I purchased a yellow Power Groove and set it up so that the pin is a 7:30 drilling with respect to the cg. I had to drill a balance hole because the side/finger-weights were both 1 oz. I didn't want to risk it being on the borderline. The balance hole is about 2.5" above my PAP on my VAL.

Anyhow, the ball works VERY well... it gets into a nice early roll, but finishes. It doesn't roll out. The coordinates with respect to my axis are 6x3.5 with the pin on the midline, with the cg about 1" under the ring finger.

This is my first time trying this drilling, so I'm not really sure if it's the ball, the drilling, or a combination of the two... but the ball works very well. The balance hole seems to migrate to axis at around 45 ft... it's pretty cool to see.

Get in the Groove!

General Info:

Lane Conditions:  Medium-light
Typical Conditions:  Different shots
Type of Lane:  Wooden
What part of the lane did you play?  3rd arrow
Weight of bowling ball: 15
Surface of bowling ball:  Polished
Likes:  Nice skid, then a good snap.
Dislikes:  Can’t handle too much oil very well.

Ball specs before drilled:
Ball Weight:15 pounds, 4 ounces
Top Weight:  2-3ounces
Pin Distance:  3 inches
Drilling:  Pin over the ring, CG stacked below.

Hook Potential:  Medium-low
Hook Shape:  Skid-snap
Flare Potential:  .041 (medium)
Radius of Gyration:  2.66 (very high)

Bowler:  I am a tweener, with high speed and my revs aren’t anything special.  High tracker.

*All ratings are of 12 strikes. 1 strike being the lowest, 12 strikes being the highest of ratings.  A spare denotes a “half” rating.  A gutterball is, well, 0.  
Ex.)  6 Strikes and a spare= 6.5/12 rating.

LANE CONDITIONS:

Flood:  Forget about it.  This is just not nearly enough ball for a flood.  Good for a 10 pin ball.  Gutterball.

Heavy oil:  This ball will not move on heavy oil.  Just not enough ball to get rolling.  Goes far too long, and won’t have enough to move.  Though you’d have to be crazy to think otherwise.  1 spare.

Medium-Heavy oil/Carrydown:  Like the heavy oil, it just is not going to move.  The only way to make it work is it slow down speed, rev it up good and play straight down and in.  Better off using another ball.  2 strikes.

Medium oil: For higher rev players, you can actually use the ball for medium.  I myself can just play down and in on the 5 board, but you need some backend for the ball to move still.  7 strikes and a spare.

Medium-light oil:  This is *the* condition for this ball.  Lighter side of medium, above dry.  This ball will still go long, but will snap hard off the dry and create good carry.  Ideal ball for the condtion.  11 strikes.

Light/Dry: You can use the ball pretty good for light, maybe just swing it out, watch it snap on the backend.  Dry, you’ll be standing on 40, swinging out to 5 and hope it doesn’t go brooklyn.  You would probably be better off with urethane or plastic.  9 strikes.

Sport Shot: Well, the sport shot I bowled on was heavy oil, so I couldn't use this ball.  Like I said earlier, this ball won't move in heavy.  But if the sport shot had been medium-light, I think this ball would have been fine, as I have not experienced a whole lot of over/under.  PROJECTED:  9 strikes.

Hit: I was amazed by this balls carry.  I suppose those 2 cylinders Brunswick put in helped the ball a lot, besides the flare.  This hits as well as any of my mid-range or high-end equipment.  Hits better than any pancake core for sure.  10 strikes.

Looks:  I have the ice blue version of the ball.  It looks pretty nice shined up.  Kind of purple though, I wish they had just made it blue or purple, not the weird combination.  But at least it’s not some girly-man purple, as the Govinator would say.  8 strikes and a spare.

OVERALL:  This is *the* ideal ball for medium-light oil patterns, as well as light, and normal medium for players with hand.  It has a nice long skid, and if there is dry it will take off.  But the ball doesn’t like carrydown, so you will know when to put it away when it just continues to skid.  Pretty versatile, though.  10 strikes.

Questions? Comments? Help me make my review better, PM me.


Format ©- the BR member “King”.
--------------------
-Andy

Info on me: High rev bowler and high axis tilt.
Lane conditions: Medium

Alright, first off I want to say this ball is totally underrated. This ball hits like a truck and its perfect for you high rev players. I drilled this ball up tonight and I only bowled one game but score was 196. Sorry Im not totally sure about the drilling. But for the price of this ball, this ball is a must have to me. I got this ball 115 dollars all drilled with fingertips. Well I will post back  once I bowl league.

Power Groove Teal/Purple sanded
15lbs
3" pin
3.7 top to start
Drilling: used something similar to 3E on Brunswick drill chart, cept the pin is swung out more and the Thumb is drilled into the cg. Ball had too much top to begin, had to place a weight hole just outside the thumb to get thumb weight down to 1/2.

Drilled this up to be a "light" oil ball, something nice and smooth and wont overreact. It does that as expected, except it hooks twice as much as I thought it would. Shined it up to get more length and now it is money. Tried it out on our Firday night league in practice and playing a little 8-5 bounce, ball went through the beak in a hurry. Moved 4 right to play 12-5 and washout was result. Went back to playing 10 out to about 3 with a little speed and ball reacts beautifully off of the dry, smooth and continuous through the pocket. Ball doesnt have the "sound" of a bomb going off when it hits the pins, obviously due to the disc core, but carry percentage was great. Used it the last 2 games and went 200-225 with a pocket 7-9 (got too fast) and a some wonderful spare shooting (oops). Ball matches up well for me outside on a house shot and will be used for a 12 game marathon tournament in Hudson, WI in 2 weeks (reason why I drilled it to begin with). Ball is great for the price, has some hit/hook power to it, carries well for a "entry level ball", and would fit in perfectly for a tournament arsenal when the lanes break down and/or get dry. Glad I drilled this one, its a keeper.
--------------------
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn for Sega....

Power Groove Purple Silver
Weight is 15lbs
Top Weight is 2.5oz
Pin is 1-2 inches
Drill is pin on the center grip and cg kicked out an inch and weight hole placed in the thumb quadrant.

Overall
I was up in Davenport, Iowa at Miller Time Bowl and I saw this drill on a ball and loved the reaction so I wanted to try it. The ball will never work in oil and is very hard to carry on regular 30ft house shots. The lane needs to be burned. This ball is clean through the heads and tends to start breaking late mid lane but once it breaks, it just rolls. There is no jumpiness to it. I thought I had a dry lane ball in Zone X Low Diff but man this ball does nothing. I have bowled on two patterns enough I thought I could post a review.

35ft sport pattern
I started out like I do most shot and line straight up with 10 board. I had medium grip pressure and started by staying up under the ball. I never really got this ball to check up to the pocket. Tends to roll out before it gets there and hit the three pin. So I tried upping the grip pressure to most I could. It started to check up and even hit the head pin but I was leaving some two, tens so I moved from this shot. Later I tried playing up the one board with high grip pressure (everyone should know that the one board on any house ever gets oiled). This ball got down the lane and found its way to the pocket with out leaving splits. If I pulled it would leave 1,2,4 which is not hard to pick up. I missed outside on once in five games. This is were I shot most of the day. Shot 248, 162, 195, 210, 220.

 
22ft pattern buffed to 30ft.
This was a dry shot so I started a little unorthodox for me and played deep. Swing Fourth arrow with no hand but getting around the side of the ball going to 10 board. This shot tended to be touchy so I did not stay there for long. Left a lot of ten pins and sevens. Therefore, I upped my speed and keeping my grip pressure light and coming up the back of the ball and hitting the higher amounts of oil around the five board. This shot worked great. I was kicking a higher percentage of my single pins and even scored well. Shot 220, 170, 186, 225, 220, and 237. I liked this shot all day so I never moved.

--------------------
Zack Pelton
Bowl To Win!!!

Got this as my first hooking ball. It is SPECTACULAR. Hooks strong as hell and looks great. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I am not the best bowler on my team. I'm averaging something like a 150, and am using only this ball. I bowl on just about any lane condition thinkable. I have no idea what drill pattern I'm using, but it seems to work out okay. The big thing is, against a bunch of people with 200 averages and 6 balls, I seem to be the best at changing lane conditions. This ball will give pretty much the same results on any surface. I'm fingertipped and I hook.

poly-p man

my first reactive ball. i got this 3 years ago and i still use it in league play in wooden, lightly oiled lanes and average 180. but when i took this ball to the english junior nationals i bowled a 654, on synthetic highly oiled lanes. this ball has fantastic versatility the perfect introduction to fingertip reactive bowling. i am bowling in the english county championships in 2 weeks and this will no doubt be the first out of the bag.