The hole is legal; the question is "Are the resulting side & top weights legal?"  

For PBA players' balls, the max weight hole size used to be 1 3/8". Why it is different from the ABC standards, by a whole 1/8", is a mystery to me.

Excessive top weight would not make it a "blem", short for blemish, but the size of the hole that is required is governed, of course, by how much weight mustbe removed to make it legal; that, in turn, is governed by how far from the center of the grip the driller moved the original CG. Of course, being the maximum size, you could have trouble at the ABC tournament, where, if the officials are feeling particlularly ornery that morning, they could measure it as being marginal or over the limit and reject it. They have been know to weight a ball 3 times and get 3 different weights, side weights, and top weights .... Human error, I guess.
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"Just because you can do something does not mean you should do it."


Edited on 2/16/2004 10:16 AM

Another thing that can happen is if the balance hole is not drilled straight toward the dead center of the ball, then the hole ends up somewhat elliptical in shape.  In a case like that, even using a 1 1/4 inch bit will give you a hole that is marginally too large.  For that reason, a smaller drill bit than 1 1/4 should be used whenever drilling a pitched balance hole.  

As pointed out by charlest, if you are going to be bowling in a tournament that checks such things extremely fastidiously, it is probably best to avoid maximum diameter balance holes, unless that is the only way you can get what you are after.  In those cases, just be very careful there is NO pitch to that balance hole.

Shiv
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Listening to the monotonous staccato of rain on my desk top