I wouldn't go to Nationals with less than 4 balls not counting my spare ball. You need an aggressive solid reactive, dull 4" pin for heavy oil. Solid benchmark type ball pin over fingers, solid pin under fingers benchmark type ball and agressive pearl like the bw pearl or Cell pearl. You don't need much of a dry lane ball since there is usually plenty of oil on the lanes even in the side events I have never had to use anything weaker than an aggressive pearl.

High rev players will need something weaker for late shift singles and doubles, but other than that, they have plenty of oil.

What do the Pin over the fingers and the pin under the fingers do to the ball's reaction?

Conventional wisdom is that a ball with higher pin placement will go slightly longer than an identical ball with a lower pin placement.

So for example let's say that it would be a good fit to get the BW Solid with a 4" pin because it would go longer but the dull coverstock would help the react or break harder, right? Whereas, the Up-Rising being a polished ball it would be more beneficial to have the pin under the fingers because the polished coverstock will add the length while the shorter pin will try to get the ball to roll more, right?

It's not that any pin position is more beneficial on a given ball. What you're talking about with two different balls is comparing apples and oranges. Drilling an UpRising to roll sooner and a BW solid to go longer would only minimize the inherent differences between the balls and limit your ability to match up well with different conditions.

If you have two identical balls, placing the pin in different spots will cause the balls to match up best with slightly different conditions.

Ok, thanks Chubbs. I was just double checking. So it would be more benefical to have, for example, an Uprising with a pin over the fingers for more length and another one with pin under the fingers for an earlier roll, correct?

You're on the right Track with that, yes. You'll also want to consider having a different surface (2000 or 4000 abralon) on the ball that you want to roll sooner.

Which would benefit better from the surface change? For instance, would the ball (the Uprising) with the pin above the fingers react better with the 2000 Abralon or 4000 and is that polished or not polished?

Additionally, would it be better to have a ball with a 4" pin for above the fingers and a 2-3" pin for the ball that would be drilled with the pin below the fingers or would you get them both with the same pin length of let's say 4" and drill one with the pin above the fingers and the other with the pin below?

Interesting question again, I have my Uprising drilled with pin below fingers and a balance hole. The ball kicked hard skid/Flip with the 4000 polished from the OOB. I took the surface to 2000 dull because I wanted it to cut sooner in the midlane. It does. It still retained its hitting power, which was my biggest fear that it wouldn't. Well since the pin above the fingers give a bit more length to the ball, with the polish at 4000 its already going a decent ways through the midlane, reading quite nice really, then snaps with the skid/Flip in the backend. If you put that combo, you're going for length still as the main focus. If you keep the pin above the fingers and take the surface to 2000 dull the ball will even out the length and early midlane read to be I would assume has a similar look to the 4000 polished with pin under fingers. Of course, I would assume that would reduce the skid/Flip and cause more of an arc then.

If you took the pin under the fingers, which mine is, and left it at 4000 polished, it hooks nice with good length. A prime setup in my personal opinion for good midlane length and strong skid/Flip backend reaction. The thing is that this then looks much more medium oil to me. Higher oil could then cause this drill and surface setup to hit low or light pocket. I wanted mine to read the midlane a bit earlier so I took the pin under the fingers and brought the surface to 2000 dull. Now it hooks hard skid/Flip on the backend and reads the midlane sooner to combat higher oil and longer patterns.

Really, I wouldn't say any of the setups are better or worse. It just depends on the reaction you want and the lane condition you want it best suited for, as well as the proper place in your arsenal.

I think I've pretty much decided on the Uprising, but there could possibly be something else that might work better for me. So I haven't completely 100% decided on the Uprising.

Rack Wrecker, do all of your balls have the skid/Flip setup? I like more of a continuous arching sort of reaction myself. I only ask because Track has a couple of balls that work a lot better skid/Flip, and I was wondering if the Uprising might be one of them?

Is there a way that I could have both balls with that kind of reaction but with one with the pin above the fingers and the other with the pin below the fingers?

Also are there any sites or places where I can see the different types of layouts, that might help as well?

Rack Wrecker, thanks for the tip about watching the youtube videos on the uprising. If there is one thing that I can get from that it's that the Uprising hits hard and doesn't stop working.