36" Sniper Bazooka and my two bucket method

[antony]

Hi everybody! I haven't posted much for a few months now but it was a slow season here in Greece.

Winter is almost here and autumn was really dry so the river I'm working on is almost dry. By saying this, you understand that the flow was not very fast, so I had to classify the material first, before I can feed it to my Bazooka. This helped a lot but it makes things slower.

I'm prospecting in the Gallikos river near Kilkis, Greece. I was with my friend @Lostre and we found a nice place to spend our Sunday.



I was digging inside the river for a while, classifying material and feeding the sluice. Here you can see the simple two bucket system I work with. One big bucket and a smaller one with holes so I easily classify on the spot. Also, I used my Gold-and-sand pump (X-Stream Hybrid Pro).





Then, after 5-6 buckets of clear sand, I was anxious to check how I was doing. I checked Bazooka and BOOM! A wild Picker appeared! It's the biggest piece I've ever found.



I worked for another 3-4h and I calculated that I processed around 550kg (~1200lbs). In total I got around 0.2g of gold. I know it's not that good, but this is the amount of gold I'm finding here... Maybe this Sunday, if I go deeper into the river I can find more. Let's see how this goes.

I hope you like my post! Any suggestions about the buckets or anything else, please let me know!

 

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[63bkpkr]

Hello antony,
You are prospecting in a setting that seems foreign to me as I am used to being in Mountain Country with a river valley several thousand feet down from the mountain tops. The stream you are working in looks roughly to be 60 centimetre's wide and quite shallow however, there are water rounded rocks there so the water has been doing its thing for a long time.

The gold picker you found has the brightest gold color to it so I'd suspect it is quite pure, 20 to 22 kt. If the stream gave up a good quantity of those you would do quite well. Other than the picker do you find much fine gold in this stream? I used a type of double bucket method some years ago though I used a mesh wastebasket for the inner bucket with holes that were about 1.6mm across. Of course only the sides of the wastebasket were perforated however it provided a huge area for the fines to flow through.

Best of success with your venture and thank you for posting, more pictures would be appreciated!................63bkpkr

 

[Aufisher]

Nice sluice and picker! Looks close to the source!

 

[bcfromfl]

Great job!

In the photo showing you working the tube, you have both hands on the pump handle. Have you added a modification to the nozzle end so you can hold it steady with your foot?

 

[antony]

Thank you for your reply and for the great info! Yes it's a very old river. It's the same river where Philip II of Macedon 2000 years ago was getting his gold from

It doesn't give me many pickers like that though. It's a river that has been dug and prospected for many many years. The picker I found was the biggest I ever seen. I find a lot of fine gold though. I actually find fine gold anywhere I sample. Even in I dug 2in in the ground near the river.

About the bucket, my next weekend project will be to build a bucket with a mess! I'm sure it will work better.

Hello antony,
You are prospecting in a setting that seems foreign to me as I am used to being in Mountain Country with a river valley several thousand feet down from the mountain tops. The stream you are working in looks roughly to be 60 centimetre's wide and quite shallow however, there are water rounded rocks there so the water has been doing its thing for a long time.

The gold picker you found has the brightest gold color to it so I'd suspect it is quite pure, 20 to 22 kt. If the stream gave up a good quantity of those you would do quite well. Other than the picker do you find much fine gold in this stream? I used a type of double bucket method some years ago though I used a mesh wastebasket for the inner bucket with holes that were about 1.6mm across. Of course only the sides of the wastebasket were perforated however it provided a huge area for the fines to flow through.

Best of success with your venture and thank you for posting, more pictures would be appreciated!................63bkpkr

 

[antony]

No I haven't done any modifications. I place my foot near the nozzle just because I can better control the pump.

I have something in mind to do with the pump though. I want to use an electric pump. Something like that:

Great job!

In the photo showing you working the tube, you have both hands on the pump handle. Have you added a modification to the nozzle end so you can hold it steady with your foot?