New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart

[REV]

ok, here goes one:

today, i decided to look into the bowl of my first pipe. the one that wont smoke for ****. and i notice that the bowl comes to a bit of a point in the bottom and the bottom of the bowl is the width of 2 paper matches (side by side) in height difference between the air hole and the bottom.

now i know it is supposed to be even (or close) to the bottom, and i know theres a way to do fix this. my questions are:

could i use cigar ash for the honey/ash mud combo, or would that not be a good thing. i can get that ash much more easily/quickly than pipe tobacco.

and:

would i be better off just tossing the damn pipe? it was $60 and id hate to think its a bad pipe. i got it from my work, and im not sure if i could "take it back" and get a new one.

i have just taken a good look in the mortise (?) of the bowl, and it appears to be drilled similar to a peterson system where the tennon is drilled a bit past the air hole to collect moisture, whereas the other pipe is only a little past the air hole. maybe something?