Saturday, September 24, 2005

Size Matters

A lot of people have asked me about the stems they see on the blog. Especially regarding the new screw in type shafts from Bottelsen they designed for their GT line. I thought I'd snap a quick pic to illustrate the difference between 1/4", 2BA, and the GT shafts. Take a look at the barrels. From left to right they are a 17 gram no name dart, a 22 gram Halex Tungsten dart and finally, a 27 gram GT3. The leftmost dart is from a one of two sets of darts that came free with a dart board I bought once at the sporting good store. I knew nothing about dartboards then and bought the cheapest, whcih was a paper-wound job. Terrible board, but oddlly, I like the darts (bottom dart in pic). This is one of two darts I own that have an opening for a 1/4" threaded stem, and the only dart that requires the 1/4" stem. The other set I refer to has an opening on one side for 1/4" and 2BA on the other, so you could either use 1/4" points or stems and 2BA of the other. The middle dart is the most common. Almost every dart on the market is like the middle barrels in these pics and requires the 2BA stem, also pictured below it. The last barrel, form the GT3 has a very tiny opening requiring the tiny stem you see near it. I do not know what thread size it is. The next set of darts I design and have made for me will take this type shaft. It allows for a much more salient taper.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its either 4ba or 6ba. I know Gary Mawson's dart is a 4ba shaft custom made by Atanta Darts - Jim.

Zeeple said...

Cool. I am not sure I wanna go out and buy some of those stem sizes to make sure but it is good to know someone out there has an idea what they might be. I have been trying to limit myself to just a few sets of darts (on the advice from many darters) as I am trying to improve my game, so I don't see myself throughing the GTs often enough to destroy the few stems I do have. If I ever do, though I will try some of those other sizes. Thanks for the tip!!