Dart Zone Nitroshot Darts: The Most Accurate Ever? An Analysis

October 1, 2024

Earlier in September, Dart Zone was kind enough to send me a 200 pack of full-length Nitroshot darts to review. As an added bonus for comparison, they even forwarded a pack of the new Adventure Force Meteor darts for comparison. Which is nice, but I’d already heard some anecdotes about the accuracy of Meteor darts.

Instead of doing a simple comparison, I ended up buying all the current full-length darts (we’re excluding N-Series, for obvious reasons) and doing a full comparison. It’s not quite the tenth anniversary of the Blaster Labs Inaugural Blaster Dart Comparison, but it’s pretty close.

So, are the Nitroshot darts the most accurate? And, just as important, are they the most compatible? Let’s find out.

The Competitors Arrive!

For our testing purposes, we got refill packs of six dart types total; the above two types, Buzz Bee Accublast, Adventure Force Waffles, Xshot Air Pocket Darts, and Dart Zone Sureshot Darts (“Chili” darts, as they’re nicknamed). Weighing them out consisted of literally dumping 100 darts into a tray, recording the weight, and dividing by 100 to get the average. I also picked out ten darts of each to measure their lengths with calipers, averaging things out. Given the fact that we’re dealing with light foam darts, your results may differ slightly.

  • Adventure Force Waffles: 1.03g, 73mm
  • Adventure Force Meteors: 1.13g, 72.8mm
  • Buzz Bee Accublast: 1.16g, 71mm
  • Dart Zone Chili:1.02g, 73mm
  • Dart Zone Nitroshot: 1.10g, 72.6mm
  • Xshot Air Pocket Darts: 1.06g, 72mm

Newer darts are certainly trending towards more weight, and more kinetic energy and momentum. Does that translate to better ranges and accuracy? Not always.

Test 1: The Admittedly Less Scientific Test

Data from the initial tests.

To start things off, I fired each dart type more than 100 times out of three difference blasters: The Dart Zone Magnum, Buzz Bee Air Warriors Twist Fury, and the Dart Zone Thunderbolt. In theory, that gives me several different methods of propulsion to test. I set up a one meter square target at ten meters, and counted how many darts hit the target.

That’s a fancy way of saying I tried to hit a pizza pan as much as possible.

However, there was a clear flaw in the plan: human error in aiming. Even assuming I’m aiming as best as possible, that’s not the same as being secured in place.

Even so, with somewhat flawed data, some trends become clear. In particular, the Adventure Force Meteor darts and the Xshot Air Pocket darts were terrible. There’s something to be said for just under 7% of the Meteor darts hitting the target. Given the complete lack of precision, it may have been possible to score higher by NOT aiming at the target. And the Xshot darts weren’t much better.

Accuracy improved overall for everything once I used a flywheel-driven blaster. However, I would argue (especially after you see the second data segment) that repeatability is much easier when you’re only pulling a trigger than when you’re trying to prime and fire while holding a blaster still. It’s still not perfect, but it’s at least slightly better data – and even then, the Meteor and Xshot darts are clearly in a lower tier.

So, we can at least drop two types of darts from testing for seeing what’s the most accurate. But if we want truly usable data, we have to mount the blasters.

Test 2: STRAP IT DOWN

 

For the second round of tests, I changed things up a little. In addition to securing blasters, I changed the blasters being used. There are a few reasons. One, I really only needed one springer – the Twist Fury was there more for making sure the darts fed in breech-fed springers just fine (they did). There was also a concern that the dart gate wasn’t dropping all the way on the trigger pull, which might affect accuracy numbers. Two, I kept the Dart Zone flywheel blaster since in theory the Nitroshot darts I was sent should work with Dart Zone blasters. Which they do, but more on that in a second. Third, I wanted another flywheeler that would possibly behave more consistently. I wanted a full auto blaster that would push darts through the flywheels the same (no potential differences in trigger pull), and the Alpha Auto 72 fulfilled that role perfectly. Only doing 2.5 darts per second gives plenty of time for the flywheels to rev back up and fire darts consistently without a sag in performance.

There is still one caveat: as opposed to a simple test where, say, you aim the blaster at 30-40 degrees and just map out where all the darts land, this requires aiming the blaster in the first place. I did my best to negate that by firing 15-20 darts to eyeball “on-target” before getting the vise tight. In the end, however, I think the results are good.

For springers, the Nitroshot darts are appreciably more accurate than the other types, and I suspect the weight is a big part of that difference (the similarly heavy Accublast darts also did well). For flywheels, the result was mixed. While the darts themselves tended to fly straight, they didn’t always come out the barrel on a straight heading. In fact, Adventure Force Waffles were still the best dart overall for flywheelers, though Nitroshot wasn’t a terrible choice.

Extra note: I’m not sure why the Chili darts performed worse than expected for the Magnum and the Alpha Auto 72, but not the Thunderbolt. I’ll have to find time to look into that.

Is It The Dart Head?

Here is where dart construction seems to come into play. I still had an old pack of 2015-2016 era Xshot darts (complete with that range test sticker they loved throwing on everything). I grabbed those for comparison because, knowing from the experience of myself and many other players out there, we tried to avoid using those darts in flywheels due to the relatively rigid rubber at the base of the dart head. We’ve jammed many modified blasters over the years due to those darts.

It turns out the Nitroshot darts do have a tougher base; though it’s far better than classic Xshot. I even ran the darts through my Dart Zone Pro Mk3 just to confirm they would be okay in a high-crush setup. However, the Mk3 exaggerated the directional issues the most, especially compared to Adventure Force waffles. The Nitroshot darts definitely went straight, it just wasn’t necessarily straight ahead.

This is still a working theory, mind you. There’s plenty more testing to do, and I want to grab something extremely simple and strap it down when I have time. Who knows, maybe in the gentlest of options (a stock Stryfe), the Nitroshot dart would be best? But it seems with any appreciable flywheel crush, the darts have a chance for that disc to flex just wrong enough for the dart to not exit straight ahead out of the barrel. Not an overwhelming chance, mind you. But enough that Adventure Force Waffles are still consistently better in flywheelers.

Nuance is annoying, I know.

Last Thoughts

By all appearances, the Nitroshot darts do seem to be the current “most accurate dart”. And they seem to be compatible with lots of blaster types. It would just seem that they’re not necessarily the most compatible option when it comes to flywheel blasters. Is it a big enough difference? Perhaps not. Especially for the ordinary consumer buying 200 packs at the store – the vast majority of blaster options are springers, anyway. I know I’d be fine running these in regular wars or HvZ games.

If, though, you’re a real stickler for using the best dart for your specific blaster, the Adventure Force waffles are also an affordable and accurate option for flywheelers.

Wait, Dart Zone makes both of these? I guess they win either way.