Thomas
I have never blown up a Dakota 76. There was an incident at work when a 416 Dakota round was mixed up in the 416 Rigby loaded rounds. The guy who was out at the range filling in the sights on a new Rigby accidently chambered and pulled the trigger on a 416 Dakota round. Bad things happened. The case ruptured down the side and sent brass and powder flying back in his face. He got a very small chunk of brass stuck in his cheek and was able to pull it out when he got back to the shop. The action and stock were a complete loss. Other than the small piece of brass and a sandblasting of powder(he was wearing shooting glasses) I think there were no other injuries. I don't think it even gave him a flinch.

I have a benchrest Dakota that is similar to a 76 with a solid bottom receiver same bolt shroud and bolt stop. It is chambered in 22-250. While shooting prarie dogs with a friend who drove 1000 miles to see me and he had no rest afterward, my friend accidently dipped into my box of 223 ammo and fed it to a 22-250 chamber. The case didn't rupture but the primer came out and a case full of fine ball powder came back in his face.

I'm sure most of it came out of the case mouth and around the little shell and back to slap him in the cheek hard enough to cause a light red speckeling to soon appear. He was wearing shooting glasses. The bullet was lodged about two inches from the chamber and only required a light tap with a cleaning rod to remove it. The sako style extractor slot was filled with powder propping it open as was the 2 oz shilen trigger. I think very little powder actually burned and there was no damage to anything, just packed with "sand". I don't know how the smaller round headspaced enough and centered enough to fire. But it did. The Pete Grisel designed bolt stop on the Dakota action is a great improvment in gas deflection over the origional Winchester design. I'm sure it helped prevent further injury in the 416 case. In the second case I'm sure it helped as well, but there wasn't any hot brass coming back. In both cases the shooters had shooting glasses on and I'm sure this prevented a trip to the hospital. These two friends don't normally wear glasses, I do. Whenever they shoot they do.

The only other destroyed action I saw at Dakota was the result of a leopard attack and the Dakota was shot through the side of the loaded magazine while the guy was holding it while getting mauled by the cat. The rifle was returned to Dakota Arms covered with blood and big cat scratches. Gives me the willys again just picturing that rifle.

I have no problem with the integrity of the Dakota and still own some. I think everyone should have one next to their Mausers in their gunsafe. The Mauser 98 was invented when there were serious ammunition quality issues. It was designed to keep the solider out of the hospital when plugged barrels and bad ammunition would make bad things happen. The book "The Commercial MAUSER '98 Sporting Rifle" by Lester Womack goes into great detail about the built in safety features in the 98. Lots of great pics of commercial Mausers too!

Because of it's availability and entry price the Mauser has been hacked into a "sporting rifle" by too many morons. Just check out a local gun show. You'll see more bad work on mausers than quality work. This has given them a bad name. Done correctly the Mauser is world class. I've never broken an extractor and all mine single feed very easily.

gunmaker
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