Darts Buying Guide

If you want to make a great addition to your game room, a dartboard  can provide you and your friends with hours of entertainment.  But to throw a perfect game, you've got to have a perfect set of darts.   Get to know the ins and and outs--from dart anatomy to construction--so you can pick the best products for your skill level, your board and your budget.

What They're Made Of

  Darts have four basic parts:

  • The tip is what enters the board, and it is often made of steel or a flexible plastic that gets embedded into dartboards specially made for soft tips.
  • The barrel is the body of the dart that you grip.
  • The shaft is the end of the dart where the flights attach.
  • The flights are the pieces of plastic that attach to the shaft. They help the dart achieve height and improve aerodynamics.

Tip Materials

Price and durability of a dart most commonly depend on the material that it's made out of.

  • Brass darts  are the least expensive. They are heavy and mass produced, most commonly found in bars. The downside to these type of darts is that their grip can easily wear down, changing the feel of the dart.
  • Nickel or Silver darts  are more expensive than brass, but they are harder and therefore more durable. This prevents the grip wear that you often see with brass darts.
  • Tungsten darts  are extremely heavy, more so than lead. The density of the material helps darts to resist wear and last longer. Darts can be part tungsten and part other metals, although the most popular combination is tungsten and nickel, whose special characteristics include a better grip and tighter possible groups on the dart board. Beware of low-density Tungsten darts that are poor quality imports--check the package to see the percentage of tungsten actually used.

Shaft Materials

  • Plastic shafts  are inexpensive and available in a bunch of different colours to match your dart board. The downside to plastic--often polycarbonate or nylon blends--is that they often crack and break, but you can buy replaceable tops for fairly cheap.
  • Composite shafts  like Alamo or Quiver have plastic bases with aluminium or metal alloy tops that help hold flight. These shafts are often affordable and durable.
  • Solid aluminium shafts  are more durable still, and they come in many colourful styles and designs. The downside is that they may vibrate loose when playing, so use washers to keep them secure.
  • Spinning shafts  allow the flight to turn out of the way when struck by another dart. Spinning shafts don't actually improve the flight of the dart through the air, but they do allow for tighter groups.

Soft Tip Darts

These lightweight darts have a soft, plastic point and are only to be used with a dartboard designed for soft tip darts --they have perforated plastic faces that secure the darts upon impact.  Often, a series of sensors and circuits behind the face of the dartboard notes the impact and then informs the central computer processor, which calculates and displays the score for the players to see.

Major Manufacturers

Related Products

Dartboards

Croquet

Billiards

Bocce and Lawn Bowling

Table Tennis 

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