Unicorn Ballista Style 3 25 gram Darts

These are another of the recent “New” releases from Unicorn in what I see as their reinvention or resurgence into the darts market.

The Ballista come in 4 distinct styles and the review is relevant to Style 3.

Definition of Ballista – “an ancient military engine for throwing stones or other missiles”.

So from the outset the definition of Ballista sets the scenes for the design of the darts. Let me say that there is nothing ancient about these barrels.

The Style 3 is 48mm in length, and 7.5mm in diameter at its widest point. The barrel design is deceptively complex in as much that it is actually tapered toward the rear of the barrel.

The barrel starts at 3.45mm in diameter at the narrow end of its tapered nose - which is approximately 12mm long. The tapered portion has a centralised micro ring grip. The maximum diameter is achieved at the end of the tapered nose.

It’s about now that the machining gets a little intense, the next 13mm of the barrel then tapers down in diameter to 7.1mm, at the same time, from the maximum diameter point 6 flats have been milled into the tapered section of the barrel. The diameter of the flats at the nose is 7.45mm and the flats are milled to taper down to 6.55mm over the next 28mm, leaving the final 7mm of the barrel to be made up of a narrow ring, a short 3.5mm parallel plain section with a 7.3mm diameter and ending in a final chamfer to bring the end diameter of the barrel to meet the shaft.

It's about now my eyes are getting Tourette’s with the complexity of what’s going on with the barrel machining, but to put it simply, the first 12mm of the barrel tapers down and has 3  x 1x1mm equally spaced grooves machined. The next 16mm is where the milling and the tapered diameter bring out a double + or ++ on each of the 6 milled flats and a single + on what should have been the points of the hexagon created on the edges.

Confused? Yep, me too It explained the case of Tourette’s I developed trying to describe the machining.

The barrels are fitted with two tone Unicorn Gripper 4 Shafts, Ballista Ultrafly Shafts and to complete the package Unicorn Volute Points.  The darts come in the new Unicorn packaging Styled in red to match the styling of the darts themselves, and describing the hexagonal section as “Symmetric Hex Shaped Cross section for extra Grip”

The pack also comes with a warning – “Warning Extreme Grip“, in fairness I was put off by this thinking that they would be the kind of grip that would make the barrels stick to your fingers but, not so.

The darts are actually slightly front loaded, and my first visit to the best dart board, shows it distinctly. As I said the grip is far from extreme in fact I was expecting the worst and for the first few minutes was caught up in the box hype. Once I had settled I found that they were actually a really easy set to play with straight out of the box. Good control, nice balance and an easy grip that I only rated at 3 to 3.25 out of 5.0 not what I’d call extreme at all.

The 48mm barrel compliments the Gripper 4 shaft length and the package comes together and shows itself as well thought out set up.

I enjoyed throwing these unicorn barrels, they look a little bit unusual but they would suit almost anyone. The price sets them apart from most other above average 90% tungsten darts.

I rate them 4.25 out of 5.0 overall, a set of the best darts that I could play with anytime.