Cracked Bowling Ball: Repair It or Retire It?

You pull your ball out of the bag on league night and there it is. A line in the cover that was not there last week.

Your stomach drops. That ball cost you two hundred bucks and it has your name on it.

Here is the good news. You do not have to guess. USBC already drew the line between a ball you can still throw and a ball that is done, and it is written into the rulebook. Thirty seconds with a ruler tells you which side of that line you are on.

The short answer

Measure the crack. Length and width, both.

If it is under 3 inches long and under 1/8 inch wide, USBC calls that a crack. If it is 3 inches or longer, or 1/8 inch wide or wider, USBC calls that a fissure.

Cracks can sometimes stay in play. Fissures never can. And a fissure cannot be repaired, period.

Then check where it sits. A crack inside your track area takes the ball out of certified competition even if it is small.

Everything else in this post is detail on those two measurements.

Crack or fissure: the USBC line that decides it

Most articles on this topic wave their hands and say “small cracks might be fine, big ones are not.” That is useless when you are standing at the ball return trying to decide whether to throw the thing.

The USBC Equipment Specifications and Certifications Manual is specific. Straight from the Surface section:

A crack is a partial break or split that appears on the surface of the ball, no more than 3 inches long and no more than 1/8 inch wide.

A fissure is a break or split 3 inches long or greater, and/or 1/8 inch wide or greater, usually occurring from some breaking or parting.

Read that “and/or” carefully, because it is where bowlers get it wrong. A split that is only 2 inches long but a full 1/8 inch wide is a fissure. Width alone is enough to disqualify it. You do not get to average the two.

Then comes the rule that decides your night:

If a crack is located within the bowler’s track area, or if a fissure is present anywhere, the ball is not permitted for use during USBC certified competition.

So there are exactly two ways your ball gets pulled:

1. Any fissure, anywhere on the ball.
2. A crack, of any size, sitting in your track.

One more piece of good news buried in the same section. Incidental chipping or marking caused by normal wear is fine. The pinsetter nick you picked up last season is not a rules problem. Nobody is pulling your ball for that.

Where the crack sits matters more than how long it is

Your track is the ring of the ball that actually contacts the lane. Find the oil ring on your cover after a few games and you are looking at it.

A crack there is a real problem for two reasons, and only one of them is the rulebook.

The rules reason is simple. Track cracks are banned outright in certified play, no size allowance.

The physics reason is worse. Your track takes the full load on every shot. Sixteen pounds slamming into a wood or synthetic surface at 17 miles an hour, over and over, with the crack lined up right at the impact point. Cracks propagate under repeated stress. A hairline in your track today is a fissure in six weeks, and it can open up mid-shot.

A crack up by the pin, or on the far side of the ball away from your track, is a completely different conversation. Same crack, different outcome, because location is doing the work.

So before you measure anything, throw the ball a few games in practice, find your oil ring, and figure out whether that line is in it.

The five cracks you will actually see

After enough years around a pro shop you see the same five over and over. Here is how each one shakes out.

1. The bridge crack. Between the finger holes, across the span. The most common crack on a drilled ball, because the bridge is the thinnest, most stressed piece of material on the whole thing. Usually caused by a bridge that was drilled too narrow, or lateral pitches that let the holes lean toward each other at the base.

Verdict: repairable, and it is the one case USBC explicitly allows. More on the plug rules below.

2. The hairline in the cover. A thin line somewhere on the surface, often with no obvious cause, sometimes appearing on a ball that has been sitting unused. Under 1/8 inch wide by definition.

Verdict: legal if it is outside your track. Watch it. Mark the ends with a grease pencil and check it monthly. If it grows, it is telling you something.

3. The thumb hole crack. Radiating out from the thumb, usually from a slug that was installed with too much adhesive, or an edge that never got beveled.

Verdict: depends on whether it stays inside the span area. Get a pro shop opinion before your next league night, not after.

4. The pin-area crack. Around the pin or the PSA marker. Often traces back to a layout that put a hole edge closer than an inch to the pin.

Verdict: usually terminal, and usually not covered by warranty, because most manufacturers exclude damage where hole-to-pin distance was under 1 inch.

5. The wide split. Anything you can see daylight through, or get a fingernail into. Sometimes with a dull thud when you tap the ball, which means the core has separated from the cover.

Verdict: done. That is a fissure. It cannot be repaired, it cannot be thrown in certified play, and it should not be thrown anywhere. Retire it.

What a pro shop can legally fix

This is the part almost every article on the internet gets wrong, so here is the actual rule.

USBC allows exactly one crack repair:

Cracks around or between gripping holes within the span may only be repaired using an approved ball plug. Fissures may not be repaired.

Unpack that and you get three hard limits.

Limit one: location. The crack has to be around or between your gripping holes, inside the span. A crack out in open cover is not on the list. A track crack is not on the list.

Limit two: method. Approved ball plug only. Not epoxy, not two-part hardware store filler, and not super glue. Your pro shop uses a plugging compound designed to bond to a bowling ball cover and take drilling stress.

Limit three: fissures are off the table. No repair method makes a fissure legal again. There is no exception, no waiver, no “my pro shop said it was fine.”

One more spec that catches people after a repair. Plug, slugs, grips and tape may not extend beyond the surface of the ball. A plug that stands proud is its own violation. A competent shop sands it flush and blends the surface, which is part of why you pay them.

And if you are running the numbers on plugging versus starting over, we broke that math down in plug and redrill versus buy new.

Why your ball cracked

Storm publishes its own list of what makes modern balls crack, and it is worth reading because reactive resin behaves nothing like the urethane your dad threw.

From Storm directly, today’s highly reactive covers are more susceptible to cracking than traditional urethane because of the chemical makeup of the coverstock. The things that raise the odds:

• Extreme humidity, both wet and arid climates
• Extreme temperatures, hot and cold
• Storing the ball on a hard surface
• Lack of use, on drilled and undrilled balls alike
• Air vents blowing directly on the ball

That fourth one surprises people every time. A ball can crack sitting in a closet. Reactive covers want to be thrown. A ball that has not seen a lane in eight months is at more risk than the one you bowl with twice a week.

The car trunk is still the number one killer, and it is the one you control. Both manufacturers we checked draw the same temperature line: exposure above 125 degrees Fahrenheit voids the warranty. Storm also voids below 40 degrees. Your trunk clears 125 on a hot afternoon in the Inland Empire without breaking a sweat, and it drops under 40 overnight in a lot of the country come January.

The damage is almost never one bad night. It stacks. Cover and core expand and contract at different rates, and every heat cycle works on that boundary until something gives.

The other one nobody thinks about is storage. Ball on a concrete garage floor, one contact point taking the weight for months. Use a bag with a cup, or a ball cup, and keep it off hard surfaces.

Your warranty claim, and the four things that kill it

Before you buy a replacement, check the date on your receipt. Both major houses run one-year coverage on balls from date of purchase, and cracks from a genuine material or workmanship defect are exactly what that covers.

But the exclusions are long, and four of them account for most denied claims.

1. The ball has been plugged. Storm’s policy is blunt on this. Ball plug voids warranty. Brunswick will not cover damage caused by the effects of ball plugging or solid slug inserts. So if you plug a bridge crack yourself and the ball later splits somewhere else, you have traded your coverage for a repair. Weigh that before you hand it over.

2. Temperature exposure. Above 125F voids it at both houses, and Storm also voids below 40F. If your ball cracked after a weekend in the truck, the claim is dead and everyone involved knows it.

3. Lane and pinsetter damage. Cuts, scrapes, chips, cracks and gouges caused by pinsetters, ball returns, gutters or the lane are not covered anywhere. That is treated as normal wear.

4. Hole and bridge geometry. This is the sneaky one. If the bridge is under 1/4 inch wide, if the finger holes join at the base, if a hole edge is closer than 1 inch to the pin, or if the holes were never adequately beveled, the crack is on the drilling, not the ball. Coverage gone.

One more from Storm worth knowing before you drive across town. Hairline cracking that does not affect the fit or performance of the ball is not considered a defect. A cosmetic hairline on a ball that still rolls right is unlikely to get replaced.

How to file: return the ball to the shop where you bought it, with the receipt. Both manufacturers route claims through the selling dealer, not direct from the bowler. And warranty does not cover freight, measuring or drilling on a replacement, so budget for the redrill even on an approved claim.

The retire-it math

Say the crack is legal and outside your track. Should you keep throwing it?

Run three questions.

Is it growing? Mark both ends with a grease pencil, date it, and check after every session. A stable hairline that has not moved in three months is a different animal from one that gained a quarter inch in two weeks. Growth means retire.

How is the cover doing otherwise? A crack on a 60-game ball with plenty of life left is worth managing. A crack on a 350-game ball with a dead, oil-soaked cover is the game telling you to move on. If you are not sure which one you have, we walked through the signs in when is a bowling ball dead.

What is the ball’s actual job? If it is your benchmark ball and you throw it every week on the fresh, you need it to be predictable. Retire it and replace it. If it is a spare ball or the fourth ball in the bag that comes out twice a season on burn, you have room to nurse it along.

Here is the honest position. We are not going to tell you to throw a cracked ball because a rule technically permits it. Legal and smart are two different standards. If the crack is anywhere near your track, if the ball thuds instead of rings when you tap it, or if you find yourself thinking about the crack in the middle of your approach, that ball is costing you more than it is worth. Roll something you trust.

Need a replacement or a shop opinion? Start at our pro shop.

Keep the next ball from cracking

None of this is complicated. It is just consistency.

1. Never leave a ball in the car. Not the trunk, not the back seat, not “just for an hour.” This is the whole ballgame.
2. Let it acclimate. Coming in from a cold car or a hot one, give the ball a couple of hours at room temperature before you throw it. Do not go straight from trunk to lane.
3. Store it off hard surfaces. Bag with a cup, or a ball cup on a shelf. Never resting on bare concrete.
4. Keep it out of direct airflow. No vents, no space heaters, no window with afternoon sun on it.
5. Throw your equipment. If a ball has sat for six months, it is not resting, it is aging. Rotate the bag.
6. Get the drilling right. Bridge at 1/4 inch or wider, proper bevel on every hole, and at least 1 inch from any hole edge to the pin. A good shop does this without being asked. Ask anyway.
7. Clean it after every session. Not for cracks directly, but a saturated cover is a stressed cover, and it shortens everything. Pair that with a real resurfacing schedule, which we laid out in how often to resurface a bowling ball.

Frequently asked questions

Can you repair a cracked bowling ball?

Sometimes. USBC allows cracks around or between the gripping holes within the span to be repaired, using an approved ball plug only. Cracks elsewhere on the cover are not on the approved-repair list, and fissures, meaning any split 3 inches or longer or 1/8 inch or wider, may not be repaired at all.

Is it safe to bowl with a cracked ball?

A small, stable hairline outside your track is low risk. Anything in your track area is not, because that is where the impact load lands on every shot, and cracks spread under repeated stress. If you can see daylight through it or get a fingernail in it, stop throwing it.

Can I use a cracked ball in league?

Only if the crack is outside your track area and it measures under 3 inches long and under 1/8 inch wide. A crack in the track, or any fissure anywhere on the ball, is not permitted in USBC certified competition. Most leagues are USBC certified, so the same rule applies on league night.

Will super glue fix a cracked bowling ball?

It will not make the ball legal. USBC allows the repair only with an approved ball plug, and it only allows it for cracks around or between the gripping holes. Super glue on a cover crack is a cosmetic patch that hides a problem you should be watching.

Does the warranty cover a cracked ball?

It can, within the one-year period, if the crack comes from a defect in materials or workmanship. It will not if the ball has been plugged, if it saw temperatures above 125F, if the damage came from the pinsetter, ball return, gutter or lane, or if the drilling geometry was out of spec. Storm also treats hairline cracking that does not affect fit or performance as not a defect.

Can cold weather crack a bowling ball?

Yes. Storm voids warranty coverage for exposure below 40 degrees Fahrenheit as well as above 125. Cold makes the cover contract faster than the core, and the stress at that boundary is what opens a crack. The bigger risk is the swing, going from a freezing car straight to a warm center.

Does a cracked ball still hook?

A hairline outside the track usually rolls close to normal at first. Once a crack reaches the track or opens up, ball motion gets inconsistent, because you have changed the surface the ball rolls on. Inconsistent is worse than weak. You can adjust to a ball that hooks less. You cannot adjust to one that does something different every shot.

How much does it cost to fix a cracked bowling ball?

A bridge plug and redrill at a pro shop typically runs in the same range as a standard plug job rather than a full ball price, so it is worth a quote before you replace. Get the shop to look at it in person. A ten-minute inspection is free at most counters and it beats guessing from a photo.

10th Frame Final Thoughts

The rule is simpler than the internet makes it. Measure the split, find your track, and you have your answer in under a minute. Under 3 inches and under 1/8 inch, outside the track, and you are legal. Anything else and the ball is out.

But legal is the floor, not the goal. A ball you are worried about is a ball you are not committing to, and half a commitment is how you leave the 10 pin.

Get it looked at by someone who drills for a living. If it is fixable, fix it right with an approved plug. If it is not, give it a good sendoff and put something in your hand you can trust in the tenth with the game on the line.

Then go down swinging.

Sources

• USBC Equipment Specifications and Certifications Manual (United States Bowling Congress)
• Storm Products Ball Warranty Policy and Storm Warranty page
• Brunswick 1-Year Limited Bowling Ball Warranty