When I returned to the lanes after breaking my left hand (pinky knuckle, and I'm a righty), I switched to another approach style which lets me put full ball weight on the palm of my left hand instead of the fingers.  This "new" style gave me more speed (from 15.3 to 17.5) and higher revs (from ~350 to ~525).  I've thrown 15# since 2003 and all of them are pin-out.  After I found the line that worked best among the places I bowled, I settled on this general line:  middle of left shoe 7 boards right of center, and right over the 2nd dot from the right (before the arrows)...which can be adjusted to first arrow if it's a little drier.  This is much farther outside than I played before, but it works very well.

 

I pretty much throw nothing but Visionary's Gargoyles (Violet, Green, and Blue) with a White Dot for spares.  When everything works, I can reach 210-220 without trying, and the Violet and Green Gargoyles are the workhorses.  I'm still learning to self-diagnose mechanics issues, which has proven to be a very difficult task.

 

Anyway, I moved back home over the summer and returned to a house I could average 205+ at before I changed shots.   The place is known for nearly bone dry outsides, right where Violet and Green love to be.  This just leaves the urethane-on-steroids Blue Gargoyle (the weakest 15 I own other than the WD), but even she'll start going left before 30 feet.  I've been taught parallel moves and tried it using all three gargoyles with mixed results.  For now, I've settled on standing 1 board right of center and going right over the 1st arrow with the blue one...which ends up very close to everyone else's line forcing me to move further left and makes an already uncomfortable shot even more so.

 

As I mentioned earlier, those three are all pin-out.  I'm looking into getting a very weak ball to see if I can get it to push through the outside desert, which leads me to my question.  I understand that pin-out gives more options, but I'm still fuzzy on the difference between the two (I do have two pin-in balls, but they're 16s).  Can someone please educate me on this?

 

Thanks! 

Typically, a pin under your fingers ball will be a little smoother and will start its hook a little sooner.  Understand that the path of a ball on the lane is skid-->hook-->roll. 

 

One thing does not add up for me though.  I think that you should look at checking your numbers again.  I do not think that you are at 525rpm's.  If you were you would not be able to touch the 1st arrow on a THS.  You would need to be in around 3rd to 4th arrow.  I throw the ball at 17mph and 425rpm's and I play around 3rd arrow almost everywhere.  I can't even get out to 1st arrow with my urethane ball. 

 

 

Cory

Ten Pin Bowling Pro Shop

USBC Bronze Certified Coach

USBC Registered Volunteer

 

 

Thanks for the replies.  As you can clearly see, I know nothing about the science behind the sport.

 

The numbers I used for speed and rpms came from a driller who also helped me adjust to the new style.  I know, my fault for trusting a stopwatch and eyes.  I'd believe the speed since it feels like the ball is getting there faster than it did before.  He estimated 17.7 after several shots, and most scorers put me at 17.5 (but I've learned to use that number only as a guide to see if speed is staying consistent).

 

When I left the sport around 2007, I wasn't aware of a pin up/down option.  I was referring to the box saying pin out 2-3" (or pin in 1-2" in the case of those 2 16#s).  The three I use now are all drilled the same way (assuming Visionary marks the CG with the dot directly above the serial number):  5 1/8" span, center of pin ~7/8" right of edge of ring finger insert, top edge of pin lines up with the top edges of finger holes, CG is <1/2" right of the line from the pin to center of thumb hole...but they differ on how far the pin is from CG (Violet is 3", Green is 2.75", and Blue is 2.5"...all pin out 2-3" according to the boxes).  I'm not sure how much this matters, but the finger hole edges on the Violet line up with the center of the pin.

 

I hope this helps, and my apologies for not thinking about including it in the original post. 

Interesting...

 

Your style of bowling is called palm bowling and can be confused with 2 finger bowling because we put the ball in our palm but we only have 2 fingers in the ball. 

 

If the outsides are dry and middle has oil you should be fine...  Sorry this is off topic...