I've had this problem ever since I've owned the machine and usually it's a minor inconvenience, though today it somehow launched the ball into the glass eep! Basically sometimes the ball will eject from the trough, bounce off the side and back into the trough. I'm trying to find ways to avoid that. A weaker coil I would expect might do the trick? I do have some mylar where the ball hits the side which might be making things worse (but wanted to minimize the already notable dent in the side) and I was thinking instead of placing some thin neoprene there, but wanted to get thoughts before I modded my machine any further.

Ah ok, thanks! That gave me some food for thought. I busted out the manual (page 2-19) and am having a bit of trouble finding which part(s) I may want to replace. I see there's a damper at the top (part 23-6702). Feeling around my launcher, it still feels springy, albeit sticky and kinda gross so I'm gonna go ahead and clean up but also add that to my next round of part purchases. It feels like there's some damper-like material on the plunger itself but I don't see a part number for that - thoughts on what that might be?