In regards to bowling equipment, is innovation truly dead?  This sport has gone from wooden balls (lignum vitae) to rubber balls to plastic balls to urethane balls to dynamic cores to reactive resin balls and particle balls & hybrid balls like the helix and double helix and epoxy coverstocks(short lived) and from symmetric and then asymmetric cores.  Is there anything left to bring out that hasn't been done  before. Is there nowhere else to go with covers & cores to truly be innovative?

Brad

They could innovate and not make such brittle covers that didn't crack so easily.

Suggesting for a friend...

Barring a significant change in lane surface, or oils, there is not much futher ball technology can go.  The super high rev rates of the modern power players, particularly 2 handers has led to urethane coming back into vogue at the highest competitive levels. 

I'd love to see the particle urethane of my Midnight Scorcher make a comeback--unfortunately it would be with a different company since visionary is no more. What I would really love is a particle pearl version of my Midnight Scorcher --- same core but a pearlized urethane with particle.

Brad

Might look at the new Motiv ball coming out, Covert Tank. They are advertising it as not a urethane and not truly a reactive. Im not a Motiv fan but it is interesting.

Yeah and my middle of the road 450 rev rate leads to lots of buckets. Just don’t get on it enough to use urethane with any level of success.

THIS is why I don't get all the attention paid to Urethane. Unless you're a bowling freak like a Jesper Svensson, Reactive Resin is almost always going to be a better choice.

I'm not a rev dominate player, far from it. I have had a lot of urethanes and loved each and every one of them. I could today make an arsenal up and score probably as well but more consistently than i can with resin. Don't get me wrong i love the lower end reactives, but sometime i want to square up and the only way i can play straighter more comfortably is with polished urethanes or the urethane pearls coming out. Carry can be an issue sometimes, but ill take spares over splits anyday.

Nothing is absolute. You personally may in fact have success with Urethane over Resin. In most cases, this is generally not true for most higher end bowlers.


There are many medium to entry level strength low differential resins that provide control with greater hitting power than Urethane. These balls will almost always be a better option.

The most notable changes in the last few years is with coverstock finish options in general. 500/1000, 500/2000 and all the other many combinations that bowlers can now apply to endless equipment options for better results.

Coverstocks have shown no real change. Marketing of said coverstocks is far more creative but the product has not given us a ball reaction we haven't seen before.


Then we have cores. Lots of shapes, but again nothing new in on lane reaction or performance. When looking at the core numbers for comparison most haven't shown any change there as well. So many cores keep some type of light bulb shape in many cases.