Bazooka highbanker kits?

[ssdevilfish]

Where are the high bankers? Called and no real answers. Looks like I'm buying another Keene. They posted highbankers for February. Two months later not even a picture of a prototype. Best part was when I called he ended it with thanks for bothering me. Lol. My dollars and two other partners have decided bazooka is not for us. They just don't compare to a Keene or proline highbanker combos. Will challenge anyone with a bazooka against my Keene banker. Both dig from same pile and ill bet $1000. Keene will get more gold.

 

[afreakofnature]

I have posted this a couple times too, where are the highbankers? I am not giving up just yet, I just wish they would stop teasing us or giving us false dates for when it will be done. If they just don't know then say that and be done with it until they come out. February, beginning of April, now who knows.

 

[ssdevilfish]

Yea I agree. If you don't know when you will have them don't post it. Some of us actually have a serious need for high production equipment. Now I delayed my new banker purchase and it set us back a few weeks. That's a few weeks without gold to pay expenses. Just about unacceptable to me. Oh well. Live and learn.

 

[ssdevilfish]

To be honest I don't think bazooka can produce a proper highbanker with enough flow. Seems very tricky and I can't be spending time cleaning the plate and grizzly after every bucket full of dirt. Due to the difficult terrain we are working getting a decent trommel in there would be impossible. But a packable highbanker like bazooka would been good. Just have to hike in the keenes in pieces. Good luck with your bankers bazooka.

 

[afreakofnature]

I think that they could get a bazooka highbanker to work. GG looks to have made a really nice fluid bed highbanker. But i also need it to be a shovel and go. Not a shovel, stop, pick out rocks, shovel, stop, pick out rocks, over and over. If they do come out they are coming out kind of late for the season, plus I want to see it in action and hear from some people who try it out first. To me it looks like something that I will pick up next year after the bugs are all out of it.

I have a nice highbanker that I built myself but it is not as portable as I would like, I was hoping the bazooka would solve that problem, since their sluice already does.

 

[ssdevilfish]

Maybe they can get it to work but I agree with you totally. Would have been a great portable banker. I can't be cleaning either. Just ordered two Keene highbanker combos. Now we have three that will run steady. I dread packing these machines in. Oh well maybe next year they get it done.

 

[Goldwasher]

They have the first generation kit ready. it was at the Mining summit this weekend. Unfortunately the guy in the booth next to them disconnected a hose on his contraption and made a wet mess, so the bazooka guys decided to not risk the same situation. You guys need to keep in mind that each bazooka is hand built one at a time.The new sniper line has just added more options and in a small scale production situation like bazooka has that basically makes every order a custom order.Which makes tooling for production a chore. They also did a big run to have inventory for sale at the summit, and when I left sunday they had like ten left, they started with fifty something. I would bet they sold more units then any other single production tool at the show. Some of the other units are still in the stoneage as far as design goes. I agree with the material build up situation and if the grizzly isn't gonna clear its not that much of a production advantage. I run a 12"x 48" banker so I know exactly where your coming from on the portability factor. As far as recovery....once gold is in the fluid bed trap there it will stay. Old style Keenes don't always do as well. I use gold hog matts and would never run with Hungarian riffles and carpet again. it loads up to easy and requires to much flow. The Bazooka Hibanker will run off of less water than a full size banker. I will try one out in the future and post my results..... Three big bankers on your dig.... you must be pulling a lot of color it sure would be nice to see some pictures

 

[afreakofnature]

So did you see the unit at the summit? Just not running? What did it look like, was it a kit to work with other bazooka or is it a new contraption all together?

 

[ssdevilfish]

We have a nice spot and will post pics later in the season. We are using some gold hog mats as well. As far as Keene being in the stone age. Lol. Not so sure about that. When used correctly with different matting and sluice setups you get dang near all the gold. We will be running three setups all a little different. By mid season we will know which setups work best for type of material we are processing. If we get to our goal which seems so far very reachable then we cut a road and bring in a trommel and backhoe and dozer maybe. Leary of listing location or even the state for that matter. All I will say right now is that our gold is coming from a completely new source that has never been mined claimed or otherwise and is on my own privately Owned land and my partners are my neighboring ranches all private land. But no way can we monitor all of it without a lot of trooping around with horses and atv. . And we would end up with every miner in our state hitting these locations. When we reach half our goal we will post pics of the gold. Time to go digging.

 

[Goldwasher]

I'm not referring to keene being in the stone age.. ther's a reason they still use 30 year old designs .They're actually smart their new giant wheel was cool and pretty cheap actually. Their new mini hibanker is kinda cool and useful not for production though. ( wonder if the plastic parts are sourced domestically) and I would break it pretty quick. I'm referring to the " new" stuff I saw...just rehashed same ol' same ol'. Hibankers and sluices... I didn't see any one walking around with purchases.... other than the guys walking around with Bazookas....The bazooka hibanker is a retro-fit kit. I'm sure they will sell complete units...Maybe Chris will chime in and let us know. If he doesn't I will find out and let you guys know.

 

[Prospector70]

Heh, give me a few weeks, I'm making own and I just may damn well take you up on that bet.


Edit:
Oho, re-read your post and you are using non standard matting (IE the good stuff, Doc does nice work).
We might have to make it a hundred then cause now I'm not as sure as I just was a second ago

 

[ssdevilfish]

Ok you have a bet. I'll run the 6hp 12 foot Keene power sluice with non standard matting. Copying a gold hog video I have that sluice matting set exactly as they do. Excellent stuff. You can use your bazooka. We dig from same pile and shovel by hand. Side by side. Go for two hours. One catch I can't let yea keep all the gold. Gonna have to take 20% from yea. Nothing personal but in two hours you will have more than 200 worth if your sluice catches equivalent of what I've seen so far. So basically your free rolling on the 100$ bet. Lol. Maybe this July.

 

[Prospector70]

20%?!?!?! I don't get the colo bro discount? haha, sounds like a blast though.
If I'm driving up the mountain though we're going to have to go all day.
Crap I'll need a pump, that may take me a bit.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Love the friendly CO rivalry! That's a competition I want to see!

 

[DynoGuy]

Ok so does anyone have pictures of the BGT Highbanker? There's been no response on Bazookas forum page to the HB question. Looks like I'll have figure it out on my own then, I'm just mot sure on what size pump to get for my Prospector.