Urethane bowling balls have been a hot topic in the bowling world over the last few years. Many bowlers have benefited from the earlier traction and smoother motion at the breakpoint of urethane, but these balls have recently fallen under the microscope, literally, as the PBA and USBC have studied the hardness and performance of urethane covers. While there are various reports that offer different findings, the PBA has new rules in place for their upcoming season that raise the minimum hardness of urethane coverstocks to 78D. In response, Hammer has designed and released the NU (Not Urethane) Blue Hammer to mimic a urethane shape on the lane with a non-urethane coverstock. It uses the symmetrical LED core design, with the same RG and differential as the Purple Solid Reactive. The new Not Urethane coverstock is finished at 500/1000 SiaAir. While this ball could be used with some success on our medium oil test pattern, it really excelled for our testers on the dry pattern.

Cranker is the only bowler out of our three testers who owns Hammer Purple Pearl Urethanes, as he bowls in more tournaments and comes across a wider spectrum of conditions outside of our testing parameters. He was able to drill a fresh purple pin Purple Pearl Urethane to compare to the NU Blue. On our fresh dry test pattern, he saw the Purple Pearl Urethane do what urethane typically does for the first several shots of a fresh cover: instantly grab the lane and miss the headpin left. As oil started to get on the cover, it started to tame down and he got lined up to the pocket. On a fresh lane, the NU Blue didn’t have that instant hook on the first shot. It cleared the front better and got farther down the lane than both the Purple Pearl Urethane and the Purple Solid Reactive. It also changed directions a bit more when it came out of the pattern. The NU Blue had no trouble creating the back end motion that was lacking from the urethane ball once oil started to carry down. Throwing the Purple Pearl Urethane on the lane after using the NU Blue, it was very easy to tell that there was nowhere near as much carrydown created. The NU Blue allowed Cranker to create more angle in the front and make his normal adjustments moving left as the pattern broke down. While he did see the NU Blue hook less when he didn’t wipe it down with a shammy, the difference was nowhere near as noticeable as it was with the urethane cover. While his reaction was very good with the box finish, he took the ball to the spinner to see if he would be able to polish the cover, which is something that is not easy to do with urethane shells. Factory Compound on top of the box finish easily resulted in the NU Blue shining up. With the Factory Compound finish, the ball was...

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