Smaller Than Regulation Pool Balls

Playing all day today at the bar that I play leagues at, we made an amazing discovery.

For the longest time we've all had the damnest time making a tight rack. I'm talking for around a full years time. We all assumed that there was a problem with the rack itself not being shaped properly. So we were constantly flipping the rack over and rotating it around and around when racking.

Then one guy when looking at the layout of the balls says, "Hey, the 11 ball is smaller than the 15 ball next to it! " Sure enough, upon closer inspection, both the 11 ball and the 7 ball were definitely smaller than the rest of the balls.

I literally couldn't believe it. You mean to tell me that there are actually pool ball manufacturers that produce balls smaller than the standard size?!!! That is so unbelievably stupid, that nobody noticed the different sized balls for over a year.

Finally we opened up the other table, and sure enough, the full sized 11 and 7 balls were mixed in with the rest of the smaller balls on the other table. Somehow these two balls got exchanged with the balls from the other table.

The rest of the night we were all amazed at how well everyone was all of a sudden racking and breaking now that all of the balls could be racked tight!

Just when you think you've seen it all, something happens that you just can't believe would be possible. And nobody noticed this for over a year. Crazy!


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JazzyJeff87 said:

Lol when I got my table it came with some used 2 1/8” balls. I’ve randomly noticed some around too. They will sit loose on a template rack as well

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Yeah, the smaller ones must be 2 1/8". After we discovered this, I was so ticked off, that I insisted that the bar throw the smaller balls out and replace them with one's that are the correct size. But everyone just starred at me like I was crazy and that there is no longer anything wrong with the balls now that they have been moved to the correct table. WTF


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MitchAlsup said:

I play in a bar with balls with hundreds of thousands of hours of use.
There are only 4 combinations of the front 5 balls that enable a tight rack.
Essentially, if you don't pattern rack--the rack is not tight.

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Twice now I have donated my used Aramith Pro balls to two different bars that I played for to try to avoid any racking problems or other issues with old, chipped up, cheap balls. Figuring that at least in half the matches when we play at home, we will get to play with decent balls.

Well, the first bar, as soon as the season ended, our captain took the good balls and probably sold them.

The second bar, I hadn't been in there for a while, and I started playing with the owner. I immediately noticed and asked him where my good balls were! He "said" that he had them in the back. WTF. He probably sold them too. I can't believe that if a customer donates good balls there will always be someone that is going to essentially steal them to make a few bucks.


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hang-the-9 said:

I can't believe it took a year to notice this more than there were different size balls in the set.

I've seen some guys use half a rack of snooker size pool balls and half a rack of normal pool balls and they did not notice it till I pointed out how much smaller half of them were. To some people pool is just balls and a stick, there is no idea that there are different types and quality of pool balls or cues. We had a 9 ball tournament and were playing on the snooker table, guys game in, noticed half the balls were missing and took them from the snooker set hehe. When I went to put away the snooker balls I could not figure out what happened to half of them till I checked over the next table and saw they had the stripes in the ball tray but were still playing 8 ball. Even for non-players I have no idea how they did not see the huge size difference till I pointed it out.

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I think that it took so long to figure it out because I literally still can't imagine that there are ball manufacturers that would make any size pool balls different than the regulation 2 1/4". Why in the heck would any company make a set of balls that aren't the regulation size? Even though we racked thousands of times and were struggling, none of us even considered for a second that the issue could be that there were smaller balls switched in with the set.

jimmyco said:

7 and 11, huh?

This is larger than you think.

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Ummm, someone is doing black magic or voodoo with our balls? Just what I need....

Bob Jewett said:

Pool balls wear down in use. I have seen balls that were maybe 3mm smaller than the regulation 57.15mm (2.25 inches) diameter.

You don't say now much smaller the small balls were. If it is just a few mm it could be from wear.

It is possible to get a standard set of pool balls sized for American snooker. Those balls are 2 1/8. They come in more or less the same colors and designs as normal cheap sets. I don't think anyone makes 2 1/8 balls in the fancy pro/tournament styles.

So, it would be good to know the actual size of the balls that look smaller.

Most balls that have been in commercial use for a year or so are smaller than the regulation minimum of 2.245 inches. That's 2.25 inches minus 0.005.

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They were NOTICEABLY smaller (if you put them side by side on the table). They have to be a 2 1/8" set. The other table in the bar has a set of smaller balls where the 7 and the 11 ball where "mistakenly" switched with the normal sized balls from the other table for some reason. They are definitely NOT smaller due to wear of the balls. These are a cheap set of balls for bar use. They are NOT tournament balls or a decent set of balls by any means.

Now someone needs to tell the bar manager that since we play leagues on these tables that they must furnish a regulation sized set of balls to use.

megatron69 said:

I never kept a count, but I've noticed that some balls are a different size at many of the bars I've played in, for at least 20 plus years. I didn't realize they could get smaller, I always just assumed that the bar bought different sets of balls as they got lost/stolen/damaged (whatever was cheapest I'm guessing) over the years and some were manufactured a different size.

One bar that I worked at for awhile kept at least three boxes of balls behind the bar, and one day out of boredom I got them out and gathered all the balls from the four tables and put together four sets of matched balls, using my calipers from the truck.

Three weeks later on my day off I went in to shoot a little, and noticed that the rack had two smaller balls in it. When I asked the manager, she told me that three balls had been lost, presumed stolen, in the last couple days.

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Interesting. I had actually figured that as long as each set of balls on each table "matched" in size, that they wouldn't be too keen on replacing them for a new set of regulation sized balls.

Mainly because one day we noticed that the smaller set had tons of chips/gouges in them. The manager said that the other day there was a biker party going on there and they were playing pool.

Well, after taking a look at some of the bar cues on the wall, I think I figured out what had happened. One of the house cues was missing the bumper and there was a sharp end of a screw sticking out of it. So I think that one of the guys was hitting the balls with the back of the cue. This could only have been done intentionally, since it was virtually all of the object balls that were damaged. Maybe the guy got cut or scratch from the screw, so he decided to take it out on the balls. The next time I came in, the nicked-up balls were still there, but they had been cleaned to make them "look better". LOL