Steel tip darts are the originals, the darts that everyone used up until the 1990′s when soft tip darts came on the scene in a big way. Steel tip darts are also the choice of all the big money tournaments, like the Las Vegas Classic and the British Lakeside competition. There is some animosity toward the soft tip darters from the traditionalist darters who believe that the only true darts game uses steel tip darts and Sisal dart boards.

Steel darts are made of steel with a sharpened point so they can stick into sisal or a wooden dart board. Over the years, the steel tip has undergone some innovations, like the Bottelsen No Bounce out darts, whereby the tip of the darts can retract into the object and absorb the sharp impact allowing a forward momentum for the dart to pass and stick into the board.

Another dart used is the Black widow darts, which follows a similar system called a movable point. This form of darts had the added advantage to swivel around the tip and had the same effect as spinning shafts.

These days darts are being manufactured from different materials. Tungsten is considered to be the current demand for material of the dart. It has a superior density with less weight as compared to traditional brass, which increases the chances of hitting three in a bed and scoring 180.

Although, the tips of the dart varies, but the other parts like the shaft, flights etc remains the same. Another difference between darts are their weights. For example, steel tip darts weighs around 18 – 28 gm range, but soft tip darts only weighs upto 20 gm to protect the delicate electronics.

As for maintenance of your steel tips, be sure to keep the point sharp, either by rubbing the tip on some grinding paper or using the shaped carborundum stone you can get specifically to keep steel tips sharp. If you are really flash, you can get battery-operated sharpeners that can do it for you, guaranteeing the correct angle to your point as well.