I recently received an order for new 450 Dakota brass from Midway and noticed the following diffeences between my previous batch (last year) and this:

old brass:

head stamp says 450 Dakota
neck is unsized
348 grains or more weight
2.86 or greater length after sizing

New brass:

head stamp says Dakota Arms 450
neck is sized
318 grains (30 grains less!)
2.96 length

I would just work up new loads but have pressure tested at 100 degrees for my november elephant hunt with old brass and would like to keep my old loads.

Do any of you guys have experience with the new Dakota brass you can pass along???

I have two unused boxes of old stuff and one more with just two reloads. So I can use it unchanged and practice with new stuff I guess?

PS The old brass has held up to 8 sometimes very hot reloads without loosing a single case.

Andy

Obviously, the older brass is thicker than the new brass. I'd continue to work with the existing loads for the hunt and see how the newer brass will hold up as far as durability before depending upon them. The thinner brass will probably hold a few more grains of powder, but, will it hold up under the same conditions you've put the thicker brass? Using all due caution, everything should work out just fine.

Andy,
Glad to hear that the new brass is lighter, hopefully it will be stronger as well.
I have some 450 brass that is about 4 or 5 years old, and I suspect it might have been made by A-Square because the quality is very reminicient. In one box alone I have had 8 cases with split necks after three firings. The loads were moderate as I don't care to hotrod this cartridge.

The old Dakota brass just sucked in MHO. I had a terrible time with a 330 and 7MM. If you could get a few pieces with similiar neck tension both rifles were very accurate but unless you were into neck turning accuracy was unpredictable at most. The new stuff is supposed to be much better.

Mark

Glad I have the new headstamped stuff.
Greater case capacity, stronger, better quality ... must be some reason for the change.

Jamison was only making the .404 Dakota stuff as of January 2005, at the time I bought mine. He may be making other chamberings of brass as they go along. That would be a good thing.

I suspect the "Dakota Arms 450" brass was made by Norma, ala Weatherby, and that would be a good thing too.

Thanks for the pointers, a help for me. Reloading the 450 Dakota is on my to-do list, right after the .416 Dakota, so sorry I don't have any info on loads to pass along, yet.

Good luck with the elephant, Andy, I hope to be there too, one of these days. At least I got to watch one get butchered in the Okavango. It was big news in the bush. Fresh meat!

Thanks for feed back.

40 rounds of TCCI solids in new (old head stamp) brass and 20 North Fork bonded soft points in the twice fired should do for my elephant and buffalo hunt.

My loads of RL-15 only "heated up" 50 fps going from 55 degrees to 97 degrees F and backing off 2 grains solved that problem without changing point of impact.

I'll let you know how the new brass does later.

Andy

Gentleman,

I have been using Dakota brass for several years - the old type. This include 7mm Dakota, 375 Dakota and 416 Dakota.

I use the 416 Dakota for some of my 375/404 loads, and many of my cases have been on severl hunts. So far the only trouble I have had is people loosing them in the field!

An amazing thing happened to us this yea in Tanzania.

Dwight used my rifle for his hunt, and managed to loose an empty case early on the safari when he shot a zebra.

Two weeks later, I was walking with Alan Vincent in the bush, and stopped to talk to him about something. I looked down, and saw a brass case on the ground!

The very same one Dwight lost days before!
We called Roy, and showed him the case we found. One could see the start of corrosion on it. When we got back to camp and told the rest of our friends about it, hardly anyone believed us!

quote:

When we got back to camp and told the rest of our friends about it, hardly anyone believed us!

Hard to believe that some might think thay you may be pulling their leg.

-Steve

I noticed in Huntingtons latest catalog that they are handling some sort of Dakota brass..

You guys will be amused to hear that I can carry 4 20-round boxes of 450 Dakota ammo and still weigh in under 5.0 kilograms for airline regs by using the new (lighter) brass and Frankford Arsenal rather than the larger Dakota plastic ammo boxes.

Use of 450 and 465 grain bullets helps alot, but those 100 grain powder charges add up too!

So, for one or two cow elephant and a buffalo, do I need to travel with 60 solids and 20 soft points, or should I just take 40 and 20?

Thanks in advance, Andy