a fact of modern life. In bowling, some cores are designed to roll early, and some are designed to go long. A combination of the lane condition and the way that the bowler bowls determine what works and what doesn't. There's no room for weak or strong, only right or wrong!

More later.

Makes sense. Radical does provide after drilling RG and diff but as far as I know they are the only ones that do. But like you said, without me knowing my layout that does me no good. I just tell my PSO what I want the ball to do and he drills it. He has checked others stats but I had been 'experimenting' so much with different releases that I figured it was best to wait until I got comfortable and consistent. I have asked him recently but with the shutdown and everything else we just haven't got together to do it. I have promised myself I will not buy another ball until we get those stats...lol.
And yes, you are right, I don't understand layouts that well. On one hand I don't want to over-complicate things with having enough knowledge to be dangerous (which is probably where I am now) but on the other I'm a numbers guy and want to know everything I can.

And thanks for the 'tutoring'