As part of the Mission 2022 spring launch, Mission released more darts into their pro player range. In this review, I'll be taking a look at the Chinese professional known as "The Pandaman" Xiaochen Zong's player darts.
Straight away with this dart you can tell it has a theme, that theme being bamboo. The cuts in the barrel are made to look like bamboo canes which I think is a really nice touch as it's not often you see designs of barrels matching the players nickname or personality.
The barrel also features a subtle and easy on the eye blue coating on the front of the barrel as well as black coating on the rear with natural tungsten cuts.
Product Information
22g Steel Tip - 90% Tungsten (Also available in 24g Steel Tip and 21g Soft Tip)
• Length: 48mm • Width: 6.80mm • Supplied with short black Mission Grip Lock shafts and Standard Pandaman Flights • Price (As of 31/05/2022): £62.95
Grip & Balance The grip of these darts is perfect for someone who likes a grippy dart without the dart being too aggressive or sharp feeling. The front grip is a modified razor style grip with the lateral cuts to add that extra bit of grip. The rear is not as grippy however still on the grippy side. The only let down I feel with this barrel is the lack of grip in the centre. A section of the barrel where the balance point of the dart is and therefore somewhere that players will naturally grip. Grip Ratings • Rear Grip - 3.5/5
• Front Grip - 4/5 The balance point* (highlighted in green) and grip ratings can be seen on the graphic below.
*Balance point of the dart is without any shafts or flights attached
The angle of entry with standard, kite and pear flights were a lot more similar than I have experienced with other darts. The darts with all three flights stood up slightly with the larger flights making the darts stand up slightly more than those that were smaller, as expected.
The angle of entry with three different style flights and short shafts can be seen below.
Darts Performance
In flight as mentioned previously, the darts went through the air similarly with various setups. The only differences I found apart from speed was with longer shafts, the dart point didn't kick downwards towards the board at the end of flight. With the longer shaft the balance point is closer to the back of the barrel meaning it flies very straight and direct, especially with a smaller flight. The darts definitely suit a player that has a lot of power in their throw rather than someone who floats the darts to the board.
To see the darts in use watch the YouTube review on the Matador Darts YouTube channel below.
Summary
Overall, the darts took a little bit more getting used to than I'd have expected, as a pro player dart these darts are tailored to the player that uses them rather than the general consumer and therefore is very specialist in its design. Similar to any barrel that is not straight, I can only truly recommend these darts if you a middle/rear or rear gripper although the front section is grippy enough to hold, the dart in flight when throwing this way in imbalanced. At £62.95 I think these barrels are fairly priced in the current market, although not the most advanced dart we have seen in recent times, it still requires a number of manufacturing processes to reach the finished product so the price point is understandable. Once again Thank you to Mission darts for sending me these darts to review, you can find them on dartscorner here. Reviewed and Written by Kurtis Bevan of Matador Darts
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