Hammer Arson Low Flare Bowling Ball Review

Hammer has answered the call of many higher level bowler’s requests for a low differential core and medium aggressive cover to help control the over-walled house conditions many of us see on a regular basis. The Arson Low Flare has these conditions, as well as tough tournament patterns or late in tournament blocks when control is more of a requirement, covered.

We had great success across the board with the Arson Low Flare so we will start where we gave the ball the highest ratings, our medium test pattern. All three players were able to get to the pocket with ease on this pattern. The Arson Low Flare’s box finish created just enough traction, while maintaining enough energy to still knock out the corner pins. This ball kept the pins low and we never saw any stone 9 pins standing as we see from large flaring bowling balls that change directions much harder than the Arson Low Flare. Each tester kept the ball at the box finish for the entire session on this pattern.

The smooth rolling nature of this ball provided almost as good a reaction on our dry test pattern. Again, we were able to stay farther right and in fact, our carry was better the straighter we were able to play. Once again, we did not have to touch the surface of this ball on this pattern.

The Arson Low Flare clobbered our sport pattern. All three testers were able to take full advantage of being able to stay farther right on all these patterns.

Cranker was the only tester able to find success on our heavy test pattern with the box finish. Stroker and Tweener needed to remove the Clean ‘N Sheen finish with a 1000 Abralon pad to increase the total hook in the oil. Cranker was able to stay with the box finish by playing almost a straighter line to the pocket than Stroker and Tweener (once they removed the polish). Cranker lowered the finish but lost some of his carry when he tried to cover more boards on this pattern.

Strengths

The control provided by the Arson Low Flare is a motion not currently offered on the market. Control is the name of the game for this ball.

Weaknesses

This ball did not like being thrown away from the pocket too much with our layouts. Balls with pin up layouts will provide more back end than we saw.

Overall Summary

The only thing not new on this ball is the coverstock. The ball uses a new low RG/low differential core and a new finishing process for Hammer.