I have to admit, I took a chance on these. I ordered them strictly for the weight. It's very hard to find a light weight steel tip dart unless you want to go the custom route. I'm a bit frugal and didn't want to spend $100+ on darts. Never have, never will.

I bought these from my good friends at A180. Thanks again for the great service!!! You guys rock!!!!

I wasn't expecting positive results with these darts at all. For some reason I've NEVER liked a smooth grip dart. I've always said that even though I have very little, if any experience playing with them. I can remember not long ago, ripping on Jenkins (during a live stream) while he was playing in the super hot conditions of the World Matchplay, wondering how he could play with that smooth barrel.

Anyway, once I received the darts my 1st impression was that they looked and felt really cool. The nose cone is something like I have never seen before on any dart. I threw them on the scale and they were right on the money. All 3 darts weighed 14.1 grams. Advertised weight is 14. Backing up a bit, my darts came signed by the Count himself. I thought that was really awesome!
I changed the stems and flight right away and threw about 9 darts. They felt great right off the bat. I then took some pics and posted them up here right away. Overall, my 1st impression was very neutral. The smooth barrel felt right at home in my hands and the weight was prefect as well. Completely went against everything I've ever thought of smooth barrel darts.

A few hours later I decided to set the camera up and put in a good practice session. I can usually tell right away if I'm going to like a dart or not. I have to say, while I WANTED to hate these darts, I just couldn't.
I put the camera in the tripod, hit record, and BOOM!! A 180 right out of the gate! I'm sure you guys saw the video. I was super happy after the 1st dart went in, and totally excited after banging in a 180 from jump street.

Put in about 40 minutes and I was playing like days of old when I was on top of my game. Hitting everything in site. I consider myself a decent player but I can assure you this was some next level stuff I was doing. One GIANT thing I did notice with this dart is that it flys straighter then ANY other dart I've ever throw. Let me explain. If I'm playing for awhile, I tend to get lazy and start throwing a lot of darts into the 5 area. My darts swing left. For the 1st time ever all my darts were going dead straight!!! Hardly any darts were pulled left. I wonder if this can be attributed to the nose cone or the smooth grip??? As many know, I've been putting in massive amounts of practice since my return to darts in March. Yesterday was BY FAR the best day I've ever had. Had a bunch of 180's and upped my record in baseball, shooting at number 1-9. Old record was 46 and I got 48 with the new darts. A bit off my record in 2005 of 54, but still had me excited. Also this morning i banged in a much needed 6 mark on the bulls as the cpu was kicking my butt.

The only drawback of these darts is they come with shiny silver points. Very sharp. I lost a few in the bull, they slowly fell out, and actually had my first bounce outs since playing on my new board for over a month. Had 2 bounce outs on the bull. This morning I took some very fine sandpaper to the points and fixed that problem.

Overall.... I am shocked that I like this dart so much. The grip just happens to work for me. I also think because it's such a light dart I don't notice the grip as much. Maybe if this was a 23 gram dart the smooth grip would blow??? But as a 14 gram barrel it sits lightly in my fingertips and feels great. If you are like me and never shot with a smooth dart I would definitely recommend you give these a go. For $30 it's worth a try. I can't wait to tournament test these ones out. See how they do under pressure. Until then....

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Nice review JD. Good luck.

Great review Jd +1 for you!

Only smoothy i ever threw with was a 24g jenkins dart, be interesting to have a throw with these, might have to put them on my wish list.

nice JD. Any chance you can put a pic up of your grip on the hankeys?

JD now has been bitten by Hankey, wheres me garlic and Silver bullet lol

Good write up JD, I think you have taken to them alright!

USMC80 wrote:

nice JD. Any chance you can put a pic up of your grip on the hankeys?

Yes.

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Interesting, never tried a smooth dart personally and never seen anyone using them in our league (would have asked for a shot ).

thanks JD

I should add this to my review. Thanks to Smiling Assassin, a member here, he informed me how the dart is drilled out quite a bit and it's front loaded. Something I wasn't aware of. Might be a big reason as to why i'm not drifting into the 5 hardly at all anymore. Like I said above, when I would get tired and lazy after a long practice session, my dart would want to drift into the 5 or go left on most numbers. That has just about vanished with these darts. It's like someone turned off a switch, that's how much I notice it.
Anyway, here's a pic of an allen wrench up against the barrel, and then inserted all the way in. As you can see, it's drilled out a ways.

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btw JD a plus one from me.

SilverSaber wrote:

btw JD a plus one from me.

Thanks Silver.

Yeah that is drilled a lot!

HI darts fans
Ive got the 25gram version of Hankeys and i love them there the best darts ive ever thrown and i own over 20 sets of darts they give u a better grip than andersons smooth darts ive hit more 180s with these than any other dart ive owned

Nice one mate! I think with smooth darts a lot depends on the natural oils/moisture of your skin, I have never had trouble gripping them myself.

mr lakeside wrote:

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have to select the image button (picture frame) then copy and paste image in there, hit ok then hit send

Sorry we are working on a full forum guide.

mr lakeside wrote:

HI darts fans
Ive got the 25gram version of Hankeys and i love them there the best darts ive ever thrown and i own over 20 sets of darts they give u a better grip than andersons smooth darts ive hit more 180s with these than any other dart ive owned

Good to heat it mate. It is a great dart. Better then I ever expected.

Well done with the pics Mr Lakeside!