Target Adrian Lewis Black SP 22 gram Darts

I’m a firm believer in practicing with a new set of darts before I venture out and play any kind of competition.

When these arrived for reviewing I looked at them a put them aside for further “assessment” and didn’t give them a second thought. 

The set I had been playing with since the end of lockdown has a very positive grip and recently the grip was starting to work against me.

I think I first took these out of the packing on the Thursday they arrived. Like all Target Player darts they are fully assembled in their package, and it was easy to get them out and throw them at the board, but that is as far as it went. 

After social darts and practicing with my daily set, I was really concerned about defending the titles that I played so hard for.

By the Saturday evening I was desperately trying previous barrels I had played with. There was no solution in sight when I made the choice of trying out the Adrian Lewis Black. 

If you’ve tried previous versions of Adrian Lewis darts you’ll be excited or unimpressed with what was available previously.

The style of previous versions has been pretty standard, a 50 odd millimetre long parallel barrel with a radius nose, and with a predominantly ringed grip.

So, let’s look at what has been released as the Black SP.

The big difference is they are a Swiss Point dart.

The barrels are 51mm long, and only 6.3mm in diameter. The front two thirds of the barrel is made up of - 3 equally spaced square cut rings, seven double cut square rings each having a blue ring both side and an undercut central silver ring. The flat sections between the cut rings are highlighted by the addition of 4 equally spaced machined grooves. The last third of the barrel is made up of two blue grooves, between which is a micro groove flat area, followed by a longer flat area with the gold Target logo. The tail end of the barrel is made up of 5 blue grooves each capped with micro grip and the barrel is then finalised with a chamfer that mates the barrel to the shaft. 

I think it’s important to remember what is really eye catching is the way the darts are coloured. Predominantly black the barrels have a coating that is punctuated by flashes of silver and bright blue. They’re probably one of the best looking coloured barrels I’ve seen in a while. The effect is extended by the use of black 26mm Swiss smooth Swiss points, short black Pro Grip Shafts, black Adrian Lewis No6 flights.

So, I can’t give any kind of review based on practice drills. The darts went straight to work. Fortunately for me, I had absolutely no issues with the darts, with two exceptions.

1. I prefer longer points with grip
2. The flights were too easily demolished

I realised quickly that the points were just not me and swapped them out for a set of 30mm black diamond points. The flights were a testament the grouping that I was able to achieve with these darts. I eventually swapped the flights for a set of Ten-X with almost no change to the way they fly.

If there was a negative in the of experience playing with these darts, it would be that there is so much black, when combined with average lighting on a board occasionally one loses sight of where the darts are in the board. What I really found impressive was the resilience of both the darts and coatings. After 6 hours of straight punishment the barrels came out the other end with barely a mark on them. With focus you can achieve absolutely anything with these darts, the balance is fabulous and they are very forgiving.

The grip on the barrel is outstanding and at the same time understated, the combination of micro grooves, square cut rings and even the additional machining that has gone into the barrel contributes to the very positive grip I’d rate the grip as around 3.5 plus some out of 5.0.

As an overall package, I was really surprised at how playable the darts were out of the packet. Given that, they are within the standard length range, they come with short shafts and standard shape flights. A fine-tuned package that is clearly well thought out and put together for the player!

Overall I give these a 4.5 out of 5 mainly on their out of the box playability.