The ball: 16 pounds, 3-inch pin
The drill: Pin above ring, CG in the palm, AMB area in the strong, right of the thumb and inside the VAL, works out to about a 3.5 x 4 x 4 drill for me. Weight hole beyond the VAL 90 degrees from AMB area to the MB marker. Finish is 2000 plus polish.
Me: PAP 4 over 3/8 up, tweener revs, good speed, good circumference coverage
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Bought this ball used off eBay with the drill pattern already on the ball, which was not exactly how I'd have preferred to have tested this one. I wanted to drill it with a weaker pin, but the pattern on it was sufficient and I decided to try this first before making any big moves. All that was needed was the plug and redrill the thumb.
The surface prep when I got the ball was box, but it had some game traffic on it, 40-50 games. A light resurfacing and some Storm Reacta Shine polish brought it back to life.
This is not my first Visionary ball but it is my first of the AMB line. I have never had a bad experience from a Visionary-poured ball, the only company about which I can say that.
This ball didn't give me any problems, but it didn't jump out of the gate and impress me, either. It's possible it needs to break down its polish a little bit and work in some games.
Testing was conducted on two shots, a medium-light modified THS without a drastic wall, and a medium-volume flatter shot with dry boards outside 3. The Centaur liked the modified THS better than the flatter shot. It had trouble turning the corner on the flatter, heavier pattern and carry was a big bugaboo. It's likely the polish was too heavy on the ball.
On the house shot, however, the ball cleared problems in the fronts and mids very well. This house has very touchy, hot midlanes from time to time and this ball just ignored them. Energy transfer to the backends was good and the ball drove well without deflection.
Carry was disappointing on both conditions. This ball is allergic to high hits, leaving a lot more 4-pins and even 9-pins than usual. Quite a few heavy 7s as well. Stringing strikes was a chore as the ball would often finish dead flush on consecutive hits but leave single pins on every other hit.
The movement of this ball is a little different than most assyms I've thrown. It's a bit more predictable off the spot when the lanes are dry but the move in the back is a deliberate arc. There isn't a lot of snap in this ball, as I was told to expect.
I question this ball's general ability to handle a lot of oil. Perhaps with a surface change I might see it, but from testing it looks like this ball is for mediums and lighter. More testing is needed after surface changes. The summary:
Positives: Very controllable, one of the cleanest through the heads I've thrown, continuous move in the backend.
Negatives: Carry on high hits is curious to say the least, when polished it's not for anything over medium-light, not angular even when it needs to be.
Overall: A good ball for medium and lighter volumes of oil, but doesn't seem to stand out from the crowd.
Jess
