How to Make a Composite Bat Hit Better

Composite bats encase carbon fiber cores with aluminum. These types of bats are lightweight, so at least theoretically, they swing faster and the longer they're used the more they exhibit a trampoline effect on a baseball or softball: The flexible structure of the bat uses some of the energy it absorbs when you hit a ball to accelerate the ball off the bat's surface. Composite bats are banned in professional and collegiate baseball but are permitted in Little League baseball and many of them are popular with softball players.

Things You'll Need

  • Bench vise
  • Aluminum vise jaw liners
  • One-foot-square carpet remnant
  • Rubber mallet
  • Softball
  • Cotton sock
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Instructions

    • 1

      Open the jaws of a bench vise about 3 1/2 inches. Hook aluminum vise jaw inserts onto the vise jaws.

    • 2

      Wrap the end of the composite bat with a 1-foot square carpet remnant. Insert the "sweet spot" of your bat in the bench vise. The sweet spot of any baseball or softball bat is always about 6 to 10 inches from the end of the bat barrel.

    • 3

      Tighten the vise just enough to hold the bat securely, then tighten the vise so the jaws close an additional 1/16 inch.

    • 4

      Loosen the vise. Rotate the bat 1/8 rotation and retighten the vise exactly as you did before. Repeat this procedure 50 times.

    • 5

      Remove the bat from the vise. Place the bat on a flat, solid, unbreakable surface.

    • 6

      Hit the sweet spot of the bat as hard as you can with a rubber mallet. Rotate the bat 1/4 rotation and hit the bat with the mallet again. Hit the sweet spot of the bat with a rubber mallet 100 times.

    • 7

      Shove a softball in a cotton sock. Hold the sock in your dominant hand just below the softball. Hit the sweet spot with the softball in a sock 300-to-500 times.