Well, so far, so good for Sigma darts. Whatever their scientific credentials, they must stand or fall by the verdict of the people that matter - which, of course, is you folks, dart players themselves. Luckily, the initial reception seems to be pretty positive (which reminds me, thanks to Ron for his comment to my last blog, it’s nice to be appreciated! And more thanks to Warren and FSK for their feedback. As for Warren’s and Z71Pinkcadillac’s questions, I’ll look at those in the Q&A section at the end).
So, somewhat heartened, I had intended to pick up the Sigma story where we left off; with the Pro and the One versions being designed to have different levels of in-flight stability according to the standard of player for whom they are intended. But, as it’s turned out, there is a more newsworthy subject to talk about instead, the verdict of a particularly notable dart player on Sigmas and the associated facts behind Phil “The Power” Taylor’s new darts.
Well, the truth is it’s all the Big Boss’s fault. He thought it would be a good idea to arrange a testing session with Phil where we tried to optimise the shaft and flights on his existing darts using uniLab. But that idea went out the window when, just to help explain some of the background to uniLab, we showed Phil the new 25gm Sigma Pros.
Now it’s hard to imagine two dart barrels more dissimilar than Phil’s usual 24gm Purist, which is 53mm long and not quite 7mm in diameter with a parallel shape and a coarse grip, and the 41mm long, 8mm diameter (only just over a millimetre bigger, though, Sid!), torpedo-shaped, fine-gripped Sigma, so the thought that Phil would actually want to use the latter never occurred to us.
But, as it happened, he had a couple of throws and from then on we couldn’t get them off him! Apart from a bit of perfunctory testing of uniLab results that we eventually persuaded him to do, he spent the rest of the session happily throwing the Sigmas into the treble 20. He then cheerily marched off into the sunset with them, leaving the Big Boss with an empty pack and a marketing issue. So much for the theory that Phil using Sigmas is all a PR ploy for which he was bribed a small (or even large) fortune!
But the story doesn’t end there because, after practising with the Sigmas at home, Phil decided he’d like a few extra grooves in the barrel and, because he draws the darts back to his cheek and found the end of the titanium SlikStik-type shaft and sharper trailing edge of the Pro delta flight disconcerting, would prefer to use his existing XL titanium shafts and Maestro slim flights.
Now I’ve got to be honest, this set up wouldn’t be my first choice. However, as I said in my previous uniBlog, Sigma barrels are specifically designed to have a low moment of inertia which allows “maximum scope for designing aerodynamically optimum shafts and flights for them”. This also means that a lot of shaft and flight combinations will work well with them. But therein, paradoxically, lays a danger. Let me explain.
A player optimising the shafts and flights on a dart by trial-and-error is a very subjective process. Nobody, however good, plays to exactly the same level all the time and scoring will tend to vary more according to the player than according to the dart. Given that different dart set-ups also take a while to get used to, it would take a very long time and thousands of throws to optimise reliably using scoring alone. So most players don’t optimise on scoring alone, they also look at how the dart flies and lands in the board. If a set of darts all land at a consistent angle, that’s obviously better than if they land at three different angles. Obviously.
Unfortunately, that’s obvious but not necessarily correct. If the impact angles are all over the place, then yes, the player has enough waywardness in their throw to need a more stable dart, like a Sigma One, maybe. Or, if they are good enough to throw with some consistency, they can play around with shafts and flights (or try uniLab’s recommendations) until they find a particular combination that makes their darts land straight. Mostly this combination will use bigger, higher lift flights than those on the Sigma One, which means the dart may induce slightly more aerodynamic inaccuracy, but if some aspect of its design is better suited to the player’s grip or throw (or even mental pre-conceptions), then this is probably a price worth paying.
But what about the yet better player who throws very consistently but still finds his darts impact at varying (if relatively small) angles? Should they tune their shafts and flights until these angles are minimised?
Conventionally, the answer is yes, but this is where the Sigma Pro is revolutionarily different. With top-quality darts where there are only tiny differences between the individual ones in a set, that small variation in impact angle is symptomatic of a small inconsistency in the release of the dart, and that inconsistency is causing variable yaw which is causing inaccuracy. One of the advanced aerodynamic aspects of the Sigma Pro is that it uses the impact angle of the dart to counter that inaccuracy.
Just how it does that is linked to that specific level of stability that I’ve now put off discussing until next time, but for the moment I’d like to leave all you good players out there with this thought: the Sigma Pro is marketed as an aerodynamic unit for a reason and changing the shafts and flights to tune out small differences in impact angle means tuning out some of its intrinsic accuracy. You’ll still have a very aerodynamic dart, but you’ve effectively made yourself a personalised Sigma One!
Q & As!
Warren and John Lowe’s darts:
Good question, Warren! The answer is that John’s classic throwing style allowed him to optimise his darts for aerodynamic performance without worrying about needing a long barrel or coarse grip. So it’s not a coincidence that his darts and Sigmas evolved separately to have things in common – Charles Darwin would be pleased!
Z71Pinkcadillac’s New Darts:
How can I do anything but recommend 23gm Sigmas? But also have a look at uniLab!