Need help with my Bazooka Sniper

[allenkeeton]

I've read several posts regarding bazookas. I admit my first 2 runs could have used that information. Today I hit the creek, damned up a good portion of it and got good water flow. Afterwards i dropped the trap down until the grizzly was almost horizontal. I was clearing larger rocks over the sluice, so according to what I've read I had good angle and flow. After running the first bucket, my trap was packed.

Location is Buchanan GA. at the GPAA farm claim. Using 36' Sniper

I'm getting frustrated with it and am at my wits end. I feel i would of been better off with a regular sluice or highbanker. can anyone help me out with this. I've included a video of my run today in hopes that someone can figure this out.

 

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[vaquero44]

look I have the same one the trick is going to be if you want ideal condition you need more down hill slope don't submerge the front end in water you want 3/4 of water in your slick plate and a near perfect V flowing through to clear your rocks through but I can attest ihad similar issues just like your running and still caught gold and it was fly poop gold to boot

 

[allenkeeton]

problem here is there is no waterfall situation. the entire creek is as flat as my luck.

 

[vaquero44]

ok also when you packed did you stick your finger and feel inside of the trap if it felt solid then yes if it felt liquid like still then keep running now keep in mind if your in a area with a lot of black sand you will fill up quick then you would have clean out a lot sooner remember your clearing out the lighter material and the heavies remain trapped I'm eventually going to make a high banker out of mine just haven't had time

 

[vaquero44]

yeah what you might have to dam everything high like to get the pitch you need to run it on the steep side and keep the front end out of submergence

 

[allenkeeton]

yeah, damning the whole thing is out of the question.

i stuck my finger in and it was just gravels and sand. not even so much black sand despite the fact i was hitting black sand. i ran 7 buckets through it. i had the equivalent of one or 2 pans of BS in it and a flake of gold.

 

[vaquero44]

yeah that's one thing the bazooka do require is a lot of water flow but your vid looked pretty good even though your front end was submerged well the only other thing is when it fills up just rinse it out as needed and reset in the water and at the end of the day go through your cons then I will admit I liked my 30" better of this model

 

[KevinInColorado]

I'm not convinced you have a real problem. The skid plate is clearing fast enough for me to be confident the bed is fluidized. Did you test your tailings? I think you can stop worrying and keep shoveling!

 

[allenkeeton]

only thing i got at the moment since my original pan is MIA and my new one hasn't arrived. how does a properly fluidized bed feel anyways?

 

[KevinInColorado]

A fluidized bed will be sort of loose as compared to hard packed.

 

[davidhorton001]

I hardly ever run my super mini off a water fall, and most of the streams I sluice are pretty flat. And I have to agree that the flow you had looked good to me. The tubes can only handle a certain amount of water flow, after that the only thing more water flow will do is clear your slick plate faster. A tip I go by is if I can still see the top of the tubes in the trap keep running.

 

[goldog]

I agree w/Kevin. Looks like it's running fine. Of course it fills up in a few shovelfuls. Unless it's all gold you can keep going. Heavier material will keep replacing lighter material.

Once it all looks black you might want to clean it out, but that's up to you.

The sign that it is packed (not fluidized) would be that it's not "eating" the dirt you're adding. In your video it appears to be doing that just fine.

 

[allenkeeton]

I decided after much thought to sell it off. The money i get from that will be put into a Highbanker with a hopper and Goldhog mats (maybe). I'm more of a shovel it in kind of guy anyways. I know I can't link the sale page because of rules, but i will say i put it on the Atlanta craigslist page for anyone who might be interested.

 

[goldog]

Are you sure about that? You can put dirt through much faster than you were in the video. I'd say give it another try.

HB with mats is $$$. I see you have slow water there so maybe you're right.

 

[Goodyguy]

If the trap is at too steep of an angle or submerged as in your video then the sluice is not working at its optimum.

The idea is to create an environment in the trap that allows the denser particles of gold to settle down through the fluidized material in the trap while allowing the lighter particles to be washed out the overflow. What happens when the sluice is underwater is that there is more back pressure against that outflow. In a perfect world there would be enough flow through the scoop into the jets to keep the trap properly fluidized while the sluice is level.

Fluidization is what makes the trap work!
With slow flow the sluice angle does need to be increased to add pressure through the jets to increase fluidization but there is a point where the benefit becomes a liability.

At too steep of an angle all the material in the trap flows to one end essentially making the trap smaller and reducing the number of fluidizing jets working to keep the material in a fluid state. The end result is that some gold gets washed overboard before having its best chance to get settled in. (See crude diagram below to get the idea)


On a sniper or a mini, too steep of an angle will reduce the material in the trap by over half and only the last couple of jets in each tube is doing any work. Of course the larger Bazookas can handle steeper angles with less adverse results.

* It is possible however for a Bazooka to work efficiently while completely submerged in spite of the added back pressure as long as there is enough flow through the jets to keep the material in the trap sufficiently fluidized.

Bazookas Rule
GG~

 

[allenkeeton]

well it's still up in the air at the moment cuz i doubt it'll sell off any time soon. If i did decide to stick with the zooka i could easily handle the miner but as goldog pointed out, the water is a bit slow. and angles get a bit wonky all things considered since there isn't a drop anywhere in that creek. I would have to either submerge the end or lay it flat. All 3 times i used it i dipped my finger down the end and it was hard packed in there. I could try and fabricate a trap to force more water to the bottom to try and kick up the jets some though.

 

[allenkeeton]

And thank you all for the comments. I'm glad to be back on T.Net.

 

[Goodyguy]

well it's still up in the air at the moment cuz i doubt it'll sell off any time soon. If i did decide to stick with the zooka i could easily handle the miner but as goldog pointed out, the water is a bit slow. and angles get a bit wonky all things considered since there isn't a drop anywhere in that creek. I would have to either submerge the end or lay it flat. All 3 times i used it i dipped my finger down the end and it was hard packed in there. I could try and fabricate a trap to force more water to the bottom to try and kick up the jets some though.

Not the best conditions at that creek for any size Bazooka for sure, but if it were converted to a highbanker with a pump to supply the flow then you would be golden!

Are you finding much gold in your pan when you are test panning the material you are running at that creek?
Gotta know how much gold is in the material you are running to know how much to expect in your sluice.

A bazooka wont find gold but it sure will capture it if it gets fed some.
GPAA claims are known to be worked to death and it's definitely hard to find any decent pay streaks on them.


GG~

 

[allenkeeton]

My pan was MIA, so I was waiting for my new pan from GPAA membership to come in. Until then I just relied on my instincts and guesses instead of testing. i borrowed a classifier for my 2nd day at the creek and used that. came in handy for keeping the small stuff out and gave me some Ideas. (I'll discuss those somewhere else at a later time.)

Doc from the goldhog did some vids of what to look for on a creek. So i relied on that info. Found an old tree submerged in the creek. dug under it. Cleaned out 3 times that day (trap still was moderately hard packed) and dumped all my cons in a clear pan i picked up at dollar general. Later that night took it home and shook the sh** out of it to get the cons to stratify. Near the bottom in the blacks, there shining like an angel of heaven... was a lil gold flake.

I knows there's still some in that creek, I just wanna get the strat in the box issue resolved. Bazooka teased with some highbanker mods for some of their stuff and that may be an option to go for. What I don't want to do is start drilling in on this thing to make changes to the structure or pipes.

A final thought would be me wondering about the rocks here in GA. picking up alot of reds and such in every bucket leads me to believe also i need to get more pressure into the bottom chamber to actually get the stuff stratted in the box.

 

[allenkeeton]

I'm looking for what kevin sort of said. I want to be able to stick my finger down in the box and touch the pipes without having to dig down to them.