Measure Whether TOR EVO Keeps More Of Your Points

The Target TOR EVO could lift your recorded practice average if more of your darts stay in scoring segments, but the supplied sources do not establish how much. Its 25% thinner-wire claim does not mean 25% fewer bounce-outs or a 25% higher average. Better retention can preserve points without improving your accuracy.

Before buying for a scoring gain, measure how often darts fail to stay in your current board. Then compare the same practice task, using the same darts and counting every bounce-out as a thrown dart. The useful result is a repeatable change in retained points, not one unusually good session.

Enter your darts thrown, retained score and failed-to-stay darts to calculate a scoring average and failure rate.

Target’s Wire Claim Compares EVO With The Original TOR

Target’s TOR EVO product page says its stainless-steel spider—the wire structure separating scoring segments—is 25% slimmer than the original TOR’s. Target links that design to more exposed board area and fewer bounce-outs. It also lists Madagascan sisal, a reversible red-and-white rubber number ring and WDF approval. The listed UK price on 3 October 2026 is £89.95.

Darts World’s 24 September launch report also reports the thinner wires and £89.95 price. Neither that report nor the product page supplies a comparative bounce-out test or a measured practice-average gain.

The relevant comparison is TOR EVO versus TOR. It is not a claim that EVO’s wires are 25% thinner than every other board, and it does not establish an advantage over whichever board you currently own.

Wire thickness is a product measurement; your failed-to-stay rate is an outcome. The measurement alone cannot tell you how often your darts encounter a wire, whether a particular collision will eject a dart, or how many points a retained dart will score. Treat the manufacturer’s claim as a reason to investigate retention, not as a scoring forecast.

The other listed features do not fill that evidence gap. WDF approval, the sisal specification and the number-ring design are product details, not measured increases in practice average.

Bounce-Outs Score Zero And Still Use A Dart

For match-like steel-tip practice, a bounce-out uses up a dart and scores nothing. Under DRA rule 6.2.7, effective from 31 March 2026, a dart that bounces off or falls out before retrieval does not count towards the score and must not be rethrown. Rule 6.4.1 also requires a scoring point to remain in or touching the board face within the outer double wire. A dart lodged in TOR EVO’s rubber number ring therefore earns no points.

Those are the DRA rules cited here. Using that treatment in your audit makes the exercise match-like; it is not a claim about every organiser’s practice format or competition rules.

For a fixed scoring drill, three-dart scoring average = total points scored ÷ darts thrown × 3.

Include every bounce-out in the darts-thrown total. Do not replace it, remove it from the denominator or credit the segment you think it would have hit. Each of those choices would hide part of the retention problem you are trying to measure.

A dart can appear to reach treble 20 and still fail to produce a scoring result. Record the score that remains at retrieval, rather than an imagined score at impact. Apply the same treatment to both boards, including darts that initially stick and then fall out before you retrieve them.

Use Five Matching Sessions Per Board

The starting audit is five sessions of 60 darts per board: 20 visits of three darts in each session, all aimed at treble 20. That gives you 300 recorded darts on each board. This is a practical comparison, not a laboratory test or a validated sample size for proving a board’s advantage.

Keep your darts, points, flights, lighting, warm-up and throwing line unchanged. After mounting either board, check its height and the distance from its face using the dartboard setup guide. A board change should not quietly become a change in throwing distance.

Record each visit immediately before retrieval, without touching the darts first. Score where each dart actually finishes, including misses into neighbouring segments. The target is treble 20, but the score is the sum of the scoring darts that remain—not just your successful T20 hits.

If both boards are available, alternate them across sessions to reduce the chance that a particularly good week favours one. Keep the same session length rather than continuing on the board that feels better until you have a satisfying score. Decide the audit format before you see the results.

Note board condition as well. A worn old board versus a fresh EVO tests the replacement you would actually make, not wire thickness alone. That can still answer a useful buying question: whether this replacement improves your practice scoring. It cannot isolate which design feature caused the difference.

If you only have your current board, complete its audit first. You can establish whether failed-to-stay darts are frequent enough to be a plausible concern. Without an EVO comparison, however, you cannot calculate an EVO benefit from those observations.

Record Scores And Failures As Separate Measures

Use one row per session in your own log. Keep the score and failure count separate so that an average increase does not automatically become evidence of fewer bounce-outs.

Measure	What To Enter
Total score	Points remaining in scoring areas at retrieval
Scoring average	Total score ÷ 60 × 3
Failed-to-stay darts	Immediate bounce-outs and fall-outs before retrieval
Visible circumstances	Apparent wire contact, collision, fall-out or unknown
Retained T20 hits	Darts still scoring treble 20 at retrieval

Count a dart that fails to stay once, even if you saw more than one possible contributing event. A wire contact followed by a collision is still one failed dart, not two failures.

Do not force a cause when you did not see it. “Unknown” is a useful entry because it separates an observed outcome from a guessed explanation. A dart failing to stay is an observation; blaming the spider is an interpretation.

Keep non-scoring retained darts distinct from failed-to-stay darts. For example, the cited rules give a dart lodged in the rubber number ring no points, but it has not necessarily bounced out. Your total score captures that zero without requiring you to misclassify it as a retention failure.

Retained T20 hits add context, but they are not a substitute for total score. Two sessions can retain the same number of darts yet produce different averages because the retained darts finish in different scoring segments. Conversely, a session can have fewer failures without scoring more if the darts that stay are worth less.

Pool The Scores, Then Check The Session Pattern

After five sessions, calculate each board’s failed-to-stay rate as failed-to-stay darts ÷ 300 × 100. Calculate its pooled scoring average as total points ÷ 300 × 3.

The calculator accepts either a single session or a pooled block. For the prescribed single session, enter 60 darts; for all five sessions on one board, enter 300. Add the scores and failures from the same block before entering them. Do not combine one board’s score with the other board’s failure count.

Because all five sessions have the same dart count, their scoring averages receive equal weight. If you depart from the format and use unequal session lengths, pool the total points and total darts rather than taking an unweighted average of the session averages.

The pooled result tells you what happened across the audit. Your session log tells you whether that result depended on one exceptional day. Both matter when the difference is small or when failures are uncommon.

Fewer Failures And A Higher Average Support A Retention Benefit

This combination is consistent with a useful retention benefit. You have kept more darts in the board and recorded more points per dart across the comparison.

It still does not prove better throwing mechanics or an advantage caused by thinner wires alone. Board condition and differences in your scoring distribution remain part of the result. Describe it as a benefit observed in your audit, rather than a guaranteed gain for other players.

A Higher Average Without Fewer Failures Needs Another Explanation

If the failure counts are similar, that count alone cannot explain the average gain. Review where the retained darts scored and how the results varied across sessions.

A retained treble and a retained single contribute different points even though each counts as one retained dart. Likewise, the same number of failures can cost different amounts of potential scoring—but that potential is unknown. Do not assign 60 points to every lost dart to make the figures fit a thinner-wire explanation.

Very Few Failures Leave A Weak Buying Signal

One or two events across the whole comparison give you little basis for a confident bounce-out buying decision. Extend the audit rather than treating the difference as decisive.

If the current board already retains nearly every dart in this task, the audit has identified little observed failure for a replacement to remove. That does not prove the boards are equivalent; it means your recorded evidence is too limited to support a strong retention claim.

Fewer failures without a higher average are also possible. Record both findings honestly. Better retention and better scoring are related measures, not interchangeable ones.

Translate Retained Points Into Average, Not A Percentage Promise

For scale, one additional retained treble 20 in a 60-dart block adds 3.00 to that block’s three-dart average: 60 ÷ 60 × 3. This is arithmetic, not a prediction of TOR EVO’s benefit. You cannot assume an ejected dart would have scored 60.

The example also shows why the length of the block matters. The same added score has a smaller effect when spread across more thrown darts. Compare matching blocks, and do not present a striking change from one short session as the expected gain over every practice session.

To calculate the observed average difference, subtract the current board’s pooled average from EVO’s pooled average. Keep that difference alongside the two failure rates and your session notes. On its own, it describes scoring—not the mechanism behind the scoring change.

Avoid converting the 25% wire measurement into a points allowance, an expected number of saved darts or a predicted average. The supplied sources contain no measured bounce-out reduction or practice-average figure to support those calculations. The tool therefore calculates your entered results; it does not estimate a manufacturer-backed EVO uplift.

Keep The Scoring Drill Separate From Your 501 Average

The treble-20 audit measures scoring and retention under one fixed task. It is not your 501 average, because it does not include the same checkout decisions and doubles required to finish a leg.

Use the same scored 501 practice format before and after the change, with bounce-outs still costing a dart. Keep that record separate from the 60-dart audit so that a scoring-only improvement is not presented as a demonstrated improvement in finishing.

Do not change your throw simply because the board comparison produces a higher or lower average. First inspect the retention counts and the session pattern. If your darts are staying more often, the board may be preserving points; that is different from evidence that your release, grouping or accuracy has changed.

At the listed UK price of £89.95, the draft’s sources provide no measured scoring gain with which to calculate a points-per-pound return. Your own audit can inform whether replacement addresses an observed problem, but it cannot guarantee how quickly the purchase will translate into better match results.

The strongest case for buying specifically to reduce bounce-outs is a recurring failure problem on your current board and a repeatable improvement in a matched EVO comparison. Without that comparison, buy with the narrower expectation supported by the evidence: a board with a spider claimed to be slimmer than the original TOR’s, not a promised increase in your practice average.