Angus Mckirk

[norcalmax]

I used my new Angus this weekend on the the North Fork and I tell you what, it pulled everything out of the dirt I had classified, from super fine to nice thin flake's. I will never use anything else and it was so easy to clean out. I highly recommend the Eureka sluice.

 

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[Gravelwasher]

do you have any pics? can you post a pic of the sluice close up, the pics on the angus sight are kinda small to see the details.? Heres a pic of some gold I got after work tonight.

 

[Astrobouncer]

Never say never! I used to think drop riffles were the best too, until I tried the fluidized bed sluices (bazooka gold trap is the newest name for a fluidized bed sluice, since they own the Schmidt patent) and moved twice as much material with almost the same gold recovery! Some claim the gold recovery is the same, but I have tested tailings extensively and noticed some fine gold loss using the fluidized bed sluices, especially under certain easily reproduced conditions (These conditions are too much water flow and excessive drop. Either one of these combined with a stock bazooka grizzly will lose fines, because the larger 5/16 gravel the grizzly allows can form a kind of false bedrock that blocks fines from settling and some of the fines will flow out of the sluice along with the slurry. Changing the grizzly to 4 mesh helps cure the problem, but 8 mesh works even better). However, the fluidized bed sluices move so much more material then a conventional sluice that the loss in -100 mesh gold more then makes up for it.

I have 14 sluices right now in my garage, and 11 of them are for sale...Besides my DIY custom fluidized bed sluice, I am keeping one small drop riffle for low water conditions and backpacking, and the other sluice that's left is the bazooka gold trap that belongs to a buddy of mine so I cant sell it!

 

[norcalmax]

do you have any pics? can you post a pic of the sluice close up, the pics on the angus sight are kinda small to see the details.? Here's a pic of some gold I got after work tonight.

The first drop works like a indicator mat, gold will drop there so you know if your in gold. I also have gold n sand, i can pump material right in to my sluice. It works great!

 

[norcalmax]

do you have any pics? can you post a pic of the sluice close up, the pics on the angus sight are kinda small to see the details.? Here's a pic of some gold I got after work tonight.

Do you prospect in the motherlode area? Must be nice to be able to prospect after work, i live in the santa rosa area, ca area. I only get to go every other weekend.

 

[Gravelwasher]

Nice looking box!!! I live in Placerville and try an get out to sample and prospect as much as posible. Nice to be beside the river with all the sight and sounds, the gold is just a bonus. I have an AU trap on the way from Angus, cant wait to try it out, I have heard so many good things about them. lots of gold to ya!!!!

 

[norcalmax]

Nice looking box!!! I live in Placerville and try an get out to sample and prospect as much as posible. Nice to be beside the river with all the sight and sounds, the gold is just a bonus. I have an AU trap on the way from Angus, cant wait to try it out, I have heard so many good things about them. lots of gold to ya!!!!

I bought my sluice from big valley metal detectors at citrus heights, ca he sells out of his house and he has a web site you can check out. Great guy!

 

[norcalmax]

Nice looking box!!! I live in Placerville and try an get out to sample and prospect as much as posible. Nice to be beside the river with all the sight and sounds, the gold is just a bonus. I have an AU trap on the way from Angus, cant wait to try it out, I have heard so many good things about them. lots of gold to ya!!!!

My friend bought an AU trap, works good to but it doesn't fit in a 5gal bucket, but checks great gold!

 

[63bkpkr]

Norcalmax,
Thank you for posting the pictures of your McKirk! It is good to hear that it works well. Pvillehunter got one of the McKirk models early this year and showed that it catches almost all of the gold put through it.

Gravelwasher,
At home depot in their bucket and garbage can aisle they have rectangular waste cans, black and blue recycle bin but both the same size. The blue is a little less expensive but my Keene A52 slides all the way to the bottom of the waste can without stretching out the walls. The McKirk is likely a little wider than the A52 but there should be a plastic product out there that fits the McKirk Au Trap. The Au Trap is the one I want to purchase just because it will handle so much material all at once but pouring its contents into a bucket might be interesting as again it is a larger sluice. NOTE: if you get one of the products at HomeDepot - I've found that the HDPE or even the LDPE products will take more rough treatment than the PP type of plastic, my thoughts. I broke the sides of my PP 5 gallon bucket with my A52.

I would really appreciate updates on both of your sluices!

Enjoy the new tools..........63bkpkr

 

[Gravelwasher]

Hi Guy's and Gal's,

I know what your saying Backpacker about not fitting in a bucket, don't want to slosh all your cons out trying to get them in the bucket. The nice things about the Keene a52 is that you can run the thing all day with two guys putting 10, 5 gallon buckets of classified material through each and the sluice catches most all of the gold. The inspection mat or V mat is also a nice feature to see what you getting against its black color makes those flakes shine. Easy 5 gallon bucket clean up on the Keene is nice too. The only things I don't like about it = weight over long trails, and a lot of material to process ie cons, the drop riffle tends to clean out more and only leaves you with about a cup and a half of cons to pan compared to the a52 about 2 to 3 times that amount of cons, compared in same location on the same day. The Au trap had to be cleaned out due to black sands filling up in the first drop about every 3-4 , 5 gallon buckets of classified 1/2 inch material. The gold trap also requires an aggressive flow almost a little more if not the same as the a52, I was a bit surprised by this as I had heard lots about the drop riffles efficiency of water flow, it must be the width of this box that necessitates more water flow. Also the Au trap is easy to clean in the sense it has no matting or riffles to remove but you have to be very carefull not to splash to much water in and wash your cons over the edge and back into the river when emptying the Au trap into a 5 gallon bucket. So far so good with Au trap.

 

[Doug Watson]

I've got the AU Trap and love it. I just tip it so one side is in the bucket and the material washes off fine into the bucket. Built a stand for it last weekend for spots where I don't have to pack very far and it sure made the setup a lot quicker and also I just lift it out for the cleanup then drop it back on the stand and away I go again without any set up. Wish I'd had it years ago. Doug.

 

[63bkpkr]

Thanks Doug for sharing your experience's with this unit! What sort of water will the Au Trap function in? Like: fast & swift, Lots of water, very little water, slow & gentle

I've been looking at the McKirk's since the enjoyment I had last year detecting/panning/sluicing and finding some gold. As I recall the Au Trap is larger and lighter than the Keene A52 and the obvious, the Au Trap cleans up quickly without much fussing around.

How wide is the output end of the Au Trap?

Have you been out yet this year? The rivers are seeing good snow melt right now and the weather is not even that hot, YET........63bkpkr

 

[Goldwasher]

hey, gravel i heard you got a broken sluice and had to return it and old man McKirk tried to give you Guff.... but, i see they must have done ya right.....so you normally post pics of your take too, what gives you iI doubt you got the skunk.
Im goin out today, to run my drop riffle banker for its second time, new spraybar with smaller holes for higher preassure. I have come to find so far that the drop riffles we have do want a relatively high flow, one good thing is i ran some cons through mine at home just to see if i could use it as a clean up sluice....when i tipped up my sluice to clean it out the fine gold just didnt want to leave the riffles even at extreme angles.im thinking of gluing some vmat into some riffles to add some smaller traps dont know if its overkill. i also was reading on the reverse angle riffles like those used in the clarkson studies being two inches apart like our sluices... and the drop ratio being 3 to 1 vs. 1 to 1 like Ive always read to start with?What are you guys who run Angus or Le Traps setting your angles at?

 

[Gravelwasher]

No, I dident get skunked, I just put the gold right in the vial and I was so tired I forgot to shoot the pics. I will put it back in the pan and snap some pics of the ugly merc coated gold I got.

 

[Doug Watson]

It does take fairly good water flow. The wide end is about 13 1/2". Had to go out to the truck to measure it and it just occured to me that I just bought 2 buckets that were wide enough for my gold cube to run into last weekend and guess what? The AU Trap sluice fits perfectally into the bucket. They're sort of oval shape with a pour spout on both sides and they're blue and I got them at home depot in the cleaning section. So the bucket problem is solved although I didn't have a problem anyway but these buckets are a lot smaller than a 5 gal one so lighter to pack. Thanks for making me go measure the sluice. I really can't tell what angle I'm using because I just set it up until the riffles are working like I want. Hope this helps, Doug.

 

[63bkpkr]

Thanks fellas,
The pictures and your comments are great!

I found It was clumsy picking the A52 out of the water, of course in general I'm kinda clumsy. I would use the rail at the output end and I can't even recall what or where I grabbed it at the input end to lift it. I modified the input end by adding a grab bar at the flare. With the the two bars, Controlled Lifting of the sluice up and out of the water and then walking it to the bucket became Much Easier. This could be done to the McKirk as well, I used a section of "L" shaped Aluminum angle from home depot. As the McKirk is ABS plastic drilling the mounting holes is easy though I'd start with a small bit and slowly go up to the finished size with a selection of bits. This method should eliminate tiny cracks in the plastic. If I was drilling holes in my McKirk I would finish the last hole with a hot metal rod, not red hot but hot enough to just melt the plastic as this would assure no tiny drilling cracks would be left to propagate larger cracks from. You can see the two upper rails on the flare in the attached picture but the one nearest the sluice walls is all that is needed along with the one at the bottom that's part of the riffle removal system.

The sharing on this forum is great! Again, thanks for your inputs as I am looking so forward to getting back out and discussing all these things helps through the waiting period..........63bkpkr

 

[Gravelwasher]

As to having to clean up, I got away with bare minimum yesterday, a soda can and a gold pan, gotta do with what you have. I was on my way home from work and decided I just had to stop and try. Sluiced out a few flakes!!!

 

[Gravelwasher]

Ok,

I got around to taking some pics of yesterdays stop before home and today's too. Hope you like the pics, the one with the merc on it is the first I have found at this location, nothing like the spot last weekend where 10 % of what I found had traces on it.

 

[Sackett]

I have the Angus Mackirk "Expedition" model and have used it for over a year now. I think that it works great, it is simple, fast, tough, light weight, and most important it captures gold, at least it captures 1/8" long pickers down to flour gold, I'm STILL waiting for that big ole Nugget!! I've just not sent it down the riffles yet!! Maybe tomorrow At least I'll try again!!and again, and again...