So I met this guy that bowls for Saginaw Valley St last night at my local bowling alley (I remembered him from Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago) and we were bowling together. I talked to him about my drillings for my ball which I understand now. My Pro Shop guy drilled all my current 5 inches from the PAP (the pin) inside the ring finger. He was telling me that I need some variation of the pin on different bowling balls. Well my Pro Shop guy said he puts it that way since I always to stay up the back of the ball a lot since that's my A game.

My question is is it too late to take one of my current balls back to the shop and have him change the pin position somewhere that I can have a different reaction to what I already have. Maybe moving one of the balls closer to the PAP to pick up early roll instead of long and strong cause this is probably why I can't understand side rotation since it never seems to work.

You can always go to your Pro Shop and have him replug your ball to change you drilling. If you unsure if you would like or not. Use old ball or ball that not giving you a good reaction and you can expierment with different drillings to see if you would like the reaction or not.

Good question, Guns. I have balls drilled in different positions to the pin, and can easily see the difference in rotation. Don't know if a ball can be redrilled to get the desired affect. I will be looking forward to the discussion.

Have you ever talked with your driller and explained what reaction you are looking for in a ball? Or, studied the different drill patterns for balls to request a different drilling?

For years, my ball driller would give me a drilling that he thought would fit what I was looking for. But, he wouldn't do anything too radical. I was tired of early hook and asked for something different. I gave specific instructions on what I was looking for and I recieved a different layout. I love the layout. It puts the pin in a semi strong position and the mass bias in a weak position. This allowed the ball to have a controlled breakpoint. No skid/flip. I could see the transition. I didn't lose any backend, because I give the ball a ton of backend with my release. I am rev dominant. I have yet to marry my revs with my ball speed. I also have a variation with the pin in a weak position and the mass bias in a weak position. And I can still hook the lane with the ball, but I get a controlled breakpoint and plenty of skid.

Before this change, my ball driller was under the belief that you should basically keep the same drill for all of your balls and just let the ball cover and core give you the change instead of the drill pattern. I would agree with this unless you are looking for something specific. And if you aren't bowling in a lot of tourny's, having such a dynamic array of drill patterns might be too much choice. It is far simpler to have a ball that goes long ( because of the highly polished pearl cover ), that hooks early ( because of the dull cover ) and a ball for medium oil conditions ( something in the middle of both extremes ). Hook is highly dependent on the ball cover first, the speed of travel second, and the axis rotation third.

Smooth, what would say to his second part of the question? Can you have a ball redrilled to a completely different pattern, say pin over rather than under, without disturbing the ball dynamics?

As long as the core is not compromised by the first drill, it should be fine to plug and redrill at least once.

But what I've found from my experiences is that if you drill a left handed ball for a righty and there's been a weight hole or the holes drilled deep enough to get into the core, its not going to be very dynamic.

Erin

I know a few people that have plugged and redrilled equipment to try to get a different reaction out of a ball. As long as too much of the core isn't taken out the plug material will make up most of the weight that was drilled out with the original holes. I've only plugged to change pitchs, spans and once a bridge that was way too wide. As for variations in drill patterns all of balls are drilled slightly different to give me a different reaction, or do something on a particular condition.

I would wait and get a new ball, you will not be able to trust the drilling if you plug and redrill it because you will never know for sure if the fingers and thumb along with any weight holes that were plugged are affecting your ball motion, the only way to know for sure is to figure out which ball you want to have a different motion on it, then buy another one with the proper pin to cg distance and top weight to allow you to drill it the way you want.

The reason I say this is the plug material probably weighs the same as the core materials, it will not have the same density and is basicly coverstock material that is poured in the holes, so in effect instead of having a light bulb shaped core for example, you now have a light bulb shaped core with 6 to 8 holes drilled in it, some voids, some filled voids, but voids none the less. So you will never know for sure if it is the drilling pattern you like or not.

As far as how to drill the ball and what pin locations, cg placement, mass bias placement etc.. there is a great article in Bowlers Journal this month where Mo Pinel describes in detail his Dual Angle system for laying out bowling balls. It is worth a years subscription, check it out at www.bowlersjournal.com