It happened often enough that I had to purchase new back shafts (the part that holds the flights). The aluminum proved to be the best, as I could bend them back

It happened often enough that I had to purchase new back shafts (the part that holds the flights). The aluminum proved to be the best, as I could bend them back into place and still get some use out of them. My first few were plastic, and were effectively useless afterwards. The valley created by the two fins of the flight basically made a path right to the join point. Of course, maybe it was my throwing style that caused it to happen more to me than others? Only had a few that actually stayed stuck into the already landed dart, but it was quite funny when it happened the first few times. After that it was just a bother. Probably happened ~10-15 times IIRC. (It was ~30 years ago).