So I got my DV8 Terror drilled and have rolled 8 games so far...

[kx90]

http://www.bowlingboards.com/threads...-drilling-info

Definitely a nice ball, no doubt. Not having bowled for 18+ years I think it will take a little while to get the consistency back.

Very first game with the DV8 I threw a 117. Next game was a 156, then a 178 then a 212.
The following weekend I threw a 176, 178, 184 and a 192 (I was by myself and try as I may I kept moving too fast).

I'm finding that the faster I throw the ball the farther right I need to be. Throwing at 18-19mph I need to start it over the first arrow. Throwing at 15-16mph I'm in between the third and second arrow going out towards the 2-4 boards outside. I tried slowing it down even more to about 14mph but the ball hooked well across the lane. (Those speeds were as reported on the scoreboard.)

Is there an optimal speed that I should be trying to maintain?

It's a bit late in the season to try and find a team to join or to gather enough people to form a team so I'm just going to keep going once a week and keep at it and get the consistency back.

And throwing a 14lb. ball instead of a 16lb. actually feels great. I see little to no difference in knock down power. I think I will end up getting a new Hammer urethane ball in 14lbs. now too.

[Cochese]

I would say the optimal speed would be whatever produces the most consistent results. It doesn't really matter if you throw 12 mph or 22 mph, as long as you can do it consistently, you can adjust your target/line accordingly.

For me personally, I find 14-15 mph to be my sweet spot with my new DV8 Terror, but that is my sweet spot with my other balls too. My most common miss is when I speed up (16+ mph), the ball goes too long and misses low.....and usually splits. At least when I miss on the slow side, it will go brooklyn and not leave as much collateral damage....most of the time

But again, whatever speed you find to be most effective and you can repeat consistently is going to be the best.

[billf]

The speed at which you can most accurately hit your target time and again is optimal for you.
Research says the optimal speed for highest strike percentage (through pin carry, no doubt) is 18-21 mph at the release. Given where most centers read the speed at, that translates to roughly 15-18 mph. The more boards covered, the more inaccurate the reading will be.

[Hammer]

I have a 14lb urethane Blue Hammer ball. I like it because I can make a small step slow approach and hit a speed of 13.5 to 14.5mph and it has a beautiful curved hook that hits the pocket solid and really knocks the heck out of the pins. I found this out at warmup before starting league. Then when it counted I would throw it a bit harder and it would hit too light leaving a lot of 7 pins-I am lefty. If I changed my target and not my feet it would hit too high and leave bad splits. The disaster happened in the third game after the lanes broke down. So in the 10th frame of the third game I decided to go into my warmup speed and got three strikes in the tenth which gave us a win of the third game. It seems to take me too long to figure out what I should do to hit the pocket more often. For me anyway this ball likes my slow relaxed approach to get a strong hit in the pocket. Doing this I shoot between the first and second arrows with my sliding foot toe on the center dot and belly the ball out some and not straight down the boards.

[kx90]

This past Sunday I threw three games, 164, 217, 177

For some reason my thumb started to swell up after the 2nd game so I wasn't able to keep the roll I was on from the 2nd game.

Going by the speedometer on the lane I was keeping the speed around 15-16mph which definitely helped with the control.

14lbs. was heck of a smart move that's for sure.

Question: How do I find my PAP?

[75lockwood]

http://www.bowlingboards.com/threads...-and-axis-tilt

[kx90]

And then knowing my PAP would then allow me to know how to drill the ball in the future?

[xcross316]

new to this and trying to figure out how to simply say something without having to reply to someone elses post

[75lockwood]

And then knowing my PAP would then allow me to know how to drill the ball in the future?

Depending on your PAP the layout you want will look differently than the same layout for a person with a different PAP, so looking at the layout examples below, the pin may be in a different location than shown for you because of your PAP. without knowing your PAP you can't correctly layout the ball.

[kx90]

I understand what you're saying about drilling the layout per the specific bowler's axis. If a ball is drilled without finding the bowler's PAP can it then be found on the newly drilled ball and then re-drilled if needed?