i finally had a chance to try my copperhead and swarm on a fresh shot. olympia lanes in st. joseph, missouri, has recently installed brunswick proanvilane synthetic lanes and anyone who has bowled on them will tell you they are extremely hard and smooth. the center tried using their typical 40' house shot but that was too much oil and they've changed it to 37'. i started with my swarm in box finish( 400 wetsand and polished ). i found a down and in shot around 7-8 that looked great for a while until the carrydown reached my breakpoint. slower ball speed and a more direct angle barely helped. i switched to my copperhead which i had recently changed back to it's box finish( 800 grit sanded ). there was now a night and day difference in ball reaction. this was obviously going to work out much better and it did. i was surprised on how "skid/snap" the ball reaction was with the copperhead-----i think a big part of that was a new lane surface with dry( finally ) backends.

i fully expect to use the swarm on my wednesday night scratch league. it's at a house that has 40+ year old wood lanes with the laneshield overlay. their league shot has a huge crown from 15 to 15 and the rest is tapered to the 4th board or so. it's much drier outside there than the house that has the synthetic lanes.