Darts

We offer one of the largest selections of darts, cases, flights, and shaft in the entire central valley. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, we’re definitely your source for all of your darting needs as you can see from the picture, our stores are chalked full of flights, shafts, tips and tools. We stock many dart boards, so whether you looking for a steel tip board or a electronic soft tip board we have it all.

We have been told that our dart selection is one of the best. Feel free to come on in and try out any of our dart sets. Feel what a $200 set of Target darts feels like, or a brass darts that will retail for under $20.  We have a great selection of both soft tip and steel tip bar darts. We have a large selection of mini darts such as BEE darts & Harley Davidson side Cars as well as the original wooden widdy darts.

On this page we hope to answer some of the many questions customers have when purchasing darts and dart boards as well as the most common call, “how high should he hand the dart board”. Darts are available two different ways. The first is the most common style dart, the fixed point or steel tip. The steel tip dart will typically weigh between 22grams – 25grams, however, being as heavy as 40grams and much heavier than that of a soft. This dart requires a bristle style board to be thrown at. Steel tip darts have either fixed or moveable points.  The most common type of steel tip dart is the fixed point.  The reasoning behind a moveable point dart is it allows for fewer bounce outs when you hit the wires on the board.  The second style is referred to as a soft tip, this style dart has plastic tips screw in to the barrel of the dart. These tips are available in many different colors and lengths, and styles. They are also with 2 different thread patterns, a ¼ inch or a 2BA.

Most soft tip darts weigh between 16 grams – and 20 grams with the most common being an 18 gram, there are a few standard soft tip models that weigh 14 grams Most soft tip darts have both 2ba tip and shaft thread size, this allows for easily reversing the barrel to find a better grip--based on individual preference. Occasionally, you will find a ¼” tip size, but this is not that common.  Keep this in mind when purchasing accessories for your soft tip darts or when purchasing multiple sets of darts that you may want to use the same tip size for all. 

Here is a breakdown of the components that make up a dart:

 

	Brass is a soft/light material, which makes for easy machining, which keeps costs down.  Due to the lightness of this material, the darts can be bulky as the weight increases.
	Nickel Silver is slightly heavier than brass, but is still considered a soft/light material. Again, a nickel-silver dart will be bulky as the weight increases.  Nickel-silver darts do not tarnish as easily as brass darts and usually retain their luster longer.
	Tungsten is a brittle and dense material.  Because of its brittleness another alloy is added to it to avoid breakage, the most common is nickel.  The higher the percentage of tungsten, the density increases in the barrel.  Thereby you can have a smaller barrel (than brass or nickel-silver) even with the same or greater weight.  The higher the percentage of tungsten, the cost of the dart usually goes up.  This is because Tungsten is a harder material to machine.  The hardness of a Tungsten barrel allows it to retain its grooves and knurl longer than a Nickel Silver or Brass dart.  Tungsten is a preferred choice for more serious darters because you can group your darts tighter with a smaller barrel.

Typically the smaller the flight, will make your dart will fly faster and have a straighter trajectory (less arc) to the board.  Using a larger flight should arc your dart and slow it down.  There is no one set answer for the size of flight a person should use.  Unfortunately it is through trial and error that you may find the right flight shape for you. Some of the most requested brand of flights is Pentathlon and Ruthless. These are popular because they are considered double thick and are usually easy to insert into a shaft.  Nylon flights are long lasting, but there are not large varieties available and they tend to be hard to put into an aluminum shaft.  Poly, dimplex and glitter flights are a light to medium thickness. Below is a chart of different shaped flights.

Shafts are made of various materials from plastic to aluminum to titanium. Nylon and plastic shafts are lighter, but will break more easily than aluminum. Aluminum shafts are most popular. It should be noted that the titanium in the titanium shafts is not the same grade as you would find in a titanium piercing post. If you group your darts tight and tear a lot of flights, you may want to consider spin shafts. If your dart is “fish-tailing,” you may want to select a shorter shaft.  Finding the correct shaft length for you may be a matter of trial and error.

Today we can choose from a wide variety of dart boards and materials from paper, wood, bristle, and electronic. These dart boards can be found in bars, pubs, and homes all over the world.

Two of the main types of dart boards are bristle and electronic. If you're trying to choose between a bristle and an electronic dart board, consider the following.

The Traditional: Bristle

Bristle boards receive their name from hog hair, or boar bristle, which was originally used in their construction. Today boar bristle in many cases has been replaced by African sisal or nylon. African sisal "heals" itself back to form after the dart is removed from the board. DO NOT spray any types of liquids on a bristle board. It will ruin your board, the surface will absorb the moisture, and the board will begin to expand (bubble) causing the wires to pop out and fall apart.

As a result of this self-healing characteristic, bristle boards wear and last longer than paper dart board which are typically found at most mass discount retails and sporting goods stores. Bristle boards are the choice for professional dart competitions and are usually found at stores that specialize in darts. One of the reasons professional dart players prefer bristle dart boards is that scoring is more accurate.

The Modern: Electronic

Plug it in, and turn it on. You're ready to play darts. And no one else is around. That's OK. One of the features of electronic dart boards is that you can play against the computer. Whereas bristle boards require steel tipped darts, electronic dart boards use darts that are soft-tipped. These soft tipped darts are softer and safer, making these boards the preferred choice for children and beginners. Electronic boards also have the ability to communicate with you through sound, not only telling you your score but also heckling you. The good news is that you usually have the option to turn this feature off, while still maintaining the score being recorded visually.

Whether you choose a bristle or an electronic dart board, you'll have many hours of fun no matter what your means of playing it. Below is a chart to follow for properly setting up a dart board.

The Official throwing distance, for most countries, is 2.37 meters, as measured along the floor, from the plane of the face of the dartboard. In feet, this is 7 feet, 9-1/4 inches. The height of the board, to the center of the bull, is 173 centimeters, or 5 feet, 8 inches. For soft tip boards the distance is 8’. Dartboards are to be hung where the center of the board is 5ft 8in (173 cm) high. I would recommend that you hang it on a backboard, or any other type of backing, to help protect your wall.

Below are some of the Manufacturers / Distributors that we represent.  Feel free to check out their website sites.