Ask any American hunter to name a classic African rifle and cartridge of medium caliber and the answer will likely be an English-built rifle in .375 Holland & Holland Magnum.

That’s certainly a logical answer, but Otto Bock’s 9.3x62mm Mauser—a cartridge few Americans have ever seen—probably accounted for more African game during the first half of the 20th century than hunters toting rifles in .375 H&H ever laid eyes on.

The Author's Sako rifle in 9.3x62mm Mauser has accounted for several moose in both Sweden and Finland.

Sporting rifles of 9.3x62mm caliber—built at Peter Paul Mauser’s factory in Oberndorf, Germany—became for African farmers what the Winchester 94 in .30-30 became to the American cattle rancher.

Metric cartridges above 7mm in caliber are not likely to become as popular among American hunters as they are in other countries, but the 9.3x62mm Mauser is beginning to catch on a bit; rifles and loaded ammunition—along with plenty of bullets and load data—are now available.

At the moment the biggest supplier of 9.3x62 rifles to the U.S. market is probably CZ-USA, but smaller companies—such as Ultralight Arms are also taking a serious look at it.

For those who choose to handload the 9.3x62mm, Redding and RCBS offer reloading dies, and plenty of bullets are available. Swift offers the excellent A-Frame in 250- and 300-grain weights and X-Bullets weighing 250 and 286 grains are available from Barnes. Others include the 250-grain Ballistic Tip and 286-grain Partition from Nosler, the Speer 286-grain semi-spitzer and a spitzer of the same weight from Hornady.

Loading data for the 9.3x62mm are available in reloading manuals published by Nosler, Swift, Hodgdon, VihtaVuori, Speer and Barnes.

When loading bullets up to 250 grains in weight, I find powders that work well in the .35 Whelen and .338-06 A-Square to be equally suitable for the 9.3x62mm. A few that come to mind IMR-4895, IMR-4064, Varget, H4895, H335, AA-2520, V-N140 and RL-15.

These are also quite suitable for use with bullets heavier than 250 grains, but propellants with slower burn rates sometimes deliver a bit higher velocities—a few examples being RL-19, W760, H414, IMR-4350 and H4350.

Standard primers have plenty of spark for igniting most powders in this cartridge, but anytime ball powders such as W760 and H414 will be used at temperatures below freezing, I switch to a magnum primer.