Friday, March 18, 2022

UFO 003

 These diminutive beauties are a mere 16.9 grams per barrel, with tip. No idea what the vintage or make and model of them are though.  They fly nice!




Thursday, March 17, 2022

18.5 gram D.Craft Bombers


These are the most unusual darts I have, perhaps. They are massive for their weight which makes me wonder what they are even made out of. If they were brass they'd be much larger, so perhaps they are some sort of coated aluminum. 



Here you can see that I have them wearing long-shape Condors and some sort of titanium conversion point that actually came on a different set of darts. 

They fly weird. Maybe it is more accurate to say that they throw weird. And obviously I don't dare try grouping with them because I would most certainly destroy them in the process. Doesn't matter too much since they will likely not see the light of day much. I doubt if they will be in any sort of rotation, and will likely live in the box they came in for most of their lives.


It is easier to see how wide they are when you see them actually sticking out of the board. Most rounds in the one practice game I actually used them I needed to walk up to the board to see where they hit. Happily I hit the D16 on the first try :P






Thursday, January 21, 2021

17 gram UFO 002

I know nothing about these darts, other than that they are 17 grams, and appear to be a rough home-job. I love the grippiness of them and they through well, but like any light-weight dart they need a bit of force behind them.




40 gram UFO 001

I don't know anything about this dart, but I'd like to.  They clock in at an impressive 40 grams, so probably it is a mid-90's or 80's Titan-line dart.  It is a tungsten dart, by the feel.





Wednesday, April 22, 2020

r/Darts Weekly Challenge #16 (My Shots)

I've already posted a bit of analysis for this challenge in another post.  Here is my attempt at it.  First, this week's challenge is as follows:

Easy Challenge: Checkout 20 only using Green Segments.
Medium Challenge: Checkout 55 only using Green Segments.
Hard Challenge:  Checkout 105 only using Green Segments.

It is worth noting that because I am throwing on a Bandit board, I do not have the 25 as an option as my 25 is red colored, and not green.

I spent a lot of time missing the D5 with my second dart after hitting it with my first so after a while I started to mix it up a bit.  I ended up hitting the easy challenge with D1, D9:


The medium was slightly more difficult for me but I did eventually hit is with T11, D11:


I want to callout the darts I was using for the medium challenge.  They are a nice, big, fat, nickel-silver offering from Bottelsen's venerable Hammerhead line.  I suspect they are a late-80's or early-90's dart but Bottelsen has not seen fit to offer up their old catalogs for general consumption.  These are some of my favorite darts.  The clicking sound they make is unique, even among the other Hammerhead darts I have, and the points feel more "solid", as if they were engineered to fit their collet better than other similar points.  What's more, they fit my grip well, and fly well too.  I am going to find a nice Fit Stem & Flight combo for them and use them in competition more once the governor sees fit to allow that again.

The hard challenge, to date, remains elusive.  My closest attempt so far is this heart breaker in which I just barely miss the D15 with my third dart:


Of course I'll keep taking cracks at it and update should I hit it :)

Monday, April 20, 2020

r/Darts Weekly Challenge #16 (Analysis)

I have been blogging less this year to be sure.  After all, the pandemic has kept me out of the bars and out of league which is the primary source of my blogging material as I discuss, for the benefit of my distant-future self, the details of my performance in the sport I loved so much "when I was young".

I want to provide my 90-year-old self a good read, in other words.

Someday my hands will be too shaky to hold a dart, and my eyes too dim to see the board, even with specs, thus I recount my days as a darter with as much detail as I can muster.  And with as much truth.

But I have been blogging a bit more than is obvious because all of the post I do about the r/Darts weekly challenges get "back blogged" to 2003, so I can group them, and so my blog doesn't seem too repetitive and uninteresting to whatever dart-playing netizen might be passing through.

This week's challenge was one of my own creation.  I am blogging about it today due to its theme, even though I have not hit any of them yet.  After all, today is 4-20, and while I do not personally partake, cancer has riddled my family with holes and thus I appreciate it's medicinal qualities.  plus I have had more than one friend with MS who have kept themselves on this side of functional by virtue of the happy greenery.  Here goes:

This week's challenge is as follows:

Easy Challenge: Checkout 20 only using Green Segments.
Medium Challenge: Checkout 55 only using Green Segments.
Hard Challenge:  Checkout 105 only using Green Segments.

Extra points are awarded for anyone using green darts, or whose darts are wearing marijuana themed flights.

Sadly, I have no green darts, nor do I have any marijuana themed flights, though I know plenty exist.  Here is how I approached the challenge in general:  The green segments are all triples and doubles.  There are no single segments that are green colored, and they are as follows:


OPTIONS
WedgeTripleDoubleSingle
Bull----25
195738--
175134--
164832--
154530--
113322--
92718--
61812--
51510--
4128--
132--

So, if you want to checkout 20 using only green segments, then your last dart must be in either the D1, D4, D5, D6, or D9, and your other two darts my total to the remaining value, like:


20 CHECKOUT
3rd Dart (must be a double)Remaining Value1st Dart2nd Dart
D92D1--
D68D4--
D510D5--
D510D4D1
D412D6 or T4--
D412D5D1
D118D9 or T6--
D118D5D4
D118T5T1

So your easies route for the Easy Challenge might be D5, D5, since you are aiming at the same double twice, but conceivably, any two doubles will get you there.  Your most challenging rout would be T5, T1, D1.  Your call :)

It gets more complex with higher out targets, but not unreasonably so since you only have three darts to work with.  Here is the break down for 55:


55 CHECKOUT
3rd Dart (must be a double)Remaining Value1st Dart2nd Dart
D1917T5D1
D1721T6 or D9T1
D1623T5D4
D1525D11T1
D1525T5D5
D1133T11--
D1133D15T1
D1133T6 or D9T5
D937D17T3
D545T11T4 or D6
D937T9D5
D937D11T5
D643T11D5
D545T15--
D152525--
D113325D4
D93725T4 or D6
D64325T6 or D9
D545D15T5
D545T9T6 or D9
D447T15D1
D447D16T5
D44725D11
D153T17D1
D153T15D4
D153D19T5

Note that your easiest route to the Medium challenge is one triple and one double. To me, the easies seems to be T11, D11 since that keeps you in the same wedge.

And for 105:


105 CHECKOUT
3rd Dart (must be a double)Remaining Value1st Dart2nd Dart
D1967T19D5
D1967T15D11
D1967D17T11
D1771D19T11
D1673T17D11
D1575T19T6 or D9
D1575T16T9
D1575T15D15
D1183T17D16
D167325T16
D1183T15D19
D987T19D15
D693T16T15
D595T19D19

With the Hard Challenge, you must use all three darts (there simply are no two-dart combinations that total 105) and at a minimum it requires hitting one triple and two doubles, but you can go the harder route of two triples and one double if that seems more fun to you.  I think I will go for T15, D15, D15 since that way I get to keep all my darts in the same wedge :)

So there you have it.