I am camera impaired still, but you can get an idea of what the newest Dakota cartridge looks like from this. The solid white lines are 1 cm ruled, the dotted white lines are 1/2" ruled.

The brass for the .423 Dakota is only 2.48" long, yet it is meant to go in the Dakota 76 African action with a Rigby length box???

Next to the .423 Dakota are the .423/.338 Lapua RIpoff, and the 500/470 Mbogo RIPoff, which are both designed for a .416 Rigby length action.

Not a lot of interest in the latest offering from Dakota, eh?

Doesn't make sense to me either. It seems "peculiar" even to me.

They should have gone with the .423/.338 Lapua RIPoff.

should make a dandy 500 a.r.

i'd like to see the rifle they are comming out with for this...

should spout out 600 grainers@ 2200 fps dont ya think?

Too little, too late. I would rather see them make .404 Jeff rifles and do it right instead of putting effort into this project.

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:
Too little, too late. I would rather see them make .404 Jeff rifles and do it right instead of putting effort into this project.

No Kidding!

No doubt about it, too peculiar.

The .404 Jeffery is bigger in case capacity than the .423 Dakota and will go into a smaller action than the .423 Dakota seems to be fated for, the M76 African with a magazine block???

The .404 Dakota is also smaller in case capacity than the .404 Jeffery, but at least it will go into a shorter action than the .404 Jeffery.

Are they going to make a shortened M76 African for the Rigby/Lapua case head? I don't think so.

Nor are they going to long throat the .423 Dakota to allow seating the long bullets out. Even if they did, the 2.5" .423 Dakota would not allow one to fill the magazine even with the LLLOOONNNGGG .423/400gr TSX.

My 2.7" .423/.338 Lapua RIPoff allows the base of the .423/400gr TSX to be seated to the neck/shoulder juncture (crimped on the fifth and last cannelure) and thus wastes no powder space, and still has full contact of non-grooved shank portion with the neck. The COL is then about 3.75" and fills a 3.8" box.

That is about the only way to beat the .404 Jeffery case capacity by about 10%, unless one just did a .423/.416 Rigby.

24" barrel 400 gr velocities for these cartridges are projected as:

.404 Dakota: 2400 fps
.423 Dakota: 2450 fps
.404 Jeffery: 2125 to 2500 fps (depending on whether you have an opened up standard M98 action or a full length .375 H&H action, like an M70, or a true magnum action)
.423/.338 Lapua RIPoff: 2600 fps

They already had the .416 Dakota, a .416/.404 Jeffery, that is billed for 400 grainers at 2450 fps.

Peculiar redundancy and overlap.

They are beating all around the .404 Jeffery bush.

I think they probably sell more .416 Rigby M76 Africans than anything else.

More .404 Jeffery's on M76 Africans would indeed make more sense than all the beating around the bush.

The .423/.338 Lapua RIPoff with 2.7" case and .400" of parallel sided freebore fills my M76 African magazine nicely. Synthetic stock and stainless 10" twist barrel and none of that extended pinky finger stuff: peculiar enough for me.

Peculiar is the word for the comercial part, as a wildcat and cartridge it is a nice one. If I wanted a wildcat in a DGR, I'd rather have this than a .416 Taylor.
But, comercial DGR's are a limited market, and most folks want classics, like the Jeffery, H&H and Rigby. Wich, have earned their popularity. Don't change a winning team, eh?