How to Improve Your Darts Average From 40 to 60
Forty to sixty is the best journey in darts. This is how to improve darts average from 40 to 60.
I say that having watched a lot of players make it, including myself. It is the stretch where the game stops being a series of hopeful throws and starts feeling like something you are actually doing on purpose. You go from "I might hit a 60 this visit" to "I expect a 60 this visit". Nothing later in your darts career feels quite as good, because nothing else changes the experience of playing that much.
It is also, and I want to be straight with you here, entirely achievable. A 40 average is not a talent verdict. It is almost always a player who has never been taught what to practise, throwing perfectly reasonable darts at a board with no plan attached.
Give that same player a structure and six months and 60 is a normal outcome, not an exceptional one.
So here is how to improve darts average from 40 to 60.
What the gap between 40 and 60 really is, how to improve darts average from 40 to 60
Let us do the maths, because it is less frightening than it sounds.
A 40 average is roughly 13 points a dart. A 60 average is 20 points a dart. In practical terms, across a visit, you are going from about 40 points to about 60 points. That is one extra 20 per visit. Not one extra treble. One extra single 20.
Read that again if you have been beating yourself up about not hitting enough 180s.
The 40 average player is typically getting one dart in the 20 bed, sometimes two, and losing the third to the 5 or the 1. The 60 average player is getting two or three in the bed most visits, with the odd treble mixed in. The difference is not power or talent. It is repeatability.
If you want the wider context on where these numbers sit, the benchmarks are in What Is a Good 3 Dart Average?, and the general diagnostic process is in How to Improve Your 3 Dart Average. This article is specifically about the 40 to 60 stretch, because that stretch has its own problems.
Step one: grouping, before anything else
Here is the single most common fault I see in players at this level, and it is entirely invisible to them while they are doing it.
They throw dart one. It lands in the single 20. They then look at the treble, decide dart two is a fresh opportunity to hit the treble, and throw at a different target. It misses low into the 5. Dart three is now aimed somewhere else again.
Three darts, three separate throws, three different outcomes. That is not a visit, that is three experiments.
The 60 average habit is the opposite. Dart one lands wherever it lands. Darts two and three go and join it. You are not chasing the treble any more, you are repeating the throw you just made. If dart one is in the single 20, two more in the single 20 is 60 and a perfectly good visit. Chase the treble from there and you will very often end up with 26.
The drill. Throw at treble 20 with your first dart only. Whatever it does, put darts two and three as close to it as you can. Score nothing, judge nothing except how tight the three darts sit. Ten minutes a session, every session, for a month.
This one habit is worth more points at this level than any other single change, because it converts your existing accuracy into actual score. You are not becoming a better thrower. You are stopping the leak.
Step two: stop the visits under 26
A 40 average is not usually caused by a lack of big scores. It is caused by disasters.
Count it yourself over a few legs. The 26s, the 22s, the 9s where two darts went somewhere unhelpful. One 100 visit is lovely, but it is cancelled out entirely by a single 20 visit, and the 40 average player typically has three or four of those every leg.
So the target is not "hit more trebles". The target is no visit under 26. Build a floor before you build a ceiling.
Two things do most of the work here:
Take what the board gives you. If your first dart is in the 5, do not attempt a rescue mission across the board. Sort the visit out and move on.
Do not change target mid visit. Deciding on dart two that you are now going for treble 19 because the 20 is not working is how 60s become 13s. Pick your number at the start of the visit and stay on it.
This is boring advice. It is also the difference between a 44 average and a 55 average, and it costs you nothing but discipline.
Step three: learn only the finishes you actually get
Finishing is where the 40 to 60 player wastes an enormous number of darts, and where most of the standard advice is unhelpful.
You do not need the full checkout chart. At this level you are almost never going to be on 164. You will, over and over again, be on 40, 32, 36, 24, 20, 16 and 8. Learn those cold. Learn how to leave them from the mid 80s. Everything else can wait.
What actually costs you is not exotic finishes, it is sitting on 40 for four visits. Every dart thrown at a double you do not hit goes into your average as a zero, so a player who scores like a 55 and finishes like a 35 posts a 45 average and blames their scoring.
Twenty minutes on doubles, twice a week, with a real scoring drill rather than casual throwing. Bob's 27 is the standard for a reason. It punishes you honestly and it forces you onto doubles you would otherwise avoid for years.
Step four: four sessions a week, with a purpose each
You can improve from 40 with fairly modest practice. Getting to 60 and holding it needs about four hours a week, split across four sessions rather than crammed into one long Sunday.
A sensible shape for each session:
Ten minutes warm up. Five at treble 20, then ten darts each at treble 19 and treble 18, following the first dart. No scoring.
Fifteen minutes grouping. The first dart focus drill above.
Fifteen minutes scoring. Ten visits at treble 20, record the total, try to beat it next time.
Fifteen minutes doubles. Bob's 27, or a straight doubles circuit with a score attached.
Five minutes pressure. One leg of 501 where you have to beat your target dart count, or you play it again.
Every one of those blocks has a number attached. That is deliberate. Practice without a score is just throwing, and there is a solid research basis for this. Ericsson's work on deliberate practice found that improvement comes from effortful activity aimed at a specific weakness with immediate feedback, not from accumulated time doing the activity in general. Twenty focused minutes beats a distracted hour, comfortably.
How long does it take to go from 40 to 60?
With four structured sessions a week, six to nine months is a realistic window. Some players do it in four. Some take eighteen. Both are fine.
What it tends to look like:
Weeks one to four. Little visible change in the average, but the disaster visits start disappearing. This is real progress even though the number has not moved yet.
Months two to four. The number climbs to the high 40s and low 50s, mostly from grouping and from wasting fewer darts.
Months four to nine. The 50 to 60 stretch, which is a genuinely different problem. Consistency has to hold up over a full leg, and finishing has to become reliable rather than occasional.
That last stretch is worth flagging. Getting off 40 is mostly about removing bad visits. Getting through 50 to 60 is about raising your floor while under pressure, which needs harder targets and more competitive practice. They are not the same job, and players who keep doing the 40 work often stall around 52.
If you want that structure handed to you, Break Forty is the four week block built for players in the 30 to 40 range, and Break Sixty picks it up for the 50 to 60 player with harder drill targets and more pressure work. Both use the same benchmark assessment at each end, so you can see exactly what moved.
Frequently asked questions - how to improve darts average from 40 to 60
Is a 60 darts average good?Yes. It puts you above the typical social player and firmly in solid league territory. You will be competitive in most local leagues at that level.
How many trebles do I need for a 60 average?Fewer than you think. Roughly one treble per visit, or two visits in three, with the rest of your darts landing in single 20s rather than in the 5 and 1. Consistency matters more than treble count.
Should I practise scoring or doubles to get from 40 to 60?Both, but grouping first. Compare your first nine dart average with your match average. If the gap is large, your problem is finishing. If both are low together, it is scoring and grouping.
Can I improve from 40 to 60 practising at home alone?Yes, and most players do. Solo practice works as long as every drill has a target, a score and a consequence for missing. Aimless throwing at home maintains your level rather than raising it.
Why does my average go up in practice but not in matches?Because practice has no pressure in it. Build consequences into your drills, play online against real opponents, and say your checkouts out loud, so match conditions are not the first time your body meets them each week.
Do I need a coach to reach a 60 average?No, but it is considerably faster with one, mainly because the setup faults holding you back are the ones you cannot see yourself doing.
The short version
Group your darts instead of chasing trebles. Kill the visits under 26. Learn the eight finishes you actually get. Practise four times a week with a number attached to every drill. Retest properly every four weeks rather than judging yourself on your best night.
Do that honestly for six months and 60 is not a hope, it is a schedule.
Want help getting there?
That is exactly what I do at DartsMatt. I coach players online and in person from my studio in Worcester, and the 40 to 60 player is the one I see most often, because it is the stage where a couple of technical fixes and a proper practice structure change everything. Most players in this range are throwing better darts than their average suggests and losing the difference to habits nobody has ever pointed out to them.
If you want somebody to watch you throw and tell you what is actually costing you the points, book a session with DartsMatt. If you would rather start on your own, pick up Break Forty or Break Sixty depending on where your benchmark sits, and work through a structured block first.
One thing worth flagging: the FAQ answer in the parent article points 40 to 60 players at Break Forty, which was written before Break Sixty existed. Break Forty is built for 30 to 40 and Break Sixty for 50 to 60, so that FAQ line is now slightly off and is worth updating to name both.
