Monday, January 21, 2008

Heavy darts, apparently

Pictured : Unicorn "Phil Taylor" 95% tungsten

The Harrows Magnum 97% 27grm darts I'm using are great, but they are now extremely hard to get hold of. Harrows have stopped manufacturing them in the 27 grm weight, and the last few UK suppliers have seemed to run dry over Christmas. This means as soon as my set are lost or stolen (it happens - especially when you only have one set of them!) I will have real problems in replacing them.

The pictured dart seems to be a fairly close match though. Slightly less tungsten in the alloy, but the same overall shape, and Unicorn seem to offer a 27 grm option across most of their range. These will probably be the replacements I get if I need them. it's just strange that a 27 grm option seems to have been dropped by Harrows in their top end darts. I don't consider them to be that heavy, but the trend seems to be on lighter darts than in earlier days when 30+ grms were freely available across the range.

One nice feature of the Unicorn darts are that they are all guaranteed to be within 0.1 grm of each other within the set of three, and they're engraved with their weight to that precision. Unicorn also offer a "Latinum" finish, but I' not too sure what this means - even after scrutinising the specs on their web site. It's something to do with the finish of the grip rather than the alloy I think. Maybe a gimmick, but who knows.

3 comments:

Zeeple said...

Tommo, I have had the good fortune to throw some Taylor's in the past although I am sure they were the 90% version not the 95. They are nice grippy darts. I also own a set of Unicorn darts with the Latinum coating. I like the darts (they are the Lloyds) but I do not like the coating. It seems too slippery. The raw tungsten finish without any coating is what I would recommend. Also, I was at a shoot on Sunday and one of my new teammates for next season was there throwing the same darts you are throwing now. I look forward to tossing them next season to see how I like them.

Tommo said...

Thanks Zeeple. Even Unicorn in their 2008 catalogue don't properly explain that Latinum is a coating and left me to guess if it was a finish or smoother machining.

I've seen 90% versions too, and I'll go with your advice that they're good darts.

I've noticed the Magnums only grip well with a little sweat on the hands - ideal for League games then :o)

Tommo said...
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