Dart Review: McCoy Stealth 25g Silver.

My introduction to the McCoy Stealth dart was an accidental and perhaps even serendipitous one.

To fully understand the story we have to first look at why I am no longer throwing my 22g Unicorn Barneveld Hero Gold Titanium, despite them being a truly excellent dart.

You see my wife plays darts as well, and so I picked up a used set of the smooth barreled Laserdart Black widows and they are a really nice dart, except the set we got was a little bit damaged, making my wife a little hesitant to play with them. So my wife started to play with my Barnevelds and I started to throw the widows a bit. Sometimes we would switch back, but more and more I was starting to like the little bit of extra weight they had over the Barney darts. The only problem (other than having to crazy glue fit flight stems in place due to wrecked threads) is that to this day I can't really get comfortable with the completely smooth grip.

So I went looking to find a dart with a similar barrel shape and a good weight to it. Before long I picked up a set of Unicorn Phase 6 and must admit I threw some pretty decent darts with them. The only draw back was, yet again they did not feel comfortable in my hand, with far too small an area to grip for my large hands and too large a smooth area at the nose cone for my taste.

At this point I am ready to contact legendary Canadian dart maker Jeff Pickup to have him do up a set for me, but then I noticed that there were some pretty affordable darts at puredarts.co.uk and some of them even looked like they were pretty close to what I thought I wanted. I picked a set and placed more order.

Shortly after I received a message from puredarts saying that they could not fill my order, but that they could give me a refund or they could send me another very similar dart to the one I had ordered.

I grumbled a little but was also impressed that the dart they were offering as replacement was also a little bit more expensive. I agreed to that replacement dart, and as you likely have guessed by now that dart was the McCoy Stealth.

Now let's see how the McCoy Stealth stacks up!

There is nothing fancy with the grip on the McCoy stealth, with just a series of rings cut into the tungsten. However, because the rings run along most of the barrel and do not vary what is achieved is a consitent feel throughout the length of the dart, except for a small section at the nose cone.

This consistency along with the grip itself being solid but not overly aggressive makes for a very comfortable, almost neutral feeling in the hand. The only other dart to come as close for comfort in my mind is the Unicorn Barneveld Hero Gold Titanium with it's section of micro-grip, and even that did not have the consistency of feel that the McCoy does. To my mind that lack of consistency is a distraction from the job at hand of getting the dart to the board and making it stick where I want it to stick.

I am certain there could be something done to make make the grip on the McCoy Stealth better, but I can't imagine what that would be. Nothing fancy, but maybe just right; the baby bear grip if you will.

Truly speaking other than in cases of major flaws in design or machining one barrel of dart isn't going to have an advantage over another barrel of dart, provided you have it kitted out with the right stems and flights.

This means that the difference between one dart and another is a subjective one, and I would hazard to some degree a psychological one.

In other words it comes down to personal preference, and possibly as that preference gets reinforced a certain degree of faith and loyalty to that preference.

With all that in mind and with the caveat that of late I have been practicing more, better and more consistently than ever before, the McCoy flies better for me than any other dart I have thrown. If it has a challenger out of the darts I own or have owned (My big sister has my Phase 6s) I would say it would be the Barneveld, and even that with it's lighter weight and straight barrel is just a lot more persnickity a dart. I can hit bang on shots with it, but the margin of error is frustratingly thin.

I am not what combination of weight, grip and barrel design allows it to happen, but the McCoy stealth manages to be just forgiving enough while still letting you feel that you are in control.

It feels nice leaving my hand, I can get tight groupings and I never ever have a thought to blame the dart for the shortcomings of how I may throw it from time to time.

Picking one dart barrel over another in terms of accuracy is a personal choice, and I choose the McCoy Stealth.

By this point I think you may have guessed that I am happy with the McCoy Stealth, and my reply would be 'extremley'.

The McCoy name is lesser known than some of the other brands and so a bit of an underdog in the dart world, but not for lack of providing a nice dart.

To put things in perspective in the past little while I have thrown

• Talon 25g
• Harrow's Assassin 18g
• Barneveld Hero Gold Titanium 22g
• Harrow's I.C.E. 23g
• Unicorn Sigma
• Unicorn Phil Taylor Phase 6
• Laserdart Black Widow (smooth barrel)
• Laserdart Black Widow (Knurled)
• Winmau Simon Whitlock 22g,24g
• Bottelsen Hammerheads 26g
• Target Carrera 21g

There are even a few that I know I'm just not thinking of, and some really superb darts in that list, but of all of them I like my McCoy Stealth the best.

The fact that you can get the McCoy Stealth from puredarts for under $30 in my mind just seals the deal.

It may have been a random act of fate that got this dart into my hands, but I'm really glad I found it. This is darts serendipity.

With the glowing review I have given of the McCoy Stealth thus far I would expect that you might be surprised to find me now discussing a major flaw with this dart, but yes there is one and sadly not one I see being rectified any time soon.

As nice as the Stealth is, there still isn't a slightly customized 'signature' version that is green and named after me.

I know, a tough pill to swallow. Believe me, I am every bit as gutted as you are and can offer no explanation for this oversight other than to apologize and reassure you that I share in your disappointment.

I can understand how much you might dream of having your Dave 'The Abominable Throw Man' version of the McCoy Stealth. who knows, it may happen one day, as there must be somewhere around a million people or some number less than that who are writing and calling and asking about it.

Keep the dream alive as one day I hope you will be able to hold a set of Dave Sproull signature series McCoy Stealth darts in your hands.

Until that fateful day though the regular McCoy Stealth is a pretty darn good dart.

I think I might need to at least get out of 'C' league before anything is named after me.

Shoot well everyone.

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