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“The tiger slipped through a passage between the enclosure and an adjacent storage building, where it fatally attacked the 43-year-old keeper,” latimes.com reports. “It appears the gate wasn’t properly shut.” D’oh! “The zoo was evacuated and a SWAT team was called in, police said. But before it arrived the zoo’s director managed to kill the tiger by climbing onto the storage building and shooting it through a skylight using a high-caliber rifle.” I wonder what type of rifle the zoo’s MD used?

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20 COMMENTS

  1. That’s sad that he killed the tiger. There are 7+ billion people on this planet and the Siberian Tiger is a critically endangered species.

  2. The only round that Merkel is chambered in that could be considered a “dangerous game” round is 9.3×62. Not saying that’s what they used, but it would be what I would use in that rifle if I wanted something dangerous “dead right now.”

    • Out for a big cat, I’d take a .50 Beowulf. Lots of stopping power and fast follow up shots. Either that, or a “normal” caliber like a .375 H&H.

    • 9.3×62. that’s what, a 35-37 caliber bullet out of a 30-06 length case. is it comparable to or better performance wise than the 35 whelan?

      • Similar. It pushes 230-300 grain bullets to roughly .300 Win Mag energy levels, close to a .338-06 wildcat, and had less energy than hot .375 H & H loads.

        • thank you all, good info. i have some experience with the 300 win mag so that gives me a yardstick to measure it by.

      • Correct.

        The 9.3×62 was developed by Otto Bock in Berlin, 1905, for the express purpose of providing a more powerful rifle for dangerous African game that could be afforded by the German colonists in what is now Namibia. English double rifles cost an arm and a leg. Putting a new barrel on a Mauser 98 costs much less… and this was the express purpose for which the 9.3×62 was designed.

        The canonical load is 286 gr at about 2500 to 2650 fps produces 3700+ ft-lbs at the muzzle. Before the 60’s, it was the most widely used non-military round on the African continent, and it has taken all of the “Big Five” and then some.

        About the 9.3×62, in his book “African Rifles and Cartridges,” John Taylor (go look him up if you don’t recognize his name immediately) said this: “There isn’t really a great deal to say about it. Everybody found it so generally satisfactory that there wasn’t anything to start a discussion.”

        When I examined what published records of Mauser (that I could find) between the World Wars, I found that over 25% of all the sporter rifles they produced were chambered in 9.3×62. In Europe and Africa, it is a deservedly popular round, and it is gaining more traction here in the US as a “do everything” round in the Mauser action.

  3. Assuming that the distance of the shot was probably easier measured in feet instead of yards, I would think anything more powerfull than say a .30-30 would be enough gun. What I mean is shooting through a skylight on top a storage building would be a VERY close shot. Sad about the tiger, sadder about the zoo employee.

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