At the risk of getting blasted by Bazooka owners I am going to make an observation - this is not because I invented the AMP Sluice. I am a tester and a verifier. When some company says my machine will get gold down to minus xxx or think less, shovel more or whatever the company claim, I want to verify that I am getting what I expect.
BTW I love the fluid bed concept - It is in my opinion this absolute best gold recovery mechanism. period. That is why I designed my machine around that concept.
bakergeol has a valid question. Does the Bazooka actually recover fine gold? not just a small percentage but actually recovers a significant percentage. As stated before I have run dozens and dozens of tests on my sluice with different classifications and water speeds. I know exactly what my machine recovers.
When asked the question Bazooka owners have two responses: "My machine gets everything including xxx minus! I've tested my tailings and found nothing" or "I don't care about the little stuff, I make it up on volume!" I have not found any evidence of people actually scientifically testing their Bazookas with weighted measures of 12 mesh -100 minus gold.
Prospector70, Guilded or any other Bazooka owner - I propose a test. It would be great to have several different size machines tested.
Take a weighted measure of dry gold (3-4 grains is what I normally use) that is comprised of 12-100 minus gold. Set your machine up and dump in 5 gallons of classified 1/2" material that has been screened to have no gold. Then dump in another 1/2" classified material 5 gallon bucket that has been salted with your gold. Finally dump in one more 5 gallon 1/2" classified screened to have no gold. Let the machine clear for a few minutes then remove it and clean into a bucket. Pan that material, take the gold, dry it and re-weigh it. That will give you actual recovery percentage.
Best to repeat the test at least three times and average the recovery percentages.
Then we all would know the actual recovery based on scientific experiments. It would be a very interesting test.
It would perhaps be even more interesting if the 5 gal bucket was NOT classified. Better yet, do both and see how the recovery is for say a Bazooka vs the AMP in both cases. And TIME it. So if it takes 5.0 minutes to run the 5 gal bucket of unclassified material through the AMP and only 1.5 minutes in the Bazooka, assuming both recover the same percentage of gold--who is the winner? Now do the classification, but while the AMP material is being classified to 1/2", have the Bazooka start processing immediately (no classification). Then compare the time, the amount of material run, and the % recovery. NOW, YOU ARE GETTING USEFUL INFORMATION.
You contention is that classified material run through the AMP will allow you to catch essentially 100% of the 12 to -100 gold. Fine, we would see how long it takes. If the Bazooka catches 95 % of that same total gold (not just the -100 part), but runs it 3 times faster, you get at the end of one testing period 4 grains for the AMP, but 4 x 3 times 95% or 11.4 grains for the Bazooka. I would rather take the 11.4 grains home. Even if the Bazooka unclassified is only twice as fast you get 4 x 2 times 95% or 7.6 grains; still way more. Even at 90% recovery for the -100 gold, the Bazooka is taking home in one test period 4 x 3 time 90% or 10.8 grains. At only twice as fast it will be 4 x 2 times 90% or 7.2 grains.
With no classifying, the Bazooka is going to be at least twice as fast processing material. If it recovers only 2/3 of the TOTAL gold, not just the -100 fraction, it still takes home 4 x 2 times 67% or 5.36 grains. That is still 34% more gold. And the Bazooka is not going to recover just 2/3 of the total gold, though perhaps just 2/3 of the -100 gold--even so it is way head of anything else out there.
Again, Kevin and I think you do not need to run the AMP with classified material. Then water conditions, how far to carry the sluice, size of the gold will all be more important in choosing which to use, the AMP or the Bazooka. The A52 and other traditional sluices aren't even in the race. I have used the Le Trap and know it works in slow water extremely well, even in clay, if I hand feed it and I don't need to really classify and it will perform. Yet without the clay and slow water, I currently use my Bazooka. Why--I get more gold at the end of the day.
For years I knew I did not recover everything in my dredge or A52. But if I could use either, I used the dredge because I got more gold. Now I cannot use the dredge in most places, but I can increase my gold recovery tremendously over the A52 and somewhat over the dredge and get almost as must throughput with my Bazooka as the dredge, sometimes more with the Bazooka (though Russau is right, I _do_have to shovel and don't with my small dredge).
So, as they say on Beat Bobby Flay, "let the games begin."
