It will all depends on your stats. and lane conditions balls will be used on.  For me and my stats which are in profile the VS was too early so my pin down layout required polish or it puked for me.  If I had to do it again as the VS is an early roll ball I'd have gone pin up. That being said the pin down layout I used was good on flatter conditions but very condition specific good but unusable for house type conditions. Now that's for me and my stats.  others may have better reaction than I. Your pro shop operator if good will suggest the correct layout for you with stats input and surface for conditions you will use the balls on.

VT's look like a good delayed hook ball but I went another way for that slot.

I set up my Strike with the pin directly below the ring. It provides for more of a strong arc reaction on medium conditions. I think I see more oil than Scott generally encounters, so I haven't experienced 'puke out' with the OOB surface. If you want to be safe, a pin up layout should work well on the Strike.

Mine was pin under bridge which gave me too much VAL angle and too much pin to PAP and too much control for an already control type ball.  Probably pin under ring would have been fine. But as always YMMV and why driller needs to get correct layout for your stats and lane condition plus surface.  Generally pin under bridge layouts for me are fine as long as they are stronger balls.  VS is not a strong ball low total diff and Atomix Solid not a strong cover.  Example....I have had an 800 with a pin under Solid Nomad.  Stronger cover and more total diff.

Scott, you bring up some good qualifying information.


I've definitely experienced the "too much pin to PAP" scenario. I completely messed up a Primal Scream going with the pin above the middle finger. It produced a horible hook/stop reaction. I just drilled up a second with the pin below the ring, CG kicked out with a balance hole on my PAP. It's a completely different ball.     It almost has too much backend off the dry.

Steven, that sounds close to how my Primal Scream is drilled except my hole is a P3 hole. Actual nos. are 50* x 3 3/8 x 65*.   With my PAP being 4 x 1/2 up, this put the Pin under RF.

My Venom Strike is drilled with the Pin below the bridge and the Venom Toxin is drilled with the pin above the bridge.  The Venom Strike tells you when to switch balls.  As soon as I leave a flat ten, it is time to change.  Once I leave a flat ten, I cannot find an adjustment with the Venom Strike to eliminate the flat ten.