23 gram GT-Plus

I recently gained these darts in a very favorable trade with a guy on Sewa. They are 23 gram GT+ darts that are not made anymore and as far as I know have not been made for decades. These are the first of their kind that I have ever seen, although I have known about these as well as the equally rare GTZ's for a few years now. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are even more rare Bottelsen darts out there waiting to be discovered. It first occurred to me to think about Bottelsen's historical offerings when I discovered the set of fixed point Mega-Thrust darts on eBay a few years ago. I wish they would put all of their old catalogs online like Unicorn does. Then I could peruse them looking for even rarer darts ;)



To get these, I traded away my 28 gram Black Widows which I bought probably five or more years ago during league. I haven't thrown them regularly for a long time so it didn't bother me to let them go so much, even though they _are_ attached to the memory of an AWESOME night. I was using them the night that we swept the Molly McGuires team 12-0 in the semi-finals of B League in Fall 2003. I could not miss that night, and the widows were flying very true. Nonetheless, my taste in darts has been leaning towards lighter darts in the last several years so the widows have seen more shelf time than not lately. I did get them out and threw a few practice rounds with them before I shipped them off to JME (of Sewa). The practice rounds were unremarkable which made me feel better about packing them up and shipping them off.

It's funny how people shy away from fat darts because they think it is harder to get them all in a single triple wedge. This may be true in theory, but it has infinitely more to do with consistency in aiming. The below shot is from a Foam Axe practice round I did tonight.

31

My thirty first maximum actually came several weeks ago while I was warming up for a shoot at Coopers. I do not recall the specifics of the evening and I am sure I did not do well in the shoot otherwise I probably would have blogged something about it.



The above pic was not the max I hit several weeks ago, but I was using the same darts with the exact same configuration. 17 gram Featherlights, medium snow white stems, and slim polys. The above pic isn't even a true ton-80. Instead it was the culmination of a Foam Axe practice round that I was shooting tonight after work.

Square Dart from Jeff Pickup

Zeeple's Latest

These are a Pickup custom that he recently sent to me:

True Evolution

Now that I have had a couple weeks to play with the new darts from Evolution, I can say that they are a truly wonderful and very well thought out design. In fact be sure to check out their other barrel designs, here, here and here! Here are some of the things I really like about these darts:

The barrel is well thought out, and well, just Grippy! The very forward portion of the gaarrel has three evenly spaced longitudinal ridges that cause my fore funger to "lock" into place. This seems to prevent the dart from rolling in my fingers and gives me a much stronger confidence in my grip. Also, the wide and evenly spaace grooves behind the head of the dart are about as non-slip as it gets.


Another very interesting feature of these darts is that they are made out of actual steel, not tungsten!! Once you get over the initial sensation of holding a dart that _looks_ like it should be much heavier then it actuaally is you start to realize that this is a very strong advantage indeed. You get the advantage of throwing a light dart (precision and control) without the usual disadvantage that goes along with them (too skinny and small to hold onto).

I am glad I discovered this company. They are doing something truly evolutionary with darts.

17 gram Evolutions

Here are my new darts from a company in Germany called Evolution:



They are one of the most interesting darts I have ever seen. They are coated steel and they are all one piece. There is no separate stem. Makes me wonder what'll happen when they hood.

156 Out

Today I set a new high for myself. In similar circumstances to my former high out, I went triple 20, triple 20, double 18 to take out an 18 darter. Not only does that tie my highest average game (83.5 points per round) but I got a new high out out of it to boot. The game was against my team captain and it occurred on our board at work.

My previous high out was 130, which occurred on 2-11-08 against the same guy on the same board. I went S20, T20, DB. I am very lucky to be able to play throughout the week against him. He is an extremely dangerous player and a good friend and he causes me to raise my game to a higher level.

I was throwing newly dressed darts that I have not touched in years. More on that in a later post!

Dart Matter Wins First Place!

Last season my team, Dart Matter, captained then by Barn, won first place in the B League. We decided to try our luck in A League this season, and I agreed to revisit the old familiar Captain's Chair.

Engage!

Well last night we won the finals match against a really tough team called The Sofa Kings. It was a tough match and they really had us (okay maybe just me) scared by the time we hit the doubles cricket set because not only was that their strongest game but we could tell they were getting scrappier and picking up the kinda steam you get when you know you are about to lose it all. But in the end we did win a doubles cricket match which was all we needed for the win, final score: 13-8.

We are hoping to get one of their players for our team next year.

Max in Team Practice (#30)

My 30th Ton-80 came early on during Team Practice. I had the entire team over for a strong doubles practice since we are entering the finals round in league on Thursday. Everyone felt great, we were all pumped and all hitting mostly what we aimed at. By the end of the evening we were all still feeling very positive about Finals. Tonight I rest my arm.

I don't have a picture of the maximum unfortunately since my camera was low on batteries at the time and I did not wanna hold up the practice for too long since we were rolling. But I was using the 18 gram darts I bought off Ed in the Korthaus, configured with medium black and white Spiraline stems and all yellow slim Amazon flights. The coolest thing about these darts is that the Sofa Kings, the team we are to meet in the finals, plays out of the Korthaus. If I use the darts to beat them in the finals it will be like slaying a dragon with a sword plucked from it's own lair.


And also I hit a Doubles Trick during team practice, which is no slouchly feat:



The main theme of the practice was of course doubles so we split into teams and played "Around the World And Back Again" on the doubles with the Make-it-Take-it mod. Fun practice game to be sure, but not nearly as thrilling as an 01 or Cricket match. Once the team practice was over we aall felt strong and ready for the finals!

Thin Stylish Dart by Jeff Pickup

Jeff Pickup isn't just a good dart maker, he's an excellent dart designer. Just recently he was good enough to send me some pics of his latest creation (although sadly not the actual darts), pics which I could not resist posting here. And while he did not send the actual darts to me the pictures served to inspire my own imagination and now I have a similar set on the drawing boards. These darts were built to order apparently, for someone else.


As you can perhaps tell from the pic above the darts are very thin. Similar diameter to the M3 darts out of Germany, and they are made from 95% percent Tungsten, giving them a 20 gram weight despite their small size. This is increasingly important to me as I am once again shifting my ideal dart around. In league this year I happened upon a short thin barrel, 18 grams, that i have been deadly with. Without a heavy tungsten a short thin barrel can get too light.


The above pic kinda shows how thin the barrel is if you kinda compare it to the thickness of the point. It also shows how the barrel was sectioned with those tiny grooves. If those were ment as a guide for finger placement I can see how they'd be useful but I cannot see using grooves as insubstantial as that for grippage. But you know. Whatever floats your boat. After all I did not commission these.


The Pickup stem is a creation of Pickups to be sure. I have always admired it but I have never commissioned dart to use it until now (or the near future of now). He drills a hole in the back of the barrell, shoves in a tiny piece of ear clearner stem, and this creates the perfect tightness for a removable yet secure push in stem made from one of those wire jobbies you see online. But now as you can see from the dart above he has added a tiny "umbrella" he calls it to protect the back of the barrel from robin hood damage (after all darts do 1d3!). I am looking forward to this feature as well!


Different pieces of the disassembled dart. I'd love to know how much he charged for these beauties. If I find out I'll post it here! If you wanna order darts from him, you can send him an email here to ask about pricing: Email Jeff and ask about prices!

New High In

I really enjoy attending the Sunday Shoots at Coopers. Sometimes you get enough people to play a blind draw doubles tournament which is always fun, and sometimes you do not. Tonight was one of those nights. We had six of us, which made for a fun singles 501 shoot. I ended up in the three way tie for first place which isn't saying too much since there were only six shooters, but the shooters that were there are all high quality shots. Three of us, in fact, will be participating in the A League finals on Thursday. So we had a three way open in 501 game to break the tie and I blew it. I was sitting on 73, hit the 57 with my first dart and flailed my third dart into the single 11. I ended up taking out a 2 a couple rounds later but not before one of the others took out their shot for the win. The evening was a good one for me in terms of tonnage. I hit four ton-40's, a 135, and a 121.

All in all it was a fun evening that ended in a delicious cheeseburger and onion rings, and an ice cold beer, all covered by my second place winnings. Perhaps the nicest part was the 2.2 mile walk home afterward in perfect spring weather. Not a bad way to spend a sunday evening!

Short Thin Barrels

I posted these picks for the benefit of Jeff Pickup when trying to convey to him which way my dart tendencies have been leaning lately and that is towards the short thin barrel on a medium stem. It is funny how your preferences can do a full reversal over the course of several years but occur in such small increments that you never notice until you look at old blog posts. Several years ago when I started this blog (which was at least a couple years after I started playing darts) I had strongly held convictions toward a 24 gram barrel with short stems and standard dimplex flights.

This was back in the days when google groups was a worthwhile discussion medium and when dartbase was a scrolling forum. His forum is a phpBB borad now and still completely awesome.

I have not thrown a 24 gram dart in competition for what seems like ages. My best performance lately has been with my 18 gram Mavs.

The above barrel is very thin. 15 gram Featherlight. The Featherlights above did me right for a long time and they were always more than just a training dart for me. I used to keep them in my dart case when I went to league or shoots and I'd fall back on them when my regulars get squirrelly. I still throw them from time to time. Using them is what turned me onto medium stems since these are my shortest (well one of my shortest) barrels and it is hard to dress them in short stems which was always my usual fare.


The above is a 17 gram Featherlight which is 3 millimeters longer and just slightly thicker than the 15 grammer. I like it quite a bit.


The above is an 18 gram Maverick by Freeflight. 44 millimeters long and thicker though not by much than the standard nylon stem.

Slow Year for Ton-80's

I have been hitting very few maximums this year but that is okay. All I really want from the year is to hit a Ton-80 in league. Tomorrow is the last league match of the regular season, and we'll definitely be in the first round of the play offs, so that is a minimum of two more league matches in which I can hit my prize for the Spring season. And while I am hoping for a max tomorrow night, I definitely nailed one today at work. It came in a 20 dart game of 501 against my workmate. This makes 29 lifetime.

28 and Counting

This one came the next morning after numbers 26 and 27. I was grooving on the Mags again and wanted to get in a full session of EMD. I was richly rewarded in high tons, including this one:

27th Maximum

As previously mentioned, this one came within about 20 minutes of the 26th Max and it was even during the same round of EMD. Near the end of course.

More Maximums in Practice

Numbers 26, 27 and 28 came in rapid succession and all while doing my new favorite practice routine, which is "Extended Modified Doubles", which perhaps I will blog on later. It is a very good practice routine that allows you to get in quality practice regardless if you have 10 minutes or two hours to mess around in.



The darts that I was using are my 23 gram Magnums by Harrows, dressed in short twin grip stems and slim ruthless flights.

Dart Matter Debut

Last night was the first match of the new league season and Dart
Matter won handily 21-4. The competition was tough to be sure but all
four of us were in top form, raking in no fewer than 940 all star
points for the team and two 9 counts!

My own game was sharp most of the time. My first singles match was a
DD 301 which I won with a quick in and good darts. Then I played two
singles cricket games. This is where my smile broadens at the
memories of the night. The first game was againt the oipposing
captain, easily their best player. I played the sharpest game I have
ever played. I opened with a fiver - 4 20's and a 19. In the next
several rounds I hit a 7 count and hit the triple during on every
number. In my penultimate round I had one dart left after hitting a
triple 15 and used it to soak up a double bull. Next round I got my
last bull for the win.

My next singles cricket game, while a victory, was not as sharp. But
that is the game in which I hit the nine count. Triple 18, trip 17,
and trip 16. The only other cricket niner I've ever hit in an actual
game came in that very same bar several years ago. We'd just gotten
having our asses handed to us in a league match and we stayed around
to goof off after the match. I wanted to try my teammates new darts
and hit a cricket niner against him with them.

Of the four losses last night I was involved in two of them. They came
in doubles 501 matches. One was a disheartening case of being 300
point ahead and not being able to hit the double. All in all a good
night.

--
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Practice Routine: Foam Axe

The Foam Axe is so named because its pronunciation is identical to 'faux max' give or take a micro pause. It is a very short routine except on the worst of practice days because all you have to do is get all three darts into the triple 20 and they do not need to be all in the same round. In fact by definition they are not! Because then that would be a genuine maximum. I will very often use the foam axe as a warm up routine for regular practice.

Here is how it works: you throw your darts at the triple 20 until one hits. Then you leave it in there! You retrieve the two errant darts and return to the oche. Now your task is to hit the triple 20 with one dart already in there. Believe it or not having your first dart stick in the triple is in fact a cause for a small psychological charge but with repeated practice can be overcome. Once you get your second dart in there, now you leave it and return to the oche with the single errant dart. The task now is to get that last dart in the triple 20 with the other two already in there. Keep throwing and retrieving it until you do. Make sure each shot is a studied determined 'spot' shot. Take a breath. Make a routine out of throwing that last dart for the max, this way you have a behavioral guideline for when this occurs in a match. When this condition does occur in a live game the last thing you want to happen is to be thinking "oh my gosh I hope I don't miss!". Instead you want to have hit the max a hundred times before in Foam Axe situations. The stress of having two darts in the triple 20 is tremendous and for the novice player usually results in a choke (a wide miss) but this is a situation that can and should be desensitized.

A Bear of a Maximum

This is my 25th Maximum. It came during round of Modified Doubles quite near the end of the session, and in fact I only had the double 13 left. If I had not missed that double so many times I would have had to wait a while more for my 25th max. I am very happy with this maximum as it is the first I have hit with my Nobu's.


This is my Current Preferred Configuration for the Nobu's. Short Twin Grip stems and slim poly (non-dimplex) flights. Right now the flights are Black Bear flights but I change flights frequently and that does not affect my CPC (as long as they are still slim poly).

Practice Routine: Modified Doubles

Sometimes I want to practice both doubles and sixties but have a hard time deciding best how to alternate among them. Or at least I used to have some trouble with this. These days I am almost always throwing the Flight School 'Accuracy" routine but when I want a break from that I throw a modified doubles practice that incorporates both sixties as well as the doubles. Here's how it works:

First dart of every round is aimed at the triple 20. If it hits then you stay on the same target regardless of the result of the second dart and try for a 120+ score. If the first dart misses, however, you abandon the sixties and the remaining two darts are aimed at the
doubles as if it were regular doubles practice. So you do the doubles in the standard zeeple order: 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 20, 10... So let's say we just started the practice and the first dart missed the sixty. The second dart goes for the double 16. If it hits then great, you move onto double 8. If that second dart is a miss though you either go for the double 8 (if you missed inside or missed into the double 8 leaving 16), or you stay on the double 16 (if you miss anywhere else). Once a round is over though all that carries into the next round is where you left off with the doubles. So let's say that the second dart misses inside the double 16, the third dart then misses outside the double 8. The first dart of the next round again misses the sixty. What about the second dart? Do you go for the double 8 because you had 16 remaining last time, or the double 16 because you have not hit it yet? The correct answer is the double 16. It doesn't matter what remained last time.

So that is my modified doubles routine. I have been sticking with the Flight School routines mostly though.

130, Double Bull Out

Today at work during a DIDO 301 game against my teammate I hit a real humdinger. Sitting at 130 I shot for the triple 20 and missed into the single. I then hit the triple 20 with my second dart, leaving 50:



Also of note is that I skunked my opponent. He never got on the board. I felt good about that game all day long!

Sunday Luck(y)

Last night I headed up to my home pub for the weekly Luck of the Draw shoot. One awesome thing about this shoot is that the bar always matches the pot. So the more people who show up the better for the winners. Last night only five people came! A small number to be sure so instead of doing a blind doubles shoot we did a quick singles match in which we all played everyone twice. I won 7 of my 8 games taking home the $25 first prize. The only game I dropped I dropped due to some sloppy doubles and I gave my opponent too many chances to win. Which he did, of course! I can't feel too bad though because he is my teammate during league and I am happy when he wins. As far as my performance goes I only hit one ton all night but I made up for this with plenty of 80+ scores and of course I was spot on with doubles. Rarely missing them with more than one dart. So for this reason I feel pretty good about the evening.

Last night I thew my Nobu's primarily but had my Magnums in reserve for those few times the Nobu's felt funky. The Nobu's were configured with short Dynastar stems and they threw completely awesome with this configuration. A moving point and a spinning flight might be overkill even for the most die hard gimmick junky, especially for me who has professed for years that a solid dart that doesn't rattle shimmy or shake on the way to the sweet spot is a well behaved dart. They served me pretty well last night.

More Fun with Fleece

The quest to create the most streamlined case possible never ends. Darts that come apart into many pieces are prime candidates for having small case designed around them, especially if the points separate from the barrel. The Voks Nobu is a just such a dart:


As you can see in the below pic the Nobu's come apart into four pieces. Five if I were to remove the o-ring from the stem but that would just be silly. The point of any El-C style dart is always going to be the longest piece that you will have to contend with but believe it or not the El-C point lends itself to disassembly far more than the traditional screw in point such as the Pickup Points. This is because to keep the screw in points from shaking loose you either have to o-ring them or loktite them, and loktiting is better for points.


Here you can see all of the pieces that need a home in the new soft case:


And in the below pic you can see my design ideas. The points were the biggest design challenge as they are the longs piece of any of them. What I did was to start arranging all the pieces into rectangles and squares until I eventually came to the patter you see below. Then it was just a matter of making all the compartments tight fits for their pieces. I am very happy with the long skinny compartments for the points. The slide in only with a bit of force and no amount of shaking will cause them to fall out. They have to be pulled out, which means I do not hav to worry about capping the compartments at all. The same is true of the stems. The barrels a bit looser in their compartments, as are the flights.


What you do not see in the pictures here are the small glove snaps I have sewed onto the case in various places to keep the flaps closed and the two halves snapped together.


Here you can see the soft case completely folded shut. It is small enough that it drops into the front pocket of my jeans easily and comfortably. Also in the below pic you can see the ends of the points just barely showing out of their compartments.

Length of Medium Twin

I do not use the medium length twin grip stems, but for the record they are 50 mm without the threading, and when flighted are longer than a standard medium length nylon stem.

Faux Max

Disappointed that no one showed up for the luck tonight at Coops, I came home and decided to throw 60's until I hit a max. It never came but after about forty minutes of dedicated 60's practice and after many tons and a few 120+'s, I hit a would be max but the third dart fell out of the triple. I am not sure how many seconds it was in there. Probably not more than five so I am downgrading this shot to a Faux Max. Oddly not a single ton-40 which is what I am used to hitting.

Fun with Fleece

Here is a new dart case I made from fleece. I made this case because I like very slim streamlined cases that can fit comfortably in your pocket. To make this case you just need a little bit of fleece a small scrap of muslin and some needle and thread and optionally a rare earth magnet if you want the case to have a closing mechanism. It helps to have a sewing machine, which I used, but it is not necessary. After all I have done plenty of quality stuff by hand.

Here is what it looks like closed:

And this is what it looks like open but I took this picture before I decided to add a muslin flight sheath:

The magnet idea came later, I was just going to have a folding fleece wallet style soft case but then it occured to me that I could leverage the steel tips themselves to keep the case closed. So I arrange it so that when folded the placement of the magnet is lined up with the points of the darts. The magnet I used is a neodymium magnet hat has quite a lot of pull.


Here you can see that the magnet is strong enough to hold that darts by their points ( and then some. In this picture they are hanging in front of my fireplace.


A close up of the stem side of the soft case: The wallet is long enough that I could keep medium length stems in there if I wanted to but I prefer short stems so I designed the soft case specifically for their length:


Here is a long shot of the entire case open before I sewed the magnet into it's round pocket:


I strted out by not dividing the stem side into three slots, but later added that for its aesthetic appeal. Of course, once I did that there was no longer anywhere to put the flights since it was no longer just a big open pocket. So my solution was to grab a little bit of muslin and sew a sheath for the flights and attach it in the middle of the open case. I thought about doing it in fleece but I did not want to add too much thickness to the soft case when it is folded closed. Below you can see that the muslin makes for a very thin sheath indeed:


I close up of the middle of the soft case:


Here you can see a close up of the barrel side of the case. I designed it specifically for my 23 gram Magnums but almost any dart will fit. I have been thinking about how to do a similar case with angled pockets for GT style darts.