The ball: 15 pounds, 2.5-inch pin
The drill: 1 x 3 x 4, pin due right of the ring and almost on my PAP, CG kicked out to the right, MB an inch to the right of the thumb and down about 1/4 inch. Weight hole beyond and down the VAL. Finish is box.
Me: PAP 4 over 3/8 up, tweener revs, good speed, good circumference coverage
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Bought this ball used about three years ago and had it redrilled to fit me then, but haven't bowled with it much since. With it in box finish and almost with a pin-axis drilling, I knew I was going to have to find some oil to throw it and I just don't get that much oil that often.
But I've been needing to do a review of this ball just to get it done, so I did some testing on both a broken-down house shot and a flatter, higher-volume shot without a drastically dry outside.
The surface of this ball makes it want to roll immediately, especially coupled with the drill pattern. That made rollout the primary foe to battle, particularly as it relates to carry.
Like all of the X-Factor line, however, this ball is very open to changes in hand positions. It is easily adjustable while in the bowler's hands. Going straight up the back of the ball allowed the strong core to take over downlane and actually show a little angularity. But if you wanted a heavy roll and early move, it could easily be dialed in with a little more tilt.
Carry wasn't as good as my original X-Factor but it was better than some of the other balls in the line.
The two things to worry about with this ball are soft entry angles (light-hit carry from outside just isn't that good, a characteristic I find in many matte or sanded-finish solids) and speed control. There is no stopping this ball from overreacting if you get soft. And, with the way mine is drilled, it doesn't have infinite recovery to the right, either, because the ball doesn't save much for late.
On the good side, I was able to play inside angles with this ball that I could not play with any other piece of equipment I own. This ball with this drill would be good for a higher-volume sport shot, I wager. The summary:
Positives: Great from inside, can handle a lot of oil, very versatile in regards to how in handles input from the bowler.
Negatives: Not a backend boomer, rev-dominant slow-speed bowlers won't like it, cover doesn't appear to be as tunable as others in the X-Factor line.
Overall: It was built to handle heavier volumes of oil and open up the middle of the lanes for people, and that's just what it does. A good release from Storm.
Jess
