After 4 times in league, it has not been a home run. Granted that the operator has not been stellar, but the First Blood has not come alive till the third game on High Street. I have since knocked the shine off with a new 4K pad by hand to see if that is enough to eliminate most of those pesky 10 pins, but have not used it yet. If not , I have a 2k pad waiting for its turn. My friend averaged over 230 last year with one in my house on the same pattern, so this operator has not found the appropriate combination yet. 

I also have to agree that it has everything to do with the drill.

I have a very high tilt, similar to Robert Flunder IV, but when I ordered my FB, it was drilled pin down. I am used to long pin, pin up layouts, so this was completely different for me, and as predicted, the ball underperformed...

But it only underperformed from what I perceived it to do (per IV's videos).

Since I basically have 2 games I can throw (one which I wheel the ball like no tomorrow, the other I square up and go down and in), I actually found that this layout worked a lot better for my B game than it did my A game. So in the end, that layout worked great for me, because it gave me a better down and in look than I've had in a long, LONG time. Last time I had that good of a look was with my Fab Blue Hammer, and an Ebonite Apex Adrenaline.

my FB layout: 60 x 4.5 x 70, pin under the ring finger. By comparison to, say, Ebonite Challenge: 60 x 3.5 x 40, pin above pinky, CG kicked out.

All in all, this ball is great pin up, CG kicked out, but if you can work with it, it's a great pin down ball as well (perhaps also with CG kicked out?).

BL.