Gladiator Dartboard with Top-Grade African Sisal and Sword Edge Staple Free Wire Spider for Maximum Scoring Potential and Less Bounce Outs

Latest Update: The company — One80 — was very responsive when I wrote. Their engineers determined the problem was due to an accident in assembly rather than a design flaw, and they’re replacing the board. I am impressed with the quality of the G2 board and by the quality of their customer support, in particular a gentleman named Bill.First Update: The wire is coming off the face of the board on one side — after only 2-3 months of use.My prior review: This Gladiator II board is really superb. The sisal fibers are ideal. Relatively quiet but hold the darts perfectly. The pie dividers are thin spider wire that hardly ever causes a bounce-out. It’s also very good looking. And ours arrived in mint condition.There are two small areas for improvement (and these may have been addressed in the newly released version III): (1) The spider wire frame should be more recessed. A few bounce-outs occur for players who lob their darts in high arcs, as they sometimes come down on the more horizontal portions of wire at the bullseye. (2) The overall diameter of the whole board is smaller than usual, resulting in foam surrounds being loose. This is easily fixed by inserting something in the thin gap. (Note: the playing area is regulation size.)

The board arrived and is the type of material that you would want in a board. Darts stick very well and secure. The cracks in the board that I see in other reviews are on mine but they are just part of the material used in the board. All boards have these cracks, it’s part of it. It’s not damage. The white numbers are a wire that if needed can slide in it’s brackets so if it is slightly misaligned you can turn it back again. The box came just as is with a delivery label on it. No brown packaging so it may get dinged up In the mail, my corners were lightly smashed in but it doesn’t matter since the board is round and doesn’t even touch this area. When opening all that’s inside is the board, mounting hardware, and some paperwork. Overall, great board for the garage wall and drunken friends I highly recommend

At about 44 weeks in my home climate controlled a Gladiator 2 which I occasionally had test darts on appears almost brand new. Another Gladiator 2 Dartboard also 44 weeks inside my apartment has never been used, it appears brand new. I put a Gladiator 2 Dartboard in a small Restaurant Pub at 48 weeks ago. It has about 1,500 hours of darts play on it. Pub's G2 dartboard hangs a few feet from a door leading outside. We believe High humidity outside finally has caused the G2's sisal fibers to swell up on Pub's dartboard causing it's razor wiring scoring system appears not flush as less used G2's in my apartment. The Pub's board is no longer what I would call professional in appearance. January 1, 2020 I shall replace it with the new G2. My darts experience has shown me that no dartboard is going to stay perfect. Getting any sisal dartboard extremely wet damages it almost immediately. Darts points hitting into wiring systems of dartboards over 1,500 hours of darts play apparently leads to scoring system wires rise out of any dartboard type. G2 board wiring system fixed to backboard. I believe G2 slowed rise of wires in pub. I doubt any G2 dartboards wires will appear similar to new after 1,500 hours of darts play. From what I understand, new dartboards: Black Canyon, Nodor, Winmau, and Unicorn with razor scoring wiring systems all appear nice brand new but their wiring systems had failed in fewer hours of darts play than Pub's Gladiator 2 dartboard. Alien dartboards razor scoring wires appear way below par brand new, and Alien's deteriorated faster than any dartboard I have viewed. Dartboards round scoring wires are normally not a good value if you intend to play darts often. Round wires bend dramatically when hit by an occasional point of dart. Conclusion, I will buy up G2 dartboards until they are all sold out then I will buy Gladiator 3 dartboard.

The playing surface of the board is great quality in general. The one I got was dented up, paint was missing, and the surface on the back was uneven. Not what I expected and hopefully was a defect. But I cared more for the actual fiber the board was made out of and if the holes truly closed up or not. The holes do not fully close up and holes are visibly left but not nearly as big as some of the other boards out there. The board itself had some sisal missing in a few places that could causes bounce outs and wasn't filled in as much as it should be. However, the board is extremely quiet when playing and the sisal that is used is some of the best quality I've seen for steel tipped darts. The ability to rotate the numbers makes the board usable, hopefully for years to come. There was a lot of thought put into making this board based on what I could see if I take the other defects away and the research I've done on dartboards in general. I'm hoping the board I received was just defective and not representative of the board as a brand in general. As mentioned I did a lot of research on dartboards and this one continued to pop up in different dart forums I found. I tried other dartboards myself but because I enjoy the sport much more now and know how to play I was not satisfied with them. So for the price point and how the holes in the board close up for the most part, (self-heal), I can give it three stars. Two stars were taken off for the state it was received in, some sisal missing, holes not closing as much as previous boards I've owned, and for not being able to receive the free darts promotion being offered with it. However, customer service responds every other day when questions were asked and attempted to help me with the darts. All in all if you receive a better board then I did then you probably won't be as disappointed as I was. This could be just a defective product.Update: Customer Service, (Helen), again showed that they do listen to their customers and responded to my email and offered to fufill the promotion for the free darts. That was very kind of them. For how they have been during this process consistently responding to my emails, I will raise my original review of three stars to four stars. I would love to give it a perfect 5 star rating because I believe it could be there but can't based on the condition that my dartboard showed up in. I know these things happen though.

There is not anything I did not like about this board. It is a pleasure to throw on this board!