I've had D'Arcy Echols build for me a total of eight custom rifles, and all of them have been stellar, the best I've ever owned, and accuracy and function are absolutely flawless, and the best of any rifles I've ever owned, period. As a reference point or experience, I ordered my first custom rifle in 1980, at the age of 23, and I've owned a slew of such rifles ever since.

In contrast, both of the Dakotas I owned (circa 1985) were inaccurate, the wood quality was lousy, the pistol grips felt like they belonged on a shotgun rather than a rifle, and the "oil" finish they wore was ineffectual as a weather barrier, but was more than up to the job of making the rifle look good in the gun cabinet

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Now contrasting those two widely divergent sets of experiences, how would you feel if you were me in terms of comparing the quality of a Dakota to a true best-quality custom bolt-gun?

In effect, comparing a Dakota to a true best-quality CUSTOM bolt gun is about like comparing one of the 1980s-era Japanese-made Parker reproductions to a Purdey -- it might look similar at first glance, but it's hardly the same product, either inside or out.

Dakotas seem to appeal to the guys who like the FORM of a classic best-quality custom bolt-gun, but who aren't actually experienced of the SUBSTANCE of a true best-quality bolt gun. Big difference......... And I guess if I thought, based on my experience over the course of many years, that Dakota was equal with a Biesen rifle, or a Miller rifle, or an Echols rifle, I'd be a Dakota client to this day, but I'm not.

Once guys get started with the true, high-end custom product from the smaller makers, they stay away from the the semi-production/semi-custom rifles, such as Dakota, for good. It bears repeating, but true best-quality custom rifles simply can't be mass-produced, or even semi-mass-produced, by a crew of people who tend to turn over on a regular basis, and who are semi-trained in many cases, and not career craftsmen for the most part.

With the smaller true custom makers, you get the same man or the same team of men, and you get career craftsmen who put a big part of themselves, plus many years of experience and training, into their product. Their name is on the line every time they send a rifle out, the buck stops with them, and that shows in the end product. These guys really deserve the business..........

I don't know how things are done today at Dakota, I'll assume everything's now on the up and up, but some years ago, so many guys got totally ripped-off on wood quality with Dakota, even after paying for "select" or "exhibition grade", and so many guys had running gun battles over accuracy and other function issues that they were totally turned-off (to put it mildly) as Dakota customers for life.

I'm one of those guys, and all I can say to the custom, or semi-custom gunmaking community it this:

"YOU CAN GIVE A GUY A LOT OF HAIRCUTS, BUT YOU ONLY SCALP HIM ONCE!"