If we accept that fascism leads to violence then there isn ' t anything wrong with nipping it in the bud . <| sep |> Right now , I use my breakdown , I can roll my ball completely end over end and can throw pretty much anything at corner pins , would it still be beneficial to get a plastic ball ? Oh nice ! If you ' re comfortable with that and having success doing so , then you ' re good . Yeah , I know , this is why I mentioned that my rocket ship is polished , I can put more surface on this if need be , because right now I feel there ' s too much of an overlap between this and my melee . Herp de derp . Totally missed the polished part when responding lol . I would definitely put some surface back on the Rocket Ship , probably starting at box finish 3 K sheen , IIRC ? . Maybe go down to 2 K sanded if you need it to be earlier for shots where there ' s more volume up front and you need something to get into a roll sooner . This means that your Rocket Ship would probably be a bit less viable on house shots for its current role clear the heads a big , strong arc to the pins if I had to guess . But having an earlier symmetric like that would certainly be beneficial to have for sport patterns . I actually have two melees drilled identically ones dying so I got it replaced with a new one . the new one is OOB and I brought the old one down to 2 k . Ah gotcha this could be very useful . What was your driving idea behind taking the old one to 2 K , out of curiosity ? How useful has the old one been with that surface ? Is it ok to use a pearl to break down a shot ? If not would the rocketship work with a little adjustment ? I ' m also open to other ideas . Breaking down a shot is more about using a heavily sanded reactive cover than it is what the cover is made of exactly . If you ' re ok with your old Melee being a ball that ' s strictly used to blow a hole in the pattern , I ' d take that down to 500 or 1 K instead of 2 K . Should work for now , since I definitely don ' t want to recommend you getting a new ball for just the purpose of having a ball to break down a pattern . The Rocket Ship is too good of a main ball to repurpose for this idea , IMHO . This is whats stumping me the most ball for short patterns . Ill start with the cyclone and move from there I guess , thanks . Sure thing . Another idea that might be worth exploring if the Cyclone doesn ' t work too well what ' s the layout on the Cyclone , btw ? is to get something with a low to mid RG and a lower diff that would let you get a lot of control out of the ball . The Storm IQ Tour the solid blue one is one of the best balls around for this purpose lowRG core strong arc off the spot , lower diff less dynamic motion from the core , polished solid reactive coverstock that ' s on the weaker side clear the front part of the lane without overreacting too much off the spot . Something else that I ' d suggest is to go back and watch PBA shows on YouTube find a pro or two who bowl similarly to you in terms of ball speed rev rate , and see how they attach short patterns like Cheetah and Wolf . The other strategy that guys on tour use to combat short patterns is go to something with a stronger cover , put a weak drilling pattern on it control , and polish it give a bit more length this is done more by highrev guys , but could also be something worth exploring . I would definitely talk with your PSO about how to conquer this part of your bag if it ' s an issue once you start bowling on more competitive patterns Edit still not sure where the paradox fits , advice on that would be appreciated . My bad I forgot about that . How ' s yours drilled , and what surface do you have on it ? I have one in my bag as well I ' m 550 rpm 18 mph at the deck , and mine is pin above bridge MB kicked about 12 away from my thumb towards my PAP . Surface is at 4 K sanded right now , and I ' ve only found it to be useful on longer stuff like the new PBA Scorpion . I would expect it to be a fairly binary ball on sport patterns either it works great or it sucks , and it won ' t take long to figure that out . I had a chance to use mine on Scorpion a few weeks ago and it worked very well once the pattern broke down a bit gave me length through the heads mids not as much volume up front now on that pattern , while still giving a good read into the pocket at the end of the pattern which is a challenge on a longer shot with lower volume downlane like Scorpion . That make sense ?