What Do Bowling Ball Layouts Mean？

What is going on guys? Welcome back to the channel. And today I'm going to be talking to you guys about numbers. I get this question pretty often. I feel like it shows up in almost every video that we talk about having a layout on a new ball. Can you explain what all these numbers mean? You know, five by four by three, four by four by two, five and a half by five by three, all that jibber jabber. I'm going to be breaking down in as simple terms as I possibly can. And more importantly, in relation to how it affects ball motion to you guys, I'm going to do my best. So stay with me. Let's get right into it. All right. So I'm just going to focus the camera mainly on the bowling balls right here. So for those of you who are excited to see my pretty face, uh, sorry to hear that, um, try the next video. But here we have a lightning blackout over here and a virtual energy blackout, um, both laid out with the same layout. I'm just going to kind of explain some things and some terms. So typically with the pin buffer layout system, which is what we're focusing on today, uh, not doing dual angle cause that's just not what I use. Uh, for me, I've always just used pin buffer layout system. It's very straightforward, very self-explanatory and I just like it. So I'm just going to define some terms. The most important thing when trying to use these layouts is knowing your positive access point or your PAP. Your PAP is pretty much an indicator of how you release it and how we can use that point to manipulate the dimensions of the core, you know, to work to your advantage. So once you get your PAP and kind of determine what kind of ball and what kind of motion you're looking for, you go into your pro shop, operate, you come in a TV bowling supply, you tell me what you want and I'm going to give you what you want, but I'm going to explain it to you how we get there. So on both of these bowling balls here, I put the same layout, five by four by three, it's just some generic layout. I didn't want to use four by four by two cause I just didn't feel like it. So five, four, three. First of all, the first thing to notice is the difference between an asymmetrical ball and a symmetrical ball. What the difference is is the asymmetric ball has a third dimension that you can manipulate called the mass bias or the preferred spin axis PSA. So that would be this little point down here for this blackout virtual energy. I should call it virtual energy cause they're both blackouts. But, uh, what that does, like I said, gives you another dimension to manipulate the motion of this ball. If you look here on the lightning, it does not have that point and you sort of need to identify PSA. They don't have to, but in order to do it the textbook way to do the, the pin buffer layout, the textbook way, uh, you should mark a PSA. So typically with a symmetrical ball where you just have two markings, the pin and the CG, you just draw a line straight through the CG from the pin and you'll mark six and three quarters of an inch of the way down. Now why it's six and three quarter inches is because six and three quarter inches is a quarter of a way around the ball. Right? So the whole ball all together is six and three quarter multiplied by four. So that is 27 inches, I believe, hopefully. So that's a quarter of a way around the ball. For asymmetrical ball, you just use that mass bias. That is your PSA. That is the Z axis, I believe. Yeah, I'm, I'm not going to get into the technical stuff. I'm not a physicist, so I'm not going to talk about it. But anyways, back to laying out the ball. So we have our points identified. We have the pin, which our first measurement for the pin buffer layout system is going to be your pin to PAP. We have our PSA to PAP, which is going to be your second number, second measurement. And then you got your pin buffer, which is the third measurement. So five, I've got five inches from my pin to my PAP. Four, I've got four inches from my PSA or mass bias to PAP and three inches, which is the distance from the pin to the vertical axis line there, which is the vertical axis line is the line going through the PAP tangent to that pin buffer arc. That's how you create your VAL with the pin buffer layout system. The only difference you'll see in these two layouts, the numbers are the same. As you can see, five, five, four, and three. Once again, the difference is the CG on this virtual energy is not lined up with that line going to the PSA. So CG ends up over there for the lightning. It ends up over here on the right side of my hypothetical fingers. This one ends up on the left side over there. So what do each of these dimensions do? All right. So I'm going to start with the pin to PAP. Simply put, it's going to control how much the ball flares or how strong the ball is. Now, since these are spheres, the way that that works is kind of like a bell curve. So if we start at zero, the flare potential or the hook potential is going to be very low. And as we get to three and three eights, which is half of six and three quarters, that will angle the core at 45 degrees, giving it maximum wobble potential. And what that wobble is, that is flare. Flare is wobble. Wobble is flare. And then once you start going past three and three eights, the ball gets weaker. Now that doesn't always mean, and it rarely does mean more back end. Again, we like to think about ball motion front to back. So that is why you'll typically find most, I will say high level players floating around four and a half, five inches, things like that, because typically slightly better players have a higher rev rate. So you're going to want to go on the weaker side to get the ball, to retain energy, to be able to use it on the back end. It's all about matching up front to back. Now, the second point, the PSA to PAP for the lightning blackout, kind of irrelevant. If you're changing that measurement, that four inch measurement there, it's really just going to move around the CG. That does affect ball motion a little bit, but not enough to where the general bowler will even tell or think about. For the virtual energy and asymmetrical bowling ball, moving that around, it's going to control the strength of the mass bias. So what you're controlling as far as if you look at like a shelf talker, you'll see an intermediate number, intermediate differential. It's typically going to be a lot lower than the regular differential number. So what this mass buys is, is controlling how strong that number is. Again, it's another one that works like a bell curve. You start at zero. It's going to be in a very stable position. And if you go all the way to six and three quarters, it's stable, but it's kind of the other way. It's kind of tumbling over itself. As far as ball motion is concerned, I found when I make that number a little bit stronger, closer to the three and a half three side, which I don't typically do for this reason is it feels like it makes it stabilize very quick when it transitions off the back of the pattern, which is great. If you're trying to play straighter or you're a bowler that likes to throw the ball a little bit firmer, the ball is going to stabilize much quicker. So it's going to compensate for your higher ball speed, maybe lower rev rate for someone like me, who's got a slightly higher than average rev rate. That's not always the best thing to do. So you'll find a lot of my layouts have at shortest a four and a half inch pin to PSA, maybe even five, five and a quarter, five and a half. And what the weaker PSA to PAP does is it gets the ball to go a little bit straighter through the front part of the lane and not transition quite as early. So I can use my rev rate to an advantage and match up the core to what I'm trying to do. Now, why would I do that rather than just throw a symmetrical ball or throw a weaker ball? Well, sometimes you want the benefit of the shell that's on that asymmetrical ball. Let's say a ball like an ion max, which has a very strong cover stock. I want to take advantage of that cover stock, but I don't want the core to over flare. So sometimes I'll make the pin weaker. And a lot of times I'll make that PSA to PAP a lot weaker. So I still have the benefits of the stronger cover, but I mild the core down quite a bit now to the last measurement, which is very important and very misunderstood. I feel like, and that is the pin buffer measurement right there. That three inches on our example today, this is important because this determines the pin up or the pin down or how long or how short your hook phase window is. Now, if you don't know what a hook phase is, the ball going down the lane experiences three phases. At least you hope it does. Ideally, you have a skid phase in the front part of the lane, a hook phase, which is what we're going to talk about here as pertaining to the pin buffer. And a roll phase, which you want your ball to achieve at just the right moment. So it transfers the right amount of energy into the pins and you throw as many strikes as possible. Now, the shorter you make this pin buffer, the higher your pin goes. So the shorter it is, the more pin up you get vice versa, the longer you make that measurement. So let's say I go from three inches to four and a half, five inches. That'll push the pin further away from that VAL and it'll put the pin lower under your fingers. Now just think about the shorter you make that, the shorter you make your hook phase. So the quicker your ball is going to want to transition from hook to roll. So if I were to go one inch, that pin would be very tall, very close to that VAL and that ball is going to want to transition very quickly, not necessarily right to left. Cause again, we want to think about a front to back, but it's going to want to stabilize much quicker. So that's making my hook phase a lot shorter. It's going to bring that roll phase a lot closer. So vice versa. If we go long, if we go four and a half, five inches, it's going to lengthen that hook phase. If you think about again, the lane front to back, think about those three phases of hook, a pin down is going to lengthen that hook phase. And it's typically going to feel a lot more stable. The ball is not going to flare quite as much. If you were going to use a five inch pin and a two inch buffer, as opposed to a five inch pin and a five inch buffer, the five inch buffer is going to flare a lot tighter. It's going to be a much more stable transition when it does. It's not going to read the front part of the lane quite as much because effectively you're making the ball a bit weaker when you're going pin down, you're raising the RG and you're lowering the diff vice versa. The two inch pin buffer, you're lowering the RG, raising the diff, making the ball much stronger, making that transition phase, that hook phase much shorter. And typically it's going to be better when you're blowing a lot more oil, longer patterns where you have less of the hook down lane. Let's say you're blowing 45 feet. You only got 15 feet of hook before you hit the head pin. So you're going to need a ball that transitions a bit quicker. Now we know that the core is not the only thing that controls ball motion. So don't take layouts as the end all be all because you do have to match that with the cover stock, the kind of ball that it is, a surface prep, strength of the cover, all that stuff. So just because you're blowing a long pattern doesn't necessarily mean that you always need to throw a short pin buffer ball. You have to match it up to what the lane is giving you. But that is a way to think about your layouts. If you see certain characteristics of your bowling balls, you're not seeing certain shapes that you want on certain patterns. If you're a sport pattern bowler, or even if you're a house shop bowler, let's say you are a little bit of a slower ball speed bowler on a house shot and you feel like you leave a lot of flat tens, you may want to try with a longer pin buffer to lengthen your hook phase because you are a little bit lower ball speed, which probably makes you a little bit more on the rev dominant side. Even if your reverate isn't that high, lengthening that pin buffer is going to let your ball transition a little bit slower, a little bit smoother, and help you retain a little bit more energy for the back end. So these are things that you should talk to your pro shop operator for and things that you need to consider when drilling your next bowling ball. But that's it guys. That is the low down on what all these numbers mean. When you hear those three single digit numbers that me and Chris talk about when we're throwing new balls, this is what we're talking about. And if you have any more questions, just shoot them down in the comments down below. I'm pretty sure I missed something that I should have explained that I didn't. So if you need any more clarification about anything, leave it down in the comments. I'll try to reply to ones that I feel like are relevant replying to ones that are stupid. I'm not going to reply to those. Um, but if I don't reply, that doesn't mean your comment was stupid. Um, but just know that stupid ones I'm not going to reply to. Um, but that is it. The pin buffer lab system by storm, very self explanatory pin to PAP PSA to PAP pin buffer. That is what those three numbers mean. You could also look up a more technical video series by storm. If you just search up pin buffer layout system, it'll come up. Alex does a great experiment manipulating each of the three elements of the pin buffer layout system, the pin to PAP PSA to PAP and the pin buffer. Uh, so you can watch this as kind of a precursor to that. And then if you want a more technical explanation, you can go on over there and check that out. It's really good. It really shows you how the different measurements and changing them really manipulates ball motion. And you can try and use that information to increase your scores because matching up the right ball and ball layout to the lanes that you're bowling on is paramount. But that is it guys. Thank you guys so much for watching. We are on the way to 40,000 subscribers slowly but surely getting there. We're going to get there. We're within, we're way within a thousand or within like 600 or something like that. So you know what we do at 40,000 we're going to give away a free bowling ball to one lucky viewer. That is it guys. Pin buffer layout system explained sort of.