I got mine for a very particular purpose. One house I bowl in has old wood lanes. The condition is a total flood inside of 9 or 10 with carrydown, so everyone is forced to start in the track area, which burns up in about 5 frames.
For most of the last 3 months of last season, I successfully used my 1980-era Turbo pearl urethane around the first arrow. Biggest problem was weak ten pins, as I couldn't get quite enough angle. What I was hoping for with the Natural (because of a dynamic core) was to get a similar reaction, maybe a little stronger with just a touch more in the back.
I asked my driller to get me one with a 3-4" pinout so we could drill something like 5 x 5 pin over bridge. He said of the roughly 25 balls in stock at his wholesalers, the longest pinout was 2.5". We thought about putting the pin and CG on the centerline, pin just over, CG just under, but this would require deep finger holes to make it legal. I wasn't comfortable with it.
Biggest mistake I made was reading the reviews, especially BJI where they have the Natural in the very bottom-left square on their grid (most length, least angle), many squares away from even relatively weak balls like the Fast. If the ball was that weak, I didn't want to kill it even more with a weak drilling. So I decided on putting the pin in my ring finger (about 4.75" from PAP), CG straight down, with a tiny hole on my PAP.
This ball is surprisingly strong. Sure, it will probably hook 3 boards on a fresh Shark pattern, but on light to medium conditions, it is stronger than I was expecting or hoping, about 8-10 boards stonger than the old Turbo. It starts pretty early (as I was expecting, regardless of the reviews) and then it just goes and goes. Very continuous arc and roll. Carry is not an issue. Very quickly I hit it with a 4000 Abralon pad by hand, which tamed it a tiny bit. Then I tried a light coat of polish, which didn't seem to change the reaction much. I will try to come up with a way to get a high gloss finish on it. I can use it as is, but it requires me to swing it more than I want to swing a urethane ball.
Bottom line in my opinion only: the Natural can handle a little bit of oil. Drill it strong if you plan to use it on a fairly normal but short pattern. If your plan, like mine, is to use it on toast, drill it as long & weak as you can.
Scott.
