LANE CONDITION
Length: 37 feet
Volume: Medium
Type (THS, Sport Pattern etc): THS
COMMENTS
Likes: Clears the fronts with ease and is a beast on the back end.
Dislikes: Solid 8's and 9's.
It’s been a while since I’ve gotten the chance to write any new reviews. To be honest, it’s because I haven’t had to buy any new balls for the past year and a half or two years. Those Visionary covers just last forever. In fact, I’m still using some of the balls that I originally got from Visionary over five years ago! But when they came out with the Mixed Breed pearl, a strong asymmetric, I just had to give one a try.
Since the Mixed Breed is a “Z spin†asymmetric, I spent a lot of time researching how to drill it. As it turns out, I was making it a lot more complicated than it needed to be. The simplest way to think of it is:
• Put the pin up around the fingers somewhere for a good all-around drilling.
• Put the “V†directly in your thumb for the tamest possible drilling.
• As you swing the “V†away from the thumb, the ball becomes stronger and stronger until 90° off the “V†is in your thumb, which would be stronger than anyone really needs.
I started with a pretty large pin out (right at four inches) and low top weight. I settled for putting the “V†four inches off the thumb. The pin ended up directly in the ring finger. I then used a “double thumb†weight hole. By all accounts, this is a pretty strong drilling. Not insane, maxed-out strong, but I wanted something pretty muscular that I could still use over a wider range of conditions. I left it in box finish and headed for my first league night of the year.
I started the night playing nine at the foul line out to five at the break point. The first game was 11 shots dead in the pocket for 204. A solid six pin, two ringing sevens, a solid eight, and a pair of solid nines. I finally realized that, with the ball being a strong asymmetric, I didn’t need as much axis rotation to maintain continuation on the back end. It was just generating too much angle through the pins. I backed off the rotation some and, after a few high shots due to the ball getting into a slightly earlier roll, finished with a nice 233. The third game I had to begin chasing the oil to the inside. But it seemed no matter how deep I moved (and I ended up playing 15 at the foul line out to 5 at the break point), the ball still had great continuation and hit even with the lower axis rotation. I would really like to say that I had a 300 with the ball the first time I used it, but a solid seven in the 11th kept me to 289.
My overall impressions were that the ball would work great on anything from fairly dry to the slicker side of medium and maybe even some heavier conditions if the pattern was short enough. It was clean through the front and early midlane, began to get started in the later midlane, and really turned for home with bad intentions. The outstanding recovery and continuation would make it a godsend when playing deeper lines. I was extremely impressed with how well the ball responded to the change in hand position. It allowed me to moderate the back ends somewhat to generate the proper entry angle without worrying about losing hitting power or continuation. I can’t wait for next week. Outstanding job, Visionary!
PICTURES AND/OR VIDEOS
