Do Bazookas really catch fine gold?

[Goldwasher]

WATER BREATHING DRAGONZOOKA

 

[Goldwasher]

You'll get instructions/technical description with your box. I tell people to set it up so the grizzly does its job. Meaning if your adding material and oversize gravel and cobble are clearing with the occasional help...then start feeding. I threw away my flowgaugeamometer a long time ago!
With a prospector set barely clearing the grizzly its still working. With Rajun Cajun its still working.So, if you have tunable flow go for as level as you can get still clearing the grizz. You'll figure out how to fine tune based on field variables after a few trips...first and foremost don't let recovery worries slow your digging fantasies

WATER BREATHING DRAGONZOOKA

Still works

 

[utah mason]

Nice you definitely don't have to worry about clearing out in front of fluid trap with that setup.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Here's how fine my recirc fluid bed is catching.



This is my Model 4.1 fluid bed after chowin on Superior beach sand. (gold seen above)



I think she's catching pretty darn good! Bagged probably close to 1g so far out of the 1/4 yard of beach sand and I'm only a quarter done with the cons.

Next trip up and I'll have a grizzly for it. That'll speed things up!

 

[utah mason]

Do bazookas catch fine gold? OH YEAH! View attachment 1217286
Had a chance to go out with my son a couple of sundays ago to test out the new toy, 30" prospector. Here's what fell thru 100 mesh screen. Dug in same spot i did last time i was there. Last time i stopped at a couple large rocks that were several feet under water. this time water was lower and i was able to move rocks and keep going. I was suprised no one had continued hole. As the rest of stream looked like it had been bombed by the millitary. Set up spot at edge of hole, got good water flow. I thought maybe to fast, i shot short video to post to ask if it was running to fast or just right. Then had to set up youtube account before i could post and thought, maybe i should just pan it out and see whats in there first. Then i'll know for sure. View attachment 1217293
What a awesome piece of equipment! I knew there was gold where i was digging. How did i know? First i got gold there last time in same hole with A51. Second i used my classifier and pan to check before i got crazy diging a hole. But that was the ONLY TIME classifier was used. Was soooo nice. Dug for a couple hours, cleaned out trap twice. First time when 2 fellow miners came over to look at bgt. He looked at me and said, theres no riffles where does gold catch? Told him about fluid bed pulled out bgt cleaned it (WOW DAMN QUICK) so he could take a look at it. Set back in spot and started shoveling. He watched me shovel for a few then asked "what was that sluice called again?" Had a great time with son hiking and running bazooka(the gold was a nice bonus)
Thanks everyone for the advice and pics. I helped me make a buy im very happy with. Can't wait to get back out with bgt

 

[Goldwasher]

Glad you liked it....Your pics aren't popping up! says invalid attachment?

 

[utah mason]

 

[KevinInColorado]

Looks to be that challenging American Fork gold ...nice job UM!

 

[utah mason]

Good guess! Beautiful scenery and close. Although it's some rugged and skinny roads on top, so my truck always ends up with some nice new scratches on it. (and I'm not able to get all the way were I want to go i still have to do some hiking). But what's the use of having 4x4 if you don't use it. Plus supply house ran into back corner of my bed on truck 2 weeks ago so now I'll have nice shiney one side of bed and rest of truck will be scratched. I'll have to go back up after it gets painted run the bazooka and even out the paint the golds definitely some small stuff. As you can see by pic need to clean it up a little better, it was late and I was pressed for time. I need to plan trip to where the bigger gold is. I figure get good at small gold recovery, panning and catching the big stuff should be a snap. Well maybe not a snap. Now I can see why bazooka owners are so adamant about there sluices being the best. I foresee my Keene collecting dust. Unless of course stream is at a trickle. And I'm forced to classifiy

 

[Au dave]

we call it dirt track pinstriping over here...sounds better than scratches...lol

 

[KevinInColorado]

I still have a couple of scratches on my SUV from my last visit to That canyon. I was able to get some out with 400 grit sand paper and clear coat spray

Sell the A52 and buy a medium sized drop riffle for low water. Or toss out the guts of the A52 and line it with ribbed rubber mat. Those ski jump riffles in the A52 make it harder to catch fine gold, it can be easier and need less water without them.

 

[johnedoe]

I still have a couple of scratches on my SUV from my last visit to That canyon. I was able to get some out with 400 grit sand paper and clear coat spray

Sell the A52 and buy a medium sized drop riffle for low water. Or toss out the guts of the A52 and line it with ribbed rubber mat. Those ski jump riffles in the A52 make it harder to catch fine gold, it can be easier and need less water without them.

I really am amazed they still sell that outdated riffle system.............. All we have to do is setup to run their tailings and then we don't have to do any real shoveling......... Of course you can't show them what you getting from their tailings.....

 

[KevinInColorado]

When you need a sunshine fix come down this way you'd be very welcome!

 

[CO2]

Here's my initial reactions to the BGT Prospector 30":

I spent about 9 hours down at Cherry Creek in lower downtown yesterday looking for the "almost flour" gold. I decided to take the top 6 inches or so off a flood bar, and let me tell you, by myself I was able to move a volume of material through that BGT the size of a sofa (or possibly a loveseat if your sofa is particularly large). I wasn't even using a bucket. If I had to classify and feed that material through a traditional sluice scoop by scoop, no way I would have even dug up an armchair's worth. Oh yeah, the BGT is worth it. I did 3 cleanouts in that time and by the end of my stay I saw not all the fine material was getting sucked through the grizzlies - if I was going to stay longer I would have needed to do another cleanout.

So this morning I classified out the +16 and I started to get disappointed because there sure was a lot of it and I wasn't sure how much good cons I actually had. That disappointment didn't last long - turns out I took home more than a quart of black sands. I tried to pan off a display sample and the colors are so fine that I pretty much gave up, but that flour sheen was definitely there. I will have to finish setting up the blue bowl to find out how much I actually got.

So based on my initial reaction, if taking home all of the fine colors is extremely important to you, then my advice would be:

1. Yes, use a bazooka;
2. Run it closer to level (you will probably have to continuously push cobbles off the grizzlies);
3. Do your cleanouts more often; and
4. Have a great time.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Glad it worked for you. The Prospector's trap is big enough that you can run it pretty steep to avoid clearing the grizzly too much.

We DO have a lot of black sand in Denver. Around here I clean out hourly. It makes a nice break from digging and shows me that I'm still on the gold[emoji106]🏻

 

[utah mason]

I still have a couple of scratches on my SUV from my last visit to That canyon. I was able to get some out with 400 grit sand paper and clear coat spray

Sell the A52 and buy a medium sized drop riffle for low water. Or toss out the guts of the A52 and line it with ribbed rubber mat. Those ski jump riffles in the A52 make it harder to catch fine gold, it can be easier and need less water without them.

I have a51 i cut out riffles except first one and last one for support( i did that second time out after reading a older post you did on fine gold recovery ). I run expanded metal with hogmoss under. Only ran carpet first time while waiting for hogmoss.

 

[utah mason]

Post some pics after you run it through blue bowl.

 

[utah mason]

I have a51 i cut out riffles except first one and last one for support( i did that second time out after reading a older post you did on fine gold recovery ). I run expanded metal with hogmoss under. Only ran carpet first time while waiting for hogmoss.

Dang I just realized I lied : ( I ran green carpet twice not once. Tried it one more time after I got hogmoss. I put one more layer of expanded metal( some I use for stone applications 2.5 gauge ) under original expanded metal.went up to creek My business partner used hogpan , I used 1/4 regular classifier. Filled up about one and a half buckets. Brought back to house, set up rec sluice with above mentioned setup. Didn't come up with much color, which surprised me as I had done some sample pans and found good color. Thought other day green carpet sucks i wonder what i missed. I caught tailings that fell through 50 mesh. Been sitting in garage for couple months. Only about 1/4 bucket . panned 7 onces (shot glass measuring device) of material about 40 pcs of fines! D@mn green carpet. First time ran rec sluice I ran with hogmoss found couple specs in tailings and thought that wow that was a bit of work to go thru tailings for that. Otherwise I would have gone thru these quicker.they might have even set for up till a year till I got to them. Dang almost over looked potential good spot because of bad setup. Going up with bgt next week !

 

[CO2]

Post some pics after you run it through blue bowl.

So I got the blue bowl up and running and I processed my Cherry Creek outing, here's what I know:

1. I was definitely blowing out the superfines - both gold and iron - my quart of black sands ended up being mostly +50 material. I am attributing this to the fact that I didn't do enough cleanouts. When I did the finger check in the trap, and it felt just like rocks, I should have known better and done a cleanout. Yes the BGT is susceptible to having its trap load up and no longer being efficient, but then again what sluice isn't? I spent nearly as much time with the Angus 22 a few days before at Arapahoe Bar and I took home even less concentrates that day, because I wasn't doing my cleanouts diligently. That having been said, I do think the BGT prefers not to keep the -100's especially if there's lots of chunky magnetite. But I can't confirm until I process my Clear Creek canyon cons.

2. Given that Cherry Creek is a known low-producer, and that I don't know the actual availability of gold in the downtown section, I can't compare what I took home to what I should have taken home. I really don't know what's there but even in the test pan it seemed a low concentration of the superfines that I essentially didn't really take home anyway. My panning skills for the micro gold are probably not up to par though.

3. My geology professor was impressed I found any flakes at all in Cherry Creek in lower downtown, but I did. The photo below is the +50's I collected, a couple dozen extremely shiny Castle Rock conglomerate placer flakes. They're much a much prettier color than anything I've ever pulled out of Clear Creek. I had a few dozen -50's too, and not that many -100's, but I got impatient and threw all the -50's into the next batch to process instead of waiting for the blue bowl to clear (wow that thing takes forever). So it's only the +50's in the picture.




By the way Blue Bowl owners, what's the best way to process your +30's? Right now I'm stuck panning it. Turns out I'm not that good at not throwing the flakes out.

 

[johnedoe]

By the way Blue Bowl owners, what's the best way to process your +30's? Right now I'm stuck panning it. Turns out I'm not that good at not throwing the flakes out.

OK.... here it is again...... http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/panning-gold/459664-art-gold-panning.html ... Now you may not have to go through all the steps show in the series but it will give you a very good foundation to work from.... Hope this helps.