Winmau Blade 5 and Blade 6 Bristle Dartboards

I have owned a Winmau Blade 4 for approximately 8 years. Home recreational use only. It is still in good condition, with no "blooming" of the sisal or surface defects: white areas were getting dirty, and some minor flattening of the wedge wire around the bull area. Received the Blade 5 last weekend. Very simple to set up, as the central screw fits in the Blade 4 "cradle" already mounted in the dart cabinet (same size as the blade 5 mount). The rotolocks are easy to screw in to the back of the board and adjust - was set up and playing inside 5 minutes. The rotolocks are definitely a big improvement on the Blade 4 system. The new board arrived tight with no defects whatsoever, and colors are vibrant. Had not realized just how dirty the surface of the old board had got, mostly from chalk transfer I think. Thrown darts at it for a couple of hours now. Very pleased with the blade 5 so far. If it lasts as long as the Blade 4, I will be ecstatic! I only use smooth steel or titanium points on my darts - I can see that if you use the ridged or ringed points, although they may be slightly better at avoiding "drop outs", there is increased risk of pulling sisal fibers out of the board when removing the dart which may shorten the life of the board. Just a thought.... UPDATE 4/9/2020 Been playing on the board for about a month now - probably practice on it for about 15-20 minutes a day. Board is holding up very well. Still no defects on the playing surface and colors are still bright. The sisal grips the dart points well. The rougher the shafts of the dart points are, the more resistance to pull the darts out of the board. This is practice so I don't really care if any drop out (not that any have) so I buffed the dart points using metal polish so its a little easier to pull them out. I want to be able to pull out the dart with one hand without touching the board itself - I don't want to have to put the other hand on the playing surface for leverage to pull the dart out - as that is probably how the dirt and chalk etc got the old Blade 4 board so grubby . I have rotated the board a couple of times to keep the wear even. Very happy so far, Great board UPDATE JULY 2020 - still using the board for practice 15-20 minutes a day (I am not getting much better, but not the fault of the board...!) Board still looks very good, no issues. I rotate it every week or so to keep the wear even (not that there really is any wear). Great board. Glad I bought it.

After reading a ton of reviews and tearing up a $20 board in about 3 weeks I decided to give this one a try. I just recently got into darts but I wanted to try a better board. This one did not disappoint. The feel of this board right out of the box gave me the immediate impression it was high quality. After hanging it with the super easy to install hardware and throwing the first dart I knew I made a good decision. Probably have played 40 games of cricket on it so far and you can hardly tell it’s been used. What a great board. Even the sound that the board makes when it’s impacted by a dart makes you know it’s better than a cheaper board. Bounce outs are really not present unless you hit another dart. The wires are super thin and not having the staples like the first one I bought got rid of virtually all of the bounce out problems I was having. It’s so easy to rotate the board which I have been doing after about 20 games. The number ring just pops right off and you rotate the board by turning it and you pop the ring right back on. Easy as pie. I don’t regret my purchase and when I redeploy back to America I’m going to buy this exact board for my house. Don’t hesitate it’s worth every penny and should last a long time.

Awesome quality. The super-thin wire embedded in the bristle is SO much better than the old-style fat-wire grids (that sit on top of the bristle). Reduces the chance of bounce-outs (no bounce-outs yet!). The black/white contrast is great and the red/green colors are vibrant. Heavy-duty board. Hung on my old center-post screw in seconds. The three stabilizing-posts have knurled wheels that are placed right under the outer board edge, so you just dial them with your fingertip once the board is hung to make it solid as a rock. Definitely worth the extra few bucks over the old fat-wire style boards!

Let me start by saying I used to be a diehard Unicorn consumer. Recently had 2 issues with their pro eclipse in a store as well as on amazon, just garbage craftsmanship as of late.... so I gave winmau a chance here and I am now a convert. Has the quality bristling and inlaid blading that I always expected from that other company. I pulled this board out of the box just wishing it would at least be a playable board for once and it surpassed my hopes. The bristles on the board are great and the density in which they are compressed is superb. I inspected the daylights out of the board and it was 99.9 percent flawless. It only had one small semi-bare spot on an outer single and was maybe the size of a dart tip. Other than that, perfection! Threw some test darts in the board and heard that sweet sound of a dart sinking into the board. Not a single bounce out, and that's with me deliberately tapping already placed darts with another throw. Even threw darts at the blades on purpose just to see how that would go. They all sheered off and right into the board, only one of the 12 I threw decided to fall out. Wire ring comes off easily to make regular board rotation a breeze. You all won me over with this board that should last me quite a while. Ditch your old so called "competition quality" boards and grab a Winmau, I did.

The board is of tremendous quality. The holes seal quite well when pulling out the dart. It mounts solidly to the wall and has some adjustability to ensure it rests perfectly flat. The metal dividers are as thin as they could possibly be. The total thickness itself is a couple inches at least, or so it seems. The workmanship is top notch; flawless on the one I bought. Friends comment on how nice it is. DOWNSIDE: The numbers ring is very ordinary (everyone seems to have this same one with the "wire" numbers), which for me was not good enough. I bought a third party numbers ring (looks like Arial Narrow font) to round out this otherwise perfect dart board. It is perfect now.

2nd time getting a blade 5 from Amazon because of the shipping cost being free compared to $12+(usd) almost everywhere else. The board itself is great. The box came damaged heavily, but didn't effect the board itself. All mounting brackets and screws were still contained in the box. The durability of the blade 5 depends on your amount of activity on it. I practice 1-2 hours per day and some days I play multiple online league matches and I get a good 9 months to a year out of my board before I feel the need to replace it. That is with regular rotation of the board as well. I usually rotate the board once a week, sometimes 2 depending on how many hours I put in. This time I purchased the basic model, but previously had the dual-core and there is noticeable difference between the 2 for me. The dual core feels as if it grabs your dart point when it hits the board compared to my dart feeling like it is just sitting on some bristle and could jar loose at any point with the basic between. Hope I was able to help with your decisions. Next order I will try the new blade 6 model and leave feedback accordingly.

My wife got into playing darts at our local bar (Arachnid soft-tip), so I decided to get her a steel dart set for Christmas. After doing some research I found that Winmau is a great steel tip brand, and I was able to get a good price on this board during Amazon's Black Friday sale. We've played on this board for the past four months and it works well. The sisal fiber is still holding up well. At first we were playing every other day, now we play maybe once a week. My main complaint with this board is the mounting system. I bought a Winmau Xtreme stand to use with this board. There isn't a way to mount the board to the stand so that it can be rotated periodically (supposed to help with retaining the strength of the fibers). Seems odd since they are both made by the same company. I ended up buying a Viper mount and piece of 2'x2' plywood, and bolting this to the stand. This works well, but would have preferred to not have had to MacGyver items made by the same company that are assumed to be used together.

I am not a heavy user but I have it for years and many hundreds of plays and it does not show any visible wear. Two notable features: 1. The rotatable numbers frame distributes the usage over the whole area and no score is weared out excessively 2. The metal separation between sectors is thin and shallow so the chance of a dart to bounce off them is slim to non-existent.