Best 4". Not for fine gold recovery?

[hunterbill]

Looking to buy a 4" dredge and wanting the best recovery on big chunky gold. Everyone seems to be selling their machines on the idea of "fine gold recovery". What's up with that? I just want to know that I'm not loosing ANY raisin and peanut or walnut stuff. I found a nice chunky (tooth) nugget in the last inch of my box and it got me paranoid. Any suggestions for what brand or model of dredge is dialed primarily for big gold. Or know of someone making custom sluice riffles? Thanks

 

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[russau]

Learning how-2-fine tune your dredge is the best place to start with ANY dredge as almost everyone knows! Then learning how-2-dredge is equally as important. Some people includeing myself(a long time ago) think or thought they could do it by just hogging lots of material and get ALL the gold. Tisnt the case here. It takes patience to learn how-2-dredge and not hog material. for most of Americas gold youll find it to be fine gold and if you can save fine gold the bigger stuff will hang in there also. On finding a nugget in the last inch of your sluice it sounds like you were either to steep on the sluice angle or feeding to much material into the sluice and loseing gold . IMHO! But this is the site to get the answers to your questions!

 

[Mgumby16]

What size and type dredge were you running before.

All Proline and Keene dredges should have near 100% recovery of large gold.
And about 95% of fine gold.

However realize that specimen pieces with Quartz or country rock have a possibility of washing out of the sluice due to the quartz surface area negating the weight of the gold within. Really nothing you can do about pieces like that.

The main stream I prospect is 95% pickers and nuggets by weight recovered. I run a proline 4 inch and almost all the big stuff ends up in the front 1/4 of the box. Including the two biggest pieces I've found. A 9 and 12 grammer.

However a few round pieces made it over the slick plate and ended up about 3 riffles from the end but they weren't going to move from there.

However if you run the dredge wrong it can certainly blow almost all your gold out. I'm sure you know this but each dredge needs to be run differently depending on the waterway it's in.

 

[kcm]

If you have a dredge that can save most of the fine gold, it'll save virtually ALL of the heavy, chunky gold.

 

[Goodyguy]

I like your idea of going with custom sluice riffles.
With all other things being equal the riffles can certainly make or break the recovery rate for any size gold on any size dredge.

However even the most perfect riffle set up can be compromised by having the wrong sluice angle or too ravenous of a feed rate.
Blow outs can also be a problem even on a perfectly setup sluice with excellent riffle design.

A blowout can occur anytime you restart the flow after a shutdown unless you slowly ease the flow rate back up to full. If you get a clogged hose and restart the flow at full blast you can get a blow out. Blow outs along with hogging are the leading causes of loosing gold. Depending on the force of the blowout even good size nuggets can be lost.

As Russau stated above, user error along with improper setup are the main causes for gold loss rather than poor dredge/sluice/riffle design.

I have a 4" Keene and would say it's factory engineered to catch large gold as well as fines. I would also recommend the 4" Proline based upon the feed back I've heard.


Go for the Gold
GG~

 

[hunterbill]

Thanks guys, I was running a 3'' proline banker/dredge combo, and I am sure that inexperience has ALOT to do with my lack of confidence. User error? yes. Also I feel like the combo unit may be a bit of a compromise compared to a flare jet style dredge. Thinking back, it must have been a blow out caused during a rock jam, and or angle problems as the dredge was sort of propped up on rocks in shallow water and not fully floating the way it should. Another time I had a big blowout was when trying to get into really shallow spots and sucking up air. I know for sure that I was making plenty of mistakes but it still shattered my confidence in that sluice. Found myself cleaning up two or three times before lunch and doing my best to not even let a real nugget go up the tube in the first place. Anyhow, I found a creek with good size stuff. My neighbor spotted a one ounce round like a marble nugget rolling right through his hand sluice and almost lost it. Most riffles are only a half inch high, and I imagine golden marbles rolling right over anytime the water clouds up just enough for them to make a run for it. Thanks for the input.

 

[hunterbill]

Thinking I may try adding a short extension of taller riffles to the end just to see what happens.

 

[Reed Lukens]

Thanks guys, I was running a 3'' proline banker/dredge combo, and I am sure that inexperience has ALOT to do with my lack of confidence. User error? yes. Also I feel like the combo unit may be a bit of a compromise compared to a flare jet style dredge. Thinking back, it must have been a blow out caused during a rock jam, and or angle problems as the dredge was sort of propped up on rocks in shallow water and not fully floating the way it should. Another time I had a big blowout was when trying to get into really shallow spots and sucking up air. I know for sure that I was making plenty of mistakes but it still shattered my confidence in that sluice. Found myself cleaning up two or three times before lunch and doing my best to not even let a real nugget go up the tube in the first place. Anyhow, I found a creek with good size stuff. My neighbor spotted a one ounce round like a marble nugget rolling right through his hand sluice and almost lost it. Most riffles are only a half inch high, and I imagine golden marbles rolling right over anytime the water clouds up just enough for them to make a run for it. Thanks for the input.

The Proline Banker is notorious for losing gold on its own, you need to add a second sluice box on it at a shallower angle to change it up and slow things down a bit. If you don't care about fine gold then I have a 4" Keene Submersible box that I can sell alone with no pump if your interested. I do have barrel floats and a frame and a 3.5 Brigs/P100 or a new 5hp Honda that will work for a motor. It really needs a Keene HP160 or larger pump, they say a P100, which I have, but it's just too small in my opinion after using it. If you're looking for a full size and don't care about fines then really any 4" new or old will work but I still prefer my Proline

 

[hunterbill]

Thanks Reed, I will burn the banker/dredge combo and get a real dredge.

 

[Hoser John]

Wait a second-what style -age-proline you using to dredge with? The old school dump on a tray that dumps down onto the box or one with the real dredge flair that feeds directly into the box through a flair and does not run like a hi-banker?? John

 

[hunterbill]

It has a straight jet tube, not a flair, that enters the high banking hopper near the bottom underneath the grizzly bars. It is a high banker/dredge combo w' floats. I think it is the way they are curenly building them.

 

[Hoser John]

One road cone away from a much better op, instant flair with a couple of pop rivits in place with some GE door/window silicone to seal'r up. Add a nice dampener flap and 3/8" punchplate at the top to dump on and MUCH better performance. Those straight tubers blow way too hard-John

 

[Goodyguy]

Thanks guys, I was running a 3'' proline banker/dredge combo, and I am sure that inexperience has ALOT to do with my lack of confidence. User error? yes. Also I feel like the combo unit may be a bit of a compromise compared to a flare jet style dredge. Thinking back, it must have been a blow out caused during a rock jam, and or angle problems as the dredge was sort of propped up on rocks in shallow water and not fully floating the way it should. Another time I had a big blowout was when trying to get into really shallow spots and sucking up air. I know for sure that I was making plenty of mistakes but it still shattered my confidence in that sluice. Found myself cleaning up two or three times before lunch and doing my best to not even let a real nugget go up the tube in the first place. Anyhow, I found a creek with good size stuff. My neighbor spotted a one ounce round like a marble nugget rolling right through his hand sluice and almost lost it. Most riffles are only a half inch high, and I imagine golden marbles rolling right over anytime the water clouds up just enough for them to make a run for it. Thanks for the input.

Running a combo unit is a compromise due to the riffle system not being the best for dredging. It's not just the riffles that are different, the dimensions of a dredge sluice are different as well. Also the highbanker hopper on a combo is not the ideal setup for dredging.

You could fine tune your combo as John suggests in the post above which would greatly improve on the stock setup for dredging.

The preferred solution would be to purchase either a 4" Proline or Keene dredge and know you will have the best possible set up for dredging. And keep your 3" combo strictly for highbanking.

Either way you need to be mindful with your nozzle technique so as to avoid plug ups and blow outs.

GG~

 

[Hoser John]

Proline hibanker use high performance modified Hungarian dredge riffles UNLESS someone removed them Would be a HUGE problem. John

 

[hunterbill]

I did go out and buy a 4" Proline. It sure looks like a "real dredge" to me. Thanks for all the input guys. I guess I will just have to keep an eye out for those big gold marbles and grab em by hand to be sure.