WOW....after debating it for a couple of weeks I punched one of these tonight. 5.5" x 5" with a 3.5" buffer. No hole required and with box finish this thing just wouldn't quit. The house where my shop is is notorious for having a little bit too much friction downlane, but it just kept making movement towards the pocket. I took it in the shop after a few minutes and put a little bit of 4000 on it and then it really looked good. Not angular just a really hard arch....that again wouldn't stop. I could move right and decrease my axis rotation and it just kept throwing pins around. It just seemed to always have that "perfect" motion into and through the pins no matter what angle I was playing.
I'm so impressed with this core....truly makes a great motion downlane.
Little known fact: In Russian "Hope" and "Change" translate to "Tax" and "Spend"
I will second that motion part, Randy! Way more than I expected from a heavy-oil ball!
I had mine drilled 4.5 by 4, with a 2" buffer. I have never had a heavy-oil ball with this kind of motion in the mid-lane, and tenacious continuation on the back-end. When I was testing the fit of the span right before league on a THS, the ball looked pretty ordinary. However... when I threw the first practice-ball on my league shot (Kegel Route 66), the difference was amazing! I was able to get two games of great performance before I could see the ball starting to labor and burn-up. I kept using it for 5-more frames to see if I could make it work, but it was clearly past time to ball-down. My ball-speed is typically 16.5-17.5 mph, and I'm more of a tweener. Most people with less ball-speed or more hand will have to put this ball away much earlier than I did.
Now that I've seen what it can do, I can't wait to take it to my first Nationals!
Life is not a matter of holding a good hand, but of playing a bad hand well. (R. L. Stevenson)
Edited by vilecanards on 1/30/2012 at 4:09 AM
I am seriously impressed by the motion I get out of my Defiant. It is very, very versatile because it has much more continuation than most bowling balls I've thrown, so it can still turn the corner even when it finds a lot of friction, meaning I can just keep moving left with it as the shot dries up for longer than I expected. Plus shots where I miss right and get into the friction too early don't burn up and leave flat 10s as often as I would see with most stronger solid coverstock balls. I have played around with the cover quite a bit and it seems to roll well no matter what I do to it.