I agree that Brunswick coverstocks last relatively longer than other brands in most cases. We have drilled two Raging Infernos for our customers. They have around 100 games on their ball and we haven't seen any significant loss of reaction so far. Ofcourse the importance of a good maintenance on the balls must not be forgotten.
I have Contact Zone 2.0 with over 600 games on it, 3 times resurfaced, soaked etc. I still love it and it is still kicking.
However I must respectfully disagree with mumzie that they will last forever. The efficient life of a bowling ball is maximum 150-200 games regardless of how good you clean it etc.. After 100 games you start to loose reaction slightly. Resurfacing, soaking etc might help and gain some of the reaction back, but there is no way you can restore the original.. This is a fact of physics.
If you have a chance to have another Speed Zone with identical specs (pinout, top weight etc.) and drill it the same way, you will see the reaction difference. I believe you'll see at least 3 times much powerful, hard kicking ball.
I should tell this in other forum post "i think my Inferno died" perhaps but here is my experience about original inferno: In last year we have drilled more than 20 infernos, 1 of them for a guy I've been coaching. Now he has more than 400 games on it and regardless of what we have done, we couldn't make it come back to life (resurfacing, soaking etc..) Being a power tweener he can play with it only in house shot, relatively medium to light oil with clean backends.
We have experienced more or less the same thing with Raging Red Fuze last year. It was a real monster before it worn out..
Just my 2 cents..
Burak
Edited on 12/25/2003 11:30 AM