When you say that you cannot predict your balls transition from oil to dry, you are saying that the ball is too twitchy down lane? You say this happens with stronger reactive resins. What ball are you throwing and what surface is it at?

How reliable is your source stating that its a longer pattern?  Based on what you are saying about equipment reaction, it sounds like your stronger equipment might be rolling out.  I would use your weaker equipment but add some surface to it.  Just my 2 cents.

Not sure how reliable my source is. He does tend to get information that sometimes ends up being helpful, but depends how reliable his sources are.

Have used so many different balls I can’t say which I’ve used the most. And have never been s very precise bowler... able to hit exactly the same spot repeatedly. But at this house it seems like rolling what appears to be the same shot successively does not yield consistent
Behavior from the b-ball’s.

Is less variance with weaker equipment, but a matter of degree. Not like night and day.

Weaker equipment as in shiner pearls balls? What does a duller ball do for you on this shot for you?

Have more sustained success at this house with duller, more arcing (vs skid-flip) balls, but nothing seems to work for more than a game or two.

Am only about 180-190 average, but at the other houses, I am able to make good adjustments and even when I can’t, I know what  doing wrong and what I’m doing well. At this house, it’s not just how high or low my scores are. It’s this feeling of being lost and not knowing what to try to fix it. And yes... at this point it’s at least in part a mental issue, cause after a few “what?”  Moments, things go south in a hurry. No such trouble elsewhere.

Sounds like it could be a longer pattern. Perhaps not very heavy either (correct me if I am wrong). While a lot of people prefer shinier balls on longer oil for a stronger response to friction, sometimes they can get too unpredictable at the end of the pattern. Longer oil can get tricky on the transition while throwing dull stuff. The heads and midlanes start drying out and most of your dull stuff starts losing steam but shiny stuff is still too unpredictable down lane. Is this what you are experiencing?

"Sounds like it could be a longer pattern. Perhaps not very heavy either (correct me if I am wrong). While a lot of people prefer shinier balls on longer oil for a stronger response to friction, sometimes they can get too unpredictable at the end of the pattern. Longer oil can get tricky on the transition while throwing dull stuff. The heads and midlanes start drying out and most of your dull stuff starts losing steam but shiny stuff is still too unpredictable down lane. Is this what you are experiencing?"

Yes.   That does sound like what I'm experiencing (aside from the mental anguish and aggravation).

Last night I wasn't god awful, but could never get into any kind of a rhythm. Any adjustments made only worked for a couple of frames ----course part of that is I would immediately lose patience and abandon whatever change I had made if it didn't result in 3 or 4 decent deliveries in a row.  Maybe I need a ball that comes with a free pyscho-analysis session?

Ironically when I get mad and start lofting the ball quite a bit down the lane, I have some initial success and even comment that I'm throwing the ball past the oil.  But of course that results in even more skidding and less accuracy.

Despite or because of having relatively low revs, most of my equipment is more skid flip, which exaggerates when I'm missing my target in terms of accuracy or speed.  But using more arcing type balls seems to result in balls hitting like wet noodles....even though I still have decent speed (around 16mph).

But the biggest challenge is reading the lanes.  Other houses and even in tournaments, I may not like the way my balls are reacting or the results, but I know as soon as the ball is delivered where it's going and why. In this house am having way too many deliveries where I am surprised at what the ball did.   Even some of the GOOD results have me shaking my head in amazement and being puzzled as to why THAT delivery worked out the way it did, even though the ball felt like crap when I delivered it.

Well without seeing how I bowl (consider yourself lucky...it could cause eye damage 🙂) you are describing pretty accurately what I’m experiencing.

Sometimes I pull out one of my strongest reactives and have success for awhile, but then things start to deteriorate. A few weeks ago I bowled a really nice 251 in 2nd league game. It wasn’t just the score. Was consistently hitting my mark and easily duplicating the shot in every frame. And then in the 3rd game, it all went away and I bowled a 145. Again... big just the score, but a total loss of targeting, etc.

Considered switching to a weaker ball, but was too late.

And I have a Storm Pitch Blue Urethane and have some nice games with it cause it’s easy to control. But some days get a lot of splits with it.

Am going to try re-adding finger grips (stopped using them about 10 years ago) to a couple of my weaker reactives and see if the combination of more revs and weaker ball might work.