I purchased a bazooka sluice about two years ago and have been running it a lot since! I'm not sure why more people are not using this sluice. There is absolutley no classifiying what so ever, so all you do is shovel directly onto the sluice, the material runs down to the grizzly, seperates at that point, the gold and fines drop into the boil box and the overburden flows up over the grizzly and off the back of the sluice. The boil box is a inclosed box with three pvc pipes with holes drilled in a downward direction. There is a water tunnel that runs down the length of the sluice to a wall that the three pvc pipes go through to the boil box. As the fines drop into the boil box, the water runs down the tunnel , into the pvc pipe and sprays in a downward direction which keeps the concentrates in a fluid state. The gold works its way to the bottom of the box while the lights rise to the top back of the sluice and out a slot located below the slick plate behind the grizzly . You can run this sluice all day unless it fills up with black sand cons at which time you would want to do a cleanup. Usually this does not happen at all. Now I know that with my keene or Jobe folding sluice I have to take them apart to clean them out, but the bazooka has nothing to take apart! Simply fill a five gallon bucket half full of water, pick up the bazooka and insert the boilbox end into the bucket and shake it in a up and downward motion. All the cons in the boil box will wash out the slot and into the bucket. Usually by the end of the day I wind up with about 3/4 of a gallon zip lock bag of cons out of 30 to 40 five gallon buckets of material or more, but it has all been concentrated down to that gallon zip lock bag. Hence less cons to pan and more gold concentrated in that bag. In Washington state the law requires that you must classify but I get around that by shoveling a bucket full and then tossing out a few rocks, then run the rest dowm the sluice. No more screening because the grizzly does the work. The new prospector model I believe runs about 250.00 dollars but it is worth every penny! You can run ten times the material in a day as a regular sluice and carry less equipment into the field. If you decide to buy one you will not be dissappointed. I procastinated for over a year about the price and then bit the bullet and purchased one and I'm not sorry one penny! My son built a modified version out of aluminum that works very well if not better. Try it you,ll like them. CHECK OUT WWW.BAZOOKAGOLDTRAP.COM.
You need to be a member of Goldprospectorsspace to add comments!
Replies
I looked at this one for a long time before I got the T-II. The thing that I couldn't get past was all material that fits through the griz lands in the fluid box and its the exact opposite of what we have learned in the last 75 or so years. That the more classification done = more gold retained. As long as the gold is rounded or granular fines there isnt any problem. But if its all fine and flat you may want to be sure, you have a test pan dug in before doing any days with it. When you think specific gravity and your gold is 19 and your aggregate is 4-7 a very efficient catch upwards of 98% would require two chambers. One with a sub 1/8" gap ahead of the main one with 1/4 or so griz gap. I don't know if i explained that correctly or so that it makes sense. I'm using this one. Price has gone up a bit but he is using vortex in them now for the fines. I made several mods to mine including a final drop riffle at the very end, vortex and bobed the ears so it fits into a bucket among other little tweaks. Added a second top strap so i can use any rocks that will sit there instead of looking for one special one, or carrying a long rock in the truck for places that i know didnt have any that shape. Its a long wait for a build now that the design is catching on. 6 weeks to ship.
http://thomascreek.net/
I like that, its simple.
The T-II that is.
For Washington folks, here are the specific rules, you don't have to screen your material. What they are getting at is to use common sense and don't load one side of the river with fist sized rocks and change the fluid dynamics. If your hole is a couple inches away from the water, and your using your shovel or hands to toss the larger rocks out of the way and are just shoveling gravels into the sluice your OK. The key is if you got it in the frequent scour zone or are bringing dirt down from higher up and muddying the water a lot.
Applicable definitions:
Aggregate – A mixture of minerals separable by mechanical
or physical means.
Classify – To sort aggregate by hand or through a screen,
grizzly, or similar device to remove the larger material and
concentrate the remaining aggregate.
Process(-ing) aggregate – The physical or mechanical
separation of the valuable mineral content within aggregate.
Applicable rules:
(d) You must classify aggregate at the collection or excavation site prior to processing, if you collected or excavated it outside the frequent scour zone.
(e) You may process only classified aggregate within the wetted perimeter when using a sluice.
Basically they want folks to use a little common sense. Not micromanage what your doing. If your picking the bigger rocks off of your shovel you met the letter of the law. But in fact if your running plum to fist sized rocks through your box which is beyond the definition of gravel for building purposes or the generally recognized sizes for the material in other applications its a no go. What they are getting at is don't plug up half the river with your plum to fist sized rocks. That's not OK. Sorting by hand or shovel is. If you want to wash those bigger rocks you need to get a bucket or tub and do that in the scour. Fact is if you try to run that stuff in any self classifier box every time one stops over your punch plate or griz, its churning up your fine gold you want left alone so there is a lot of incentive to stick with the rules. Unless you just like to shovel gravel all day for no reason.
I bought mine for the same reasons your looking at Jay. I'm using the MINI version.
Not overly impressed with it. The boil box gets plugged up no matter how slow you feed it in some conditions.
Something they leave out on there website is that it doesn't work well in some stream conditions such as the problem I had running in a streams with long spikes of mica that would get through the trap... If the stream your in is all rounded stone it will work better. I tried putting 1/4 hardware cloth across the grizzly which helped some with the mica shards but you have to keep pulling the rocks off the cloth as they just end up blocking up the flow and diverting lighter material over the top and back into the stream. Don't know if its just a design flaw with the mini as they use the same size grizzly size on it as they do for the larger models. Maybe if the grizzly had smaller slots in it ... it would work better.
I ended up having to call the company and ask them how to best set it up. Seems this sluice is better suited for high flow and Western stream conditions. They did say that the problem I was having was normal for the conditions I was using it in. Would have been nice if they were up front about it on there site.
It doesn't really live up to the hype on there videos of just shovel the dirt in and let the sluice do all the work. My particular model needs a lot of monitoring.
I have an EZ Sluice which works ok and have tested it as a recirculator. Will keep that for my backpack trips and covert sluicing ops and get the flare for it and upgrade the moss to vortex matting. Getting a full sized BuckBilly (a traditional style sluice) for the other times and daily use.
Darth; Yeah, I see where you would have a problem with longer thinner shards of rock. Slower flatter streams with slower flow would also hinder the sluices capabilities. Out on the west side of the cascade mtns most of our streams have more than ample supply of fast water and the rock and gravel is mostly glacier round ground rock so the bazooka runs very well here. If I choose to run mine in a slower water situation to see the small flake slowly move down the slick plate, the vortex action in the boilbox can't move the lights out as easy so I have A little more cons to pan. One problem that I had was moving around / wading above the sluice would kick up leaves and sticks at times and clog the intake shoot and fall season with the leaves from the maples and such are a real pain, but I solved that prbblem by putting a screen over the water intake tube. It still will get a big old maple plastered there but at least it doesn't get down in the shoot and clog the jet pipes. Can you build a small rock dam if legal to do so with a higher flow shoot to run your sluice?, and yes it would be a pain to be building these little dams all over, but if you found some profitable test areas would this be a option for you? I don't know what conditions you have there but I'm sorry you're having a problem. When the bazooka runs with lots of water flow it works very well. thanks for your time and wish you better luck with the sluice.
I went to the website it had some pictures but i would like to see video. I can see the grizzley but it is unclear how the trap chamber works. I would like to know more. currently looking for smaller equipment that really works for more mobility in the field.
Hello, the website now has a few videos to check out:
http://www.bazookagoldtrap.com/
:)
Chris
Bazooka Gold Co
hey chris you can post some of videos here as well
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next