I'm one of those "sour grapes" posters who Ken recommends you wisely ignore.

I bought two Dakota .338s in the mid-1980s, and both were minute-of-foot rifles. That soured me, especially when I had a $400 Ruger .338 at the time that was a tackdriver.

Nor did I care for the ball-bearing detent that holds the firing pin assembly in place, but I understand that this has been corrected now in the form of a secure latch. I still don't care for the bolt-stop design, nor do I care for the shape of the pistol grip, which to me is misshapen.

It should be mentioned that, in the past at least, a number of top professional gunsmith have indeed felt as though tolerances and hardness have not been all that they should be with the Dakota action. I would appear likely that some of these issues have now been resolved.

In general, I'd rather hire a top professional riflesmith to take his time and build a rifle to my specs with the action of my choosing for about the same money or a little more, rather than buy a Dakota. But for those who don't want to wait for custom work, don't know who to hire or what exactly to order, live too far away to effectively deal with a quality riflemaker, etc., Dakota is likely a solid choice, especially today's Dakota rifle, which I'm sure is the very best rifle Dakota has ever built.

I still find it odd -- and even outrageous -- that today Pete Grisel gets no credit whatsover for his key contributions in the founding of Dakota..........

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@ GeorgS
I checked this before and you are right the Zastava actions are on the one hand dirt cheap on the other hand they offer more or less a dirt quality. One has to do a lot of gunsmithing which is not very cheap (in Germany and Austria) to bring it to an acceptable standard. Paying a gunsmith a lot of money, you can buy high quality action as well there is no big difference. Check the following link. The gunsmith charge about 1000 Euro!!! to optimize a Zastava System for left hand shooters. That is not described on the website, but I asked him. The total amount for a rifle I need is 3700 Euro, I think for that money I will get a Dakota rifle as well! www.kesslerin.de

Thanks all of you for the provided information. The reason I'm interessted in Dakota rifles is, that they provide left hand systems without extra charge and they are famous for a good quality as far as I've heard. My idea is to import only an action to Germany and let it fit with a barrel from Lothar Walther who is reported to supply barrels for Dakota. About 100 miles away from home I have a gifted gun stocker with a great stock of high quality wood. It seems easier to me to import the action let it complete with a barrel in Germany (saving the mailing costs and customs for the barrel and overcharged wooden stock, made by Dakota) and choose the wood for my rifle at a gun stocker nearby, where I can see directly what I will get. The only problem is, that the gun stocker need datas or at least a Dakota stock to program and operate the copy milling machine to produce the stock recess. So I'm looking for an reasonable stock for Dakota rifles in the US. I tried to find one at Boyds' but I could not find one. Does anybody has an idea or a source to purchase a non expensive stock for a Dakota barreled action e.g. a laminated one, ready to drop in the barreled action without a lot of gunsmithing or woodwork? If that makes too much trouble another idea is to buy a Winchester rifle, throwing away the stock, tuning the action, replace the trigger and buy a new fancy stock. What do you thinking about this "solution"? Is there much difference between the Winchester and the Dakota systems in terms of quality, fits and so one??

PS: ForrestB Thanks a lot for your friendly offer, perhaps I will come back to you soon

Would you be satisfied with a Rem. 700 Blued action in Left hand?

I am pretty sure you can get those straight from Brownell's. In some cases, it is just a cost efficient to get the whole left handed gun, then take it to a smith and have them customize it.

All my hunting rigs are left handed except one. I have Remingtons and one Ruger MKII. The Ruger has a Hart barrel and is an absolute tack driver with Barnes Triple Shocks.