I have had the Contact Zone-Pro since it came out in April, and I must say that at first I was truly disappointed with the ball. From the specs. it looked to be similar to the Riot Zone-Pro with the core, but just a different coverstock and less flare. When I first threw it (like the Riot Zone-Pro) I did not see the length that was advertised. Eventually my Riot Zone improved greatly in its performance, and is an excellent medium condition ball and works great on carrydown. The Contact Zone-Pro on the other hand still did not impress me. It seemed to want to jump as soon as it hit a dry board or dry area on the lane, and it just seemed to be unpredictable. The one thing positive I could say though was it hit like a truck! One of the hardest hitting balls I have owned. Still the ball was not good on fresh backends, but was good with carrydown because it has a strong backend (surprisingly strong for a ball with lesser flare than most Brunswick balls).
I had not thrown the Contact Zone-Pro in quite awhile, but decided to practice with it today and now I have changed my mind about it. I was on a shot with plenty of head oil, with some backends. Normally this house has massive backends, but apparently there was some bowling prior to me practicing. There was still some good backends though. In the nine games I threw with it I had a 730 series, then a 679, and then.....WOW... .267-300-229=796!! I was playing up the boards about the 8 board, and moved in as the games went along to about the 11 board. The Contact Zone held up in the oil very well, it rolled very even and strong, and still hit like a tank! When I sent it out to the dry it did make the early move like it wanted, but there was some carrydown to keep it from over-reacting too soon most of the time. Now at times when they started to dry out the Contact Zone would let you know it. If it hit the dry too soon to the right it jumped immediately, but if it went through the oil and was projected out into the dry far enough down the lane it would react exellently with a very strong backend and tremendous carry. Going up the boards it would hold the line nicely and did not have too much of a tendancy to skate across the oil. You could play a nice hold shot with the Contact. Now this was a fairly easy shot I was bowling on, but the Contact Zone reacted beautifully on it. It was by far the better ball to be throwing at the time. I was also throwing my Jade Quantum and Danger Zone-Pro HPD. In comparison to the HPD, the Contact Zone rolled later, and skidded further through the oil, but had a stronger backend than the HPD. Now this ball is pretty conditional it looks like, but I will be throwing it more on other conditions to see how it holds up. I'll be interested to see how it does with more carrydown because this ball has very strong roll in the last 10-20 feet.
This Contact Zone-Pro was drilled leverage-stacked with about a 2" pin. The pin was to the right of the ring finger (stacked) and was slightly above the right finger. It had about 3 oz. of top weight.
On an easier shot this ball performed better than it EVER has, and I will be interested to see how it reacts on other shots or if it reverts back to its oldself and reacts unpredictably and violently. As of today though, my mind has changed about the Contact Zone-Pro and I'm loving it. I have seen many negative reviews of it, but if you still have one out there give it a few more trys and be patient...who knows maybe you'll have the same results I had today. Good luck!
