Good Afternoon,
Always interestig to read about my dear 9,3.
I own all three the bad children.. x62, x74R, and last but not least x64.
Hard to say what's my favourite, probably the pestiferous x64.
I started using a double in 9,3x74R and immediately i falled in love with the caliber. As many other times, i tryied to improve it, using better powders, better bullets, but in the end the philosophy is the same: heavy soft bullet, mild velocity, terrible penetration, wide wound, game on the floor. Probably the two thing that surpised me more were its simplicity (works well with any bullet, heavy or light, hard or soft) and that litterally digests any kind of powder with always the same good result. Really a work horse. Easy to reload, easy to shot, rarely requires a follow shot.
After this experience i found a nice CZ full stock at an armory.
I took it without many hopes... i know how squeamish the stutzen can be. And that short barrel made me think bad... Instead that nice light rifle, that could seem a toy, is an hammer.
It prefer light bullets, but shot well also heavy. I have developed a superb load with ks bullet, and i have used it on light framed game, (roe deer) and bigger game (boars and deers)
Always impressive. I do not have experience with african big game, but every 9.3 user just talk well about it.
Last winter i found (finally!) a Mauser Europa in 9,3x64. It was new! the gun smith told me that the old owner ( now 70 years old ) used it on two safarys, and then left it in the blind for decades.
The bolt face had no signs, the barrel seems to be virgin. Probably has shot 30/40 bullets... Well, i started looking for the perfect load... first choice was the H mantel bullet, really accurate and constant. Then i tryied teilmantel, KS, and Woodleight 250 bullets. Everytime i had good accuracy, with light, medium and heavy load.
The most impressive thing is the extreme flexibility of this caliber. You can easily obtain x74R velocity, or pass to a mild charge duplicating x62 performance, or increase the energy, reaching more then 6000 joule of energy (in this case i found the RS60 is the standard to beat).
RWS has recently released a new ammunition with lead free 180 grains bullet (evo green), with the same ballistic of the 8x68S with H mantel. This could make this outstanding caliber even more usefull for light game at long range.
It's really a shame that nowadays no one gunmaker (except Voere) still has this caliber in catalogue.
Excuse this long digression... but as you can understand i'm a big fan of theese three fine calibers...
Doc