Shot Zen Enso 23 gram Steel Tip Darts

This is a real surprise packet.

The Zen Enso is yet another set of 80% tungsten darts that seem to be all the rage at the moment.

The darts arrived in the standard sized Shot packaging, albeit in this instance the theme of the pack is Zen. 

Zen is a Buddhist term for the practice of self-restraint and meditation in the pursuit of perfection.

ENSO is a hand drawn circle (just like the one on the flights) that represents the point where the mind is free to allow the body to create. I’m afraid that conceptually that is way too deep for me!

So, as I was saying, the dart packaging is pretty standard aside from the theme. 

The package contains 3 tungsten barrels, 3 aluminium shafts and a set of themed flights. 

Looking at the barrels, they are exactly 49mm long and at the widest point 7.2mm in diameter.

The darts are a little unusual in their appearance; firstly the points installed are plain black but, are 29mm long. The barrels have a radius nose that ends after 3mm and continues straight into the front scallop. The scallop is about 12mm long, at its deepest point the barrel diameter is approximately 6mm. This is followed by a parallel section that is also 12mm long but the diameter here is a full 7.2mm, at the end of the parallel section the barrel repeats the scallop identically. The final 10mm is a portion of the rear of the dart that will eventually taper to meet the shaft.

The scalloped sections are covered with double ring cuts, the centre rings, 3 are 1.0mm wide and 0.5mm deep equally spaced on the centre portion with single fine rings between the three wide rings. The shaft end of the barrel also has a single wide ring followed by a single narrow ring that are closer to the rear scallop leaving about 5mm of plain barrel at the end.

Depending on the individual’s grip, these will either work for you, or be a bit of a mismatch. It’s really hard to make the judgement as to whether these will work for you. Scalloped darts are a very individual proposition, and clearly don’t work for everyone in this instance where there are only two scallops it’s likely to be less suitable for a player that uses a 3 or finger grip, but as I said it’s a personal preference. 

My personal experience with these started as positive, but soon went south. My preferred grip just didn’t work with the twin scallop, the more I tried to amend my grip the worse the issue became. The grip profile itself was fine and would score 2.5 out of 5, the issue lies with adapting one’s grip to suit the scallop profile on the barrels, and I just couldn’t do it.

That said, I really liked the darts themselves,  as a value option they were good value and when I got the grip right they were great, it’s just that most of the time they felt almost alien. I’d still give them a 3.5 put of 5.

A really nice set that have a presence in the hand, but they won’t work for everyone.