Guess I was the last to know.


The Remington UltraMags are 375 H&H length therefore requiring a full-length magnum action. The Remington Short Ultra Mags and Winchester Short Mags are designed for the shortest actions.

But why is there no ultramag or 404 Jeffery diameter case where it is most useful, i.e., for the 30/06 length action ?

The ultramag diameter case in the '06 length action would provide true 375 H&H Improved level performance from a standard length action like the Savage, Ruger, Mauser, and the like.

Well, come to find out there is. The Dakota proprietary cartridges are the 404 Jeffery (ultramag) diameter and headsize. But the cartridge overall length will fit standard length actions. Currently available in 7mm, 308, 338, and 375 diameter bullet sizes. Could make a standard length 416 and 458. (The 416 and 450 Dakotas are built on full length cases which are the same length as 460 Weatherby cases.)

Never paid attention to the Dakota cartridges before. Their velocities always looked also ran with the big guys like Weatherby.

But also ran is good if they're achieving it in standard length actions.

Hammer

Yup. Good stuff, Dakotas. Their downfall is that they do what a standard H&H case will do but in a shorter action, in a day when almost everyone has a standard mag-length action.
IOW, not much difference except that you lose a cartridge in the magazine.
If I had a pre '64 M70 I wanted to magnumize, or a k98 or so, it would be one thing, but just looking at getting a rifle chambered in "X", I see no reason to chose an expensive rare chambering like Dakota over the various full-length H&H case mags.

It wouldn't have made much sense for the gun companies to have designed a standard length cartridge on .404 case because they have to sell rifles too and short action light rifles are all the rage today. I don't know how people can carry a standard action rifle that weighs a whole half a pound more than the short action ones.

Before WSM's and SAUM's the choice of short action cartridges was limited to .308 case and it was getting boringly consistent as far as it's performance on the field. They could have used the .284 Win case but it has a belt that we all know by now thanks to the gun writers that belts are a bad!

Don't have the written numbers before me, but recall that the long Remington 700 action is only four ounces heavier than the short Remington 700 action.

Hammer

quote:

Originally posted by Harris:
They could have used the .284 Win case but it has a belt that we all know by now thanks to the gun writers that belts are a bad!

I shoot 6.5-284 norma and 284 win.......believe me there is not a belt on this case.

I own a 330 Dakota and love it but performance wise its not different enough from the 338 win to justify the added expense and hassle. As much as I generally dislike all things Remington and Weatherby, the 338 RUM or 340 Weatherby are the logical step up from the 338 Win, not the Dakota.

I shoot 6.5-284 norma and 284 win.......believe me there is not a belt on this case.[/QUOTE]

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I stand corrected. For some reason I thought .284 win was a shortened 7mm mag case to fit in the short action. Thank you for the correction.

For many years I thought that standard length cartriges based on the .425 Wesley Richards or the .404 Jeff. was the way to go. I even built a 8mm x .425 WR X2.5" which later became an 8mmX .404 X2.5".Guess what ! The major arms companies didn't fallow suite.
What a mystery. roger

quote:

could have used the .284 Win case but it has a belt that we all know by now thanks to the gun writers that belts are a bad!

Nah, as has been pointed out it doesn't have a belt, it has a rebatted rim, which the gun writers told us for decades was very bad.

That's passe now that ultra mags and short mags all have rebatted rims, which is now way cool (maybe I missed it somewhere but I'm still waiting for some venerable scribe to point out the irony in that). -WSJ