Hammer Black Pearl Urethane 78D versus Purple Pearl Urethane and Nu Blue // Ball Review 

Awesome! Glad you enjoyed spending time with us. Come say hi next time!

Thanks! We appreciate it. I think Tanner threw I a bit this last weekend in a tournament, too

Well back in the day, hammers and angles were thrown on a LOT less oil than now. I understand what you’re saying though.

@@markmatroni631 Agreed. But the hardness level is what I'm getting at, not the performance. When modern day bowlers look at this ball and say "it doesn't hook like the purple pearl hammer!" it is because the Purple Pearl Hammer is a much softer ball, at 73D. We've had harder urethane Hammers before and they perform well, both back then and still now. One of my recent honor scores is with that Blue Hammer, which is still going strong 35 years after buying it. My point is don't let the hardness and comparing it to the Purple fool anyone; this is still a phenomenal ball that handles like the Purple easily. All that really needs to be adjusted is ball speed and angles.

@@athlonen Still bowling isnt interesting to watch by the normal NON bowling viewer. So this is still not thr way to go. We need to re-think the concept of what bowling should be. We need People with No knowledge be able to understand faster or they Will never be won. Comercials for this that want to watch, and free of Comercials for those that pay. Getting good enough equipment now is hard, cause you need stuff to handle the transition of what is supposed to be an Oil profile. Most times its not what it started out to be. There should just be one rule about how much a ball can pull Oil down the lane. So less bowlers use it to make it harder than it needs to be. The profile im itself Will give you the difficulty level. The cash of bowling is so high, in the pandemic bowle tech i europe just added 20 % on everything. The normal bowler is very older, and young bowlers cant afford it.

Badly spelled, but i am sure you understand we need to change.

@@barkanellichasingdreams4142 People need to understand that bowling is a sport, and not entertainment, first off. That is why the sport has much more respect in Japan, S. Korea, Singapore, Europe, and everywhere else in Asia than here. But that is a different issue altogether than the hardness of a ball. As for the non-bowler, what we had going on with it prior to technology taking a huge leap forward is what we could have. Back when the tour was king, 3 separate bowling shows were on, including Celebrity Bowling, and even the POTUS bowling in the White House. Everyone took the sport seriously up to when home entertainment came about (read: video game consoles and computers) which not only took out bowling, but every other participation sport. Time for it has been eaten up by the First Person Shooter and Co-Op games in the US. Outside the US, bowling is still treated with respect. Case in point: Round 1. Here in the US it's nothing but a huge video arcade with prize drop games, shooter games, and 10 lanes of bowling. In Japan? every place open 24 hours, with the smallest location having no less than 40 lanes. Some have 3 floors of lanes and nearly 100 lanes, and that isn't even including the stadiums. The closest we had to that in the US was the Showboat/Castaways, which had 132 lanes. Now it is a parking lot, a gas station, a Subway restaurant, and a storage unit. Perhaps if those non-bowlers would get off their couch and spend money outside of the latest Nike shoe and PlayStation, then we'd have something to go off of. But that's a lifestyle change that the person has to make, not the sport.

Love it! Thanks for chiming in. And yeah, the Purple and Black Pearl are definitely pretty close. Tanner seems to think he slightly prefers the Purple for his style, but the Black rolls plenty good.

Thanks! We appreciate it. Tanner hasn't personally thrown the Zen U, but I can personally say that the Zen U has way more down-lane motion than the Black Pearl. Mostly, it's because the Zen U doesn't read nearly as early, and so stores a ton of energy without bleeding it at the front.

@@wsbproshop Thanks. So Zen U is more of a resin reaction then.

The Zen/U has more similarities to the NU Blue and now the IQ78. But Zen/U still is urethane and doesn’t meet the new PBA requirements of being a 78 hardness ball. We could go on and on about urethane and the difference reactions. If you’re looking to get a urethane I would recommend going to your PSO and talking to them abut which of the several urethane/urethane like would be best fit for you and your game.

Have you ever throw urethane before?

If you don't bowl in an PBA competitions, I'd probably recommend trying out the Purple Hammer. It's a legendary favorite for a reason, especially for higher-rev players such as yourself. You might get a lot of use out of it!

To our eyes, the Black Pearl seems to read later than a Pitch Black does. Perhaps that's due to the Black Pearl's 78 hardness.

@wsbproshop Oh Thank you.

It's a long story, but, in short: the PBA instituted a revision to their hardness rules. That, along with a study that they conducted which they said showed urethane hardness dropping 5 points over time, meant that urethane balls for PBA competition need to be at around 78 hardness so that they don't fall below the limit of 73.

@@wsbproshop Thanks!

Too many purples on TV.

:D

Depends--sometimes, if urethane's the best ball for striking, it's a lot more entertaining than 6 through the face and tons of spare shooting. ;)

Tanner is a PBA member, and does compete in PBA events. So throwing a Black Pearl on a harder oil pattern is mandatory, just as it is for many higher level players in our area and beyond. Most "average league bowlers," as you call them, probably shouldn't be using the Black Pearl on a house shot, so we decided to showcase the ball in a light that's befitting of the ball's intent. This ball isn't for everyone, and it isn't for all situations. Sounds like you fall into that category. Maybe consider the Nu Blue?