The best steel tip darts

The jump from the brass darts bundled with a board to a tungsten set is the biggest single improvement available in home darts, and it is bigger than the jump between any two tungsten sets. Tungsten is roughly twice as dense as brass, so the same weight occupies a much slimmer barrel — which means three darts actually fit in a treble bed instead of knocking each other out of it.

What makes this a good first set rather than just a good set is the grip. The knurling is moderate: enough texture to stop the dart sliding out of a dry hand, not so aggressive that it drags on release and pulls the throw off line. Heavy grip is a preference some players develop; nobody starts there.

It arrives flight-ready with stems and flights fitted, which matters more than it sounds. A set that needs parts chosen before it can be thrown is a set that sits in a drawer.

Signature sets exist because grip preference is real and personal. A barrel designed around one professional's hand is not better in the abstract — it is a specific, deliberate shape, and if it happens to suit your grip it will feel noticeably more repeatable than a general-purpose barrel.

That makes this a second set rather than a first one. By the time somebody has thrown a few hundred games they know whether they hold the dart far forward or near the back, whether they want the weight ahead of or behind their fingers, and whether they want texture under the fingertips or the pads. Those are the questions a signature barrel answers.

It is also a genuinely good gift for someone who already owns a working set, precisely because it is a step sideways into preference rather than a replacement for something they like.

The important line in this category is between brass and tungsten, not between cheap tungsten and expensive tungsten. A budget tungsten set clears that line, which means it does the thing that matters: a slim barrel that lets three darts group.

What you give up is refinement. The grip is less considered, the machining tolerances are looser so the set is slightly less consistent dart to dart, and the stock flights will need replacing sooner. None of that stops the set playing properly.

This is the right answer for a house set — darts that stay by the board for guests, where losing one is not a problem — and for anybody who wants to leave the brass behind without spending much.

This set is here because it is the mistake we see most often in this category. An electronic dartboard has a plastic segment face with thousands of small holes, and it takes soft plastic points. Steel points punched into it will crack the segments and kill the scoring sensors underneath, usually within a few games.

Soft tip darts are lighter by regulation and the points are consumable — they bend and snap, and a pack of spares is part of owning an electronic board rather than a sign of poor quality.

If you are not certain which board you have: bristle boards are compressed sisal, dark red or black, with a thin metal spider dividing the segments. Electronic boards are molded plastic, usually with an LED display above or below.