DartSmarts has designed not just a dart, but more specifically a “Darts Equipment System.” This “system” provides quality and features that will not only increase your performance level but will also tailor your dart to your specific shooting situation. This “System” incorporates both steel-tip and soft-tip darts together as well as it also gives control of options and addresses the many variation needs of individual shooters. This system also allows for shooters of either soft-tip or steel-tip to cross over into steel or soft-tip without changing darts.
The GEN-3 dart is the future of darts! We’ve engineered this dart to be the foundation of our future darts and their Performance Features. In looking ahead, we’ve prepared GEN-3 to be receptive in design to our current, near future and much further down the road, future Performance Features.
A TOP SECRET Performance Feature will be unveiled within the next 12 months. This brand new Performance Feature to darts will surpass the importance of what moveable point systems have done for darts to date. This Performance Feature will be an “after-market” option. Stay tuned to be wowed!
NOTICE FOR SOFT-TIP PLAYERS: For both soft-tip and steel-tip play combined, please note that OUR MOVEABLE POINT SYSTEM WEIGHS 2 (TWO!) GRAMS. If you play SOFT-TIP, and want an 18 Gram barrel, then you should ORDER THE 20 GRAM BARREL MOVEABLE POINT!
Better dart players will play with “grooved” barrel darts simply because they are more ergonomic. They are ergonomic because grooved darts provide a “leading edge” that your skin pushes against. It’s much more natural for consistency if you push your dart forward on to your “sight line” that goes from your dominant eye to your target, as opposed to throwing from the side of your head.
If a person puts their thumb up to a barrel, perpendicularly, the width of the thumb is roughly about one inch. For the “typical” grooved dart, there are usually 5 to 7 grooves in that one inch length. On our GEN-3 dart, within that one inch space, we have 33 grooves.
Unfortunately the typical grooved barrels on the market have a wide open area between these 5 to 7 grooves. This open area will either be a smooth surface which is conducive for slippage at the critical point in time when the dart is being released from the fingers, or this open area is typically a “diamond knurled” surface. The diamond knurled surface was specifically designed as a “sure-grip” surface, a texture that does not allow any movement on the surface. When a dart is being launched, the barrel needs to be able to naturally pivot or rotate on the surface of the skin. So with a diamond surface on a dart barrel, what happens is that the dart sticks to your skin as you’re trying to release the dart and you end up pulling down the back end of the dart, thus initiating a vertical fish-tailing action, which means that the dart is coming off your fingers inconsistently also.
GEN-3’s FOUNDATION OF PERFORMANCE FEATURES IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE:
DartSmarts.com has perfected the moveable point! This spring-loaded point, after initial wire contact, becomes “FREE FLOATING” and pliable. This point is then able to deflect 360 DEGREES in any direction! Other current moveable point systems have collets that “lock-in” their entire point to the center of the barrel. Our point remains in a secured extended position due to a shock absorbing spring with out having any distracting rattle.
The barrel is a SUPERIOR TUNGSTEN STEEL alloy – 90% Tungsten – that has a Rockwell hardness rating of 32. Current tungsten darts are usually rated in the 5 to 11 range! If you don’t believe this, take your darts to a machine shop and ask them to check the hardness with their hardness tester.
This barrel’s grip provides both, the necessary textured surface for CONTROL and CONSISTENCY at the critical point of release from the fingers, as well as allowing for the PIVOTING movement of the fingers on the barrel during the launching process! Most darts today fail for consistency, due to the dart leaving the fingers uncontrolled from either having “too good” of a grip with a diamond knurled surface that is not conducive for “pivotability” or either having too smooth of a grip which produces “slippage” on the surface of your skin at the critical point of the dart’s release.
The GEN-3 comes with the new, DartSmarts,com’s “FT” Performance Flight! This flight allows shooters to throw the much desired “Flatter Trajectory.” Most flights today produce too much drag and as a result, enter the board pointing at the ceiling. This flight has a SMOOTH surface, where the air can travel freely over the surface, and NOT produce turbulence which allows DRAG to set in BIG TIME! This new flight design complements the “Natural” arc of the shooter’s arm movement.
The GEN-3 comes with the PROPER length of shaft and material! The two components of a dart that affect its aerodynamics the most is the shaft and flight. Throwing a flat trajectory is most desirable because it provides a MAXIMUM MARGIN OF ERROR and at the same time it also reduces LESS CHANCE OF ERROR! Medium length shafts provide too much drag, so one needs to throw harder and increase the trajectory, which also adds more chance of error because you’re throwing in an unnatural manner. The consistency that you receive from short shafts tends to be sporadic. The material that produces the most control and consistency for shafts is nylon, and that is what we use exclusively! If you are more concerned with being a “fashion statement” with fancy shafts or flights, you really need to re-examine your PERFORMANCE PRIORITIES or you might be looking for a new dart team next season!
The POINT’S TIP has a SEMI-SPHERICAL SHAPE that enables the point to SLIDE off of wires and into scoring areas, as oppose to DIGGING into metal wires and creating CRATERS, where points are UNABLE to move forward from, EVEN if the dart has a moveable point! It is the spherical shape that allows our moveable point system the time to operate!
This point has circumferential etched rings that SECURE it in the board! Most shooters use sand paper to produce this effect, but DartSmarts.com has made this feature PERMANENT! Add up performance features #6 and #7 and that produces a Maintenance FREE Point!
The collet is made of a HARDENED STAINLESS STEEL that has a Rockwell rating of 60! DartSmarts.com won’t bleed you dry financially by using SOFT metals for collets that scar and damage easily!
When the GEN-3 is embedded in the board, it is able to ROTATE FREELY! This will provide flexibility when the force of “incoming” darts brush up against them!
The collet is designed to have a FULL EXTERNAL CONE SHAPE, which is DEFLECTION FRIENDLY! Also, the collet has a MINIMIZED leading LIP that greatly REDUCES the chances of it being “clothes hung” on flights of darts already existing in the board.
The flight protector, besides having a PROPER GRIP AREA for its application or removal, also has a REAR TAPER which is also very DEFLECTION FRIENDLY as well!
The Smartest Dart can also accept SOFT-TIPS for ELECTRONIC PLAY! Playing with one set of darts will add stability to your game! WARNING: The MAXIMUM weight of a dart, allowed in Soft-Tip is 18 grams and in some isolated circumstances 20 grams!
GEN-3 DESIGN UPGRADES
Our new grip profile provides an extra 40% CONTROL above our GENERATION 2 darts!
We’ve refined the consistency of our moveable point mechanical functioning to the point of guarantee. Our spring-loaded moveable point system is now totally encased in the barrel away from any prone situations.
Our collet’s “O-ring” groove has now been shaped to fit our “O-ring” itself. This will provide rigidity to the “O-ring” and give less chance of giving in to vibration and movement and eventually a loosened collet. We’ve even take this one a step further:
We designed “speed bumps” into our barrel’s internal diameter adjacent to the “O-ring” so that there won’t be any possible way the “O-ring” can move over the “speed bumps” under normal usage. The “O-ring” is now solid as a rock.
Our self-securing point design has now been fine-tuned:
A. No more will the groove be able to catch on the edge of a dart’s flight that’s already in the board. The point simply slides over the edge. Those previously clothes hung darts will now proceed into the board!
B. The point will now be able to penetrate deeper into the dartboard.
C. Additionally, the new design also provides a more secured grip on the board, insuring the score of your darts.
Three darts are included in each set. Additionally, within the dart case is a tool for removing the moveable point system, an out-chart, a set of flight protectors, and also second set of shafts and flights. All components are contained in a hard plastic case that allows for one of the three darts to remain fully intact. For some further knowledge about dart design analysis, please read our “Dart Equipment Class 101.”