Bob is right! The closer you can get everything to being the same size the better. Gold is approx 19X heavier than water. Black sands come in at around 9X and your typical sand is around 3X. Because of this, the gold is going to want to stay in the same place once you get it to the bottom of your pan. As you wash your cons, gold will be the last thing to want to move with the water flow. It doesn't matter which recovery system you use! If everything is the same size, the gold is much easier to get separated from the other stuff. It's basic physics. Given that everything is the same size, a given amount of water flow is going to move the lightest material first. Control the size, the angle and the water flow and you're going to be set.