5 Bowling Balls So Good They Got BANNED (Never Sell Them!)

The USBC banned these five bowling balls for being too good — and a sealed, undrilled one now sells for real money. The Purple Hammer, the Storm Spectre, and the soaked ball that started it all. In 2022 the United States Bowling Congress did something it almost never does: it revoked bowling balls that were already in players' bags — not for a crack, but for being too good. The Storm Spectre lasted about ninety days before the USBC found a projected 98.6% of them fell outside the hardness limit. The Purple Hammers built in 2016 and 2017 — the ones with serial numbers starting in a 6 or a 7 — were pulled after former Ebonite employees described how the plant shipped some of them too soft. The Motiv Jackal and Jackal Carnage went the other way: banned in 2016 for exceeding the 0.060 differential-RG limit — they hooked harder than the rulebook allows. Storm was fined $8,000, Motiv $16,000, and a fan petition to bring the Jackal back went nowhere. Today a sealed, undrilled banned ball is worth more than a legal one — an undrilled Spectre is listed around $130 — because a ball the sport welded shut can never be legally replaced. And it all traces to 1973, when journeyman Don McCune soaked a plastic ball in solvent, won six titles, and took PBA Player of the Year — until Hall of Famer Paul Colwell nearly died from the fumes and the American Bowling Congress wrote the first hardness rule. Every ban since runs on the rule McCune's ball forced into existence. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Bowling Ball You're Not Allowed to Throw 1:00 Why a Ban Makes a Ball Worth More 1:35 The Purple Hammer and the Serial-Number Tell 3:45 The Storm Spectre's 98.6 Percent Problem 5:45 The Motiv Jackal Hooked Too Hard 7:05 The USBC's 2022 Banning Spree 7:50 Why 98.6 Percent Means It Can Never Return 9:30 Don McCune and the Year of the Soaker 12:15 Check Your Garage Before You Sell SOURCES USBC revokes certification of the Storm Spectre: https://bowl.com/news/usbc-revokes-ce... USBC revokes the 2016 and 2017 Purple Hammer: https://bowl.com/news/usbc-revokes-ap... USBC revokes two Motiv balls (Jackal & Carnage): https://bowl.com/news/usbc-revokes-ce... USBC rule change for six bowling balls (PBA): https://www.pba.com/2022/march/usbc-a... Don McCune, USBC Hall of Fame: https://bowl.com/usbc-hall-of-fame/ha... Pin Action is the bowling documentary channel — the characters, scandals, corporate wars, and forgotten history nobody else documents. New episode every week. The stories bowling forgot it had. #Bowling #BowlingHistory #PBA