New atlatl darts

Sunday afternoon I went out for a spot of archery and atlatlery. I took 3 new darts, courtesy of Nottingham atlatl - 2 titans and a 'scorpion' - a short, very lightweight dart.

You can see the scorpion against the normal darts here:

It was a beautiful day to be out, and I learned some handy lessons:

• The scorpion is really light. This means that it travels far and fast, but technique is crucial - even more so than a conventional dart. If you give it too much welly it just goes off to one side. It looks like regular practice with this will really improve my technique.
• One of the titans is plastic wrapped like my other darts (Nottingham Atlatl offers some kind of waterproof shrink wrap on darts to protect and strengthen them), and the other isn't. The plastic wrapped darts are much stronger and hard wearing, but heavier, and don't fly so well. The dart without wrapping flexes much more in the air, and just feels nicer to throw. But
  it's more susceptible to damage.
• The tips of my old darts were a bit battered and gnarled. Before this week my target had been a bike tyre attached to two heavy duty metal poles tied together at the top, and the metal had battered the ends of the darts. On sunday I realised that pushing two garden canes into the ground 2 feet apart and placing the bike tyre on top so the poles rest inside the tyre works much better.