Mine is something very close to 4 5/8" over and 3/8" up. Based on that, does anyone have a hypothesis on what drillings work well for me? I'm having a bit of difficulty in that department, but it seems around 4 1/4" pin to PAP should be a benchmark for me. Assume I throw 16 MPH and 250-275 RPM with ~45 degrees of axis rotation.

I have no idea what my PAP is.

I'm 5 1/4 by 0

Also, adding to what CoachJim said, you should measure this on a ball that is very low flaring. A spare ball would be the best.

Amature, drillings are based on your rev rate, higher revrate bowlers need to keep the pin farther from the pap unless they are trying to have a burn out at the pocket type reaction.

Your rev rate being from 250 to 275 you should keep your pin distances between 4" to 5" from the pap, 4" on heavy oil ball and 5" for dry lane ball, everything else around 4 1/2". An extreme dry lane ball could have a 6" pin to pap distance.

You will have better luck with pin up drillings this way the ball will expend more energy at the break point and add the extra punch you need going through the pins. A Rico drilling might work well for you when playing up the outside on heavy or short oil depending on the aggressiveness of the ball, and the length of the pattern, but for the most part pin under the fingers drillings tend to pack too much punch at the pins for lower rev rate bowlers, because they don't use as much of the lane as higher rev rate bowlers, and play more direct toward the pocket. If you watch Norm Duke, he rarely uses pin under the fingers drillings, neither does Walter Ray, both have a rev rate similar to yours.

I was thinking around 4+" is a good start for me. My Rival is 4 1/4" pin down and I really like it. However, all my pearls have been drilled 4 1/2" or more pin up(except for one that was around 5 1/2" pin down) and for some reason I just don't match up. I don't believe I've ever tried a solid pin up though. And I wonder if pin down(or at least closer to PAP) for pearls are better for me because the pearl especially if polished will give enough length. I could be wrong but I haven't had much luck with pearls(even my Counter Strike which has particle) in the sense that I'm not too fond of the reaction and pin down and/or smaller pin distances is all I have left to try. What do you think?

For what it's worth, I used to throw a Whirl Wind my dad didn't care much for. That ball ended up with the pin ~3 3/4" from my PAP. It's a mild cover/core combo solid with a light bulb core with polish and I was fond of it. Apparently I matched up pretty well. If stronger pin positions didn't work for me on pearls I might be tempted to just throw solids and put polish on them if needed for the intended conditions(the exception being really dry lanes).

You shouldn't be afraid of pearls, the problem with them so far sounds like the drilling, pin down vs pin up, try a pearl in a pin up 4 1/2" to 5" pin for dryer lanes and see if you don't like the reaction better. Norm Duke uses pearls quite a bit even on long oil patterns because they will allow him to play straighter to the pocket, he is good enough to adjust his release to make it not snap through the nose though.

You need to match the surface to the lane conditions. Dull solid for heavy oil, shiny solid strong cover for medium heavy, shiny medium solid or aggressive pearl for medium, medium pearl or weak solid for medium light, weak pearl for light.

Pin up or down doesn't really change how far the ball goes down the lane, except for a foot or so, it changes the type of reaction on the back end, pin down is more arcy and continuous where the pin up is more hook and set, even hard snap and set on some balls.

My Counter Strike is 4 1/2" pin up 1". I used a VAL angle of 35 degrees on that. My No Limit was drilled 5" to 5 1/2" pin up, and my Angular One was drilled 4 3/4" pin up. All of these range from dry-ish or broken down lanes to med-light oil for me, and that's fine. They just don't exactly roll that great a huge majority of the time. More versatility is what I'd like out of my equipment.

I have a Twisted Fury drilled about 5 1/2" pin down. At first I really liked the ball but somewhere down the road it lost its midlane, became too sensitive to oil and dry at the same time. It's worst than my others, I don't bother to throw it anymore. Still though, it seems lower pins will serve me better.

So I guess my question is, should I try another pin down layout on my next pearl? With my Counter Strike, I still need to try polish to see if I like it better that way, even thought it probably will stay condition specific.

I have no clue as to what the counter strike is supposed to be good for (maybe nothing, I'm not a big fan of Lm/Legends). The No Limit is a replacement for the warrior which was a broken down condition ball and you never knew when the warrior was going to be the best ball ever or needed to go back in the closet.

I am curious about your angular one, was it new when you got it?
If so that drilling should have worked great for you unless the mb was too close to your Track in that case the ball would roll forward at the break instead of normal hook.

The twisted fury might just need resurfacing, have you tried dulling the ball, in the winter months the oil doesn't dry out like it does over the summer so you may need to alter the surface of the ball to get it more traction. Just remember pin under balls need more dry boards to finish the hook cycle if there is not enough dry boards then the ball will hit the pins while hooking and not carry very well, dulling the surface should help start with 2000 abralon and see how that works.

It was not too long after a resurface that I noticed the drop in performance for the Twisted Fury. And it was taken to something like 4000 polished. I had tried the ball dull like 4000, then 800 or something, and then I got some Rough Buff and took it back to OOB. No luck with anything, it loves leaving me flat 10s now. I had the ball since January and didn't notice anything wrong until some time after its resurface in April or somewhere around there. It may have sorta died due to not cleaning it regularly since I don't think I cleaned it for the first month or so of having it, but I don't think that was the case. I did a bath on it twice since the resurface but nothing. Haven't thrown the ball since June or July.

The Counter Strike is supposed to be a Medium oil ball, more like a med-light ball for me because of my style. At the time my driller was raving about how good LM equipment was and I thought I'd try them out. We decided on this for what seemed like no particular reason. I laid it out myself using the dual angle system, which I'd just picked up on, and asked my driller if that would be good and he said yes after asking what all the components were. He hadn't thrown this ball though, and that was probably an issue since he'd also never seen one go down the lane either. Because of this ball, especially considering what I paid for it, I won't be throwing anything from LM anymore.

My Angular One had the MB about 1 1/2" right of the edge of my thumb hole. It wasn't a particularly bad ball, it was actually one of the better Ebonite balls I've had, but it definitely wasn't good for me most of the time. I did manage to score my first 300 with it on my local house's cheetah pattern during a team practice. I had the ball at 4000 Abralon except for the first few months I had it which it was OOB then. It seemed best on broken down to lighter oil.

I've owned the SR300, Cross Fire, and Big One by Ebonite as well. Still, the only one I particularly liked was the Whirl Wind. I take it for the most part I just didn't match up to Ebonite. They're the only company I've had enough balls from to make that assumption. So now there's possibly three problems with pearls for me: the fact that it's pearl, the layout, or who makes it. It could also be core dynamics or shape.

Can you tell me what balls have been good for you and what drilling they had?

Sometimes one manufacturer's equipment doesn't work for certain bowlers, or are very condition specific, that's why it's good to at least try a ball from every company preferably a good all around ball that has had many favorable reviews from bowlers who are not on staff with the manufacturer.