question

[charlie cleveland]

today i was at a small gunshow in tupelo miss..i seen a double barrel rifle with hammers in the caliber of 9.3x74r..rifle was not for sale....but it was supposeedly belong to a fellow of great reputation by the name of paul rames or something close to this..he was a very wealth man that lived in the union county of miss...was a great hunter suppose to be the first man to hunt lions off horse back with hounds in africa..this rifle was used to kill lions with..he died some where around 1900 at sea and buried at sea..anybody ever read or hear a storey of this fellow...was a 90 percent gun way out of my reach but loved the storey of this old gun..paul the man who killed lions with this gun was suppose to have lived in new albany miss...all i bought at the gunshow was a old box of 38 special police wad cutter remingtons.and a new box of 357 mags for 20 bucks a box of 50...i thought this a good buy...charlie....

[George Lander]

Charlie: I never hear of Paul Rhames but the story sounds a bit like Jim Corbett who hunted man eating tigers in India and later lions in Africa. He wrote several books on the subject. One was "Maneaters of the Komoan". I once saw a Parker shotgun inscribed to him in Herschel Chaddick's shop in Fort Worth, Texas.

Best Regards, George

[charlie cleveland]

i been searching for paul did discover his name is paul raines and not thames...he built a railroad spur from memhis tenneesee to new albany miss this was his private spur..its about 60 miles distance from memphis to new albany..this fellow alo built a very large hotel in new albany for hunting guests to stay in and even brought in his own french chef..it was said he kept over 150 hunting dogs at any given time...i ve got to find out more about paul....charlie

[Elk Hunter]

First I'll say I'm no "expert' but, I don't know if the 9.3 x 74 was around in 1900 as it is a pretty hot round, more likely the rifle was chambered in something like the 9.3 x 72 which was quite common in hammer guns. If it is a 9.3 x 74 it would be a reasonable choice for Lion in the open rather than tight brush, the 9.3 x 72 would be, in my opinion, more than a little too light.

Perhaps someone has a proper date for the introduction of the 9.3 x 74 that will tell when it arrived on the scene.

[charlie cleveland]

dennis for sure its a 9.3 x 74 r.. i don t know when this round exacly came out but its been around a long time.. charlie

[Elk Hunter]

Charlie, thanks for the input.

In the back of my mind, which can be very shallow, I was thinking that the 9.3 x 74 came out in the teens or early twenty's. It would be fun to see if the proof marks included a date to ascertain when the gun went through proof.

I can't imagine purposely hunting lion with the 9.3 x 74, it's wonderful caliber, but it is not a 375 H&H, which to me would be the minimum to bet your life on.