What a blast, Lol! Playing in an old gold mine, you'all got it made & getting paid (occasionally, lol!) it's a learning experience for sure, keep it happening! ⚒️⛏️⚖️👍🤠
It's a little surreal. We enjoy what we do and love the fact that we get to share it with others. I appreciate the fact that we get to communicate and collaborate as a prospecting/exploration/mining community. Thanks for your comment!
@@mineoperator Speaking of collaboration, are y'all planning to spend time up with Jason at MBMM this mining season? Y'all were a really entertaining and fun crew to watch, and his channel is how I discovered you guys. I get the feeling y'all are trying to do your own thing this year... Either way, I love watching both channels and learning about mining. Keep up the good work!
@monkeyhombre Yes, Harry is headed back up. As of now, my schedule won't allow me to go this season. If it changes, I want to head back up and support season 2! Either way, this will be an exciting summer as our team was filmed for an episode on a big time network and it should be airing soon. We're excited to say but we can't spill the beans yet 😉.
I'd just use gun cotton. Not as shocky, but great for good gas development, and will soak into the cracks better. Also, I would drill much larger and deeper holes to make sure I got good heavy lofting.
Hi Guys! I had an epiphany when watchin you put clay into your blast holes ... that is, what about using Great Stuff expanding foam!? It would be fast, and cheap, and maybe very good! Love your stuff. Please keep at it. Persistence will eventually make all the effort worth while.
14:00 suggestion: take thick, medium softness clay, and pack it into unused [emptied out] long tube self mixing epoxy tubes. The idea being that you can use [and reuse, since it is not epoxy] the tubes with their really long stems [the parts that look like straws] to insert the stemming into the holes all the way back to the charges. In fact, if you were really careful and timed it just right, you could even use slaked lime to make the stemming self harden, and make up a mix you apply on site. All you would have to do then is be sure to rinse out the gear between loads, and immediately after the final stemming load, so it would not harden in the tube or stem. Give it a few minutes to set, and you'd have super solid stemming. (~_^)-b
I'd MOST DEFINITELY mine that for the copper and iron in it! And gold and silver, as a side product would be nice too, but it looks like it can pay for its self from the base metals alone.
Always enjoy being along for the ride. I wonder if you were to drill a center hole with no charge, circled by charges, if that might not give a place for the force of the charge to move towards. I think you might move more material that way. Just a thought. I don’t blast for a living. I
Congratulations, you independently invented the burn cut! Seriously, the concept of providing open break-to space for rock to break towards is foundational to underground blasting. Your idea is conceptually 100% accurate although I'm not sure if this Sierra thing has enough energy to make it work.
Thanks for the idea of not using the heads and just stemming. Like the portability and capability of the hand blaster. Sure beats lugging a generator around, lol. How about trying Bondo to stem the holes? Think I'll try it next time I take out the Sierra Blaster.
That's a great idea. Some of the locations we go to our so remote, we'd have to run several hundred feet of extension cord to initiate Sierra Blasters with a generator. We're happy to hear this idea helped you. Let us know if it works out well for you. Thanks for your comment!
4:10 To clean the walls, get a heavy duty sand blaster suit and respirator, and use an indistrial air compressor with a blow nozzle. Start in the back near the face [why is the 'face' in the 'back'?] and work toward the portal with a large exhaust fan helping to move the dust along. That, or a pressure washer and a big tank of water [makes the ground mucky, but a lot less dust]. A pressure washer on a really low nozzle setting won't make as much airborne mist to settle and won't back-splash as much. Either way, to be honest, while lazy ideas on the one side, really difficult and troublesome on the other [because one would have to drag all that heavy junk up to the mine, and drag long hoses into the mine]. Another, less mass-intensive method would be a big barrel vac and some vacuum hose. Weighs less, puts much less dust into the air, and leaves the mine dry. Might even pick up some super fine gold in the barrel. Just use it on spots of interest and it won't take as long, the vacuum hose it way lighter than the other types of hoses, and will retract it self part way just by putting your hand over the end of the hose every few feet you walk back out of the mine with it [because of how pressure works on vacuum hoses].
Careful ya dont drill into an old misfire. I was in a mine that had a loaded round left from 50 years ago. No stemming, fuse hanging out of the holes. Many deep holes that were unable to determine if loaded.
Yes for sure. I was thinking about intersecting an old hole not collating a bootleg. Some holes can be hard to identify without a thorough examination. I guess 8 Inch deep holes nor likely to be a problem. Intersection seems possible if drifting perpendicular into the wall of an old drift or adit one could run into an unfired perimeter hole. Just me being creative with what-if scenarios! Haha. Cheers.
Love seeing your new skills being used, I wish I was closer, but the drive from Nebraska makes it just a wish. Keep living your dream and we can't wait for your test results! Peace.
We'll find out soon and share the results. We crushed the sample, split it and sent it off for chemical assay. I'm going to pan some and we're going to table some as well. Can't wait!
Ya know, for that clay packing backer, I got thinking. Why not try using some expanding foam in those holes? The stuff dries in about 15 minutes and would definitely give a tight seal in the void so the blast goes outward rather than back up the drill hole. For $6 a can, its cheap, and easily packable to a remote mining area.
@@mineoperator glad to help. Next would be trying some hydrolic concrete mix. Its cheap and available at most hardware stores. It doesnt have rocks in it, its has a fine sand like consistancy. Its what I call "hot mud". You mix by gloved hand,only what you can use in about 3 minutes. It would set up hard in one of those holes within 15 minutes also. Maybe worth giving a shot to. Both of these could be tried somewhere close to your shop am sure. Those new caps dont serm to make too much noise that neighbors would complain about. 😎
Are those cartridges really worth all the time of drilling, wiring and mucking to get so little ore? just wondering of their cost vs result? If you just drilled some holes and jack hammered it would be about the same result? Maybe you can do a comparison video? Setting charges are to save time with a big result. It'd be interesting to see.
Since they have a millsite with room for magazines and could haul powder to the mine in a daybox, getting a powder license and shooting with emulsion cartridges is the most productive option.
Yes, for our purposes and testing a 100 lb sample. A cordless drill, Sierra Blasters, and a blasting machine are easy to carry and set up. This location is remote and has a small hike. This rock is very hard, lots of magnetite. Using an electric chipping hammer would take a lot of time and energy. We would have to run a generator, run an extension cord several hundred feet...
Allways cool to watch things that go bang but really cool when they BOOM!! Question, would it help to stick a peace the dowl in the hole and run a wood screw into the dowl to expand it and make a stronger seal ?
Just a thought, buy why not use the clay to hold together the rough stemming material ? Mix some course "gravel" in to the clay, and pack it all down the hole. You have water too, a small bucket of hydraulic cement could be handy, mix it kind of thick, pack it in quick, then soak the outside with the sprayer to make the cement slightly more moist so ot adheres well to the hole walls... Just throwing ideas out there !
We love ideas. I did get to try mixing the clay with coarse material. It did seem to work ok, but we thought it could've been better. Mixing some quick setting hydraulic cement is a great idea. We'll definitely try this suggestion! Thanks for sharing your idea with us!
Regarding the first blast: How did you know if all of the cartridges had been detonated? When you blasted at Jason's gold mine, there was a count of a series of blasts, but here it sounded like one blast. What made you feel safe enough to return to the blast site?
Great question, Dina. That was a concern of ours as well. Having 2 or even 3 initiate simultaneously may have actually interfered with the blast results. We haven't figured out away to create a delay with this setup. Other than initiating 1 at a time. When approaching a hole that still had stemming material in it, we rewired and attempted to initiate that single hole. If nothing happened, we disconnected the wiring and had to investigate. In the 2 scenarios that happened, we notice cracks around the rock, then barred down to separate the rock and verified the caps initiated. These caps cannot initiate without 200 watts per cap. No frequency from a phone or radio will initiate these caps. If their was an unblasted cap in a hole, we could clean out the stemming, place a new cap, and attempt to initiate both but it may not work since each cap needs 200 watts. It makes them safer to work with but could be difficult to remove if there is a misfire. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this matter. Thanks for your question/comment!
@@mineoperator Thank you very much for responding. I'm not qualified to offer any advice in that field, but I was very concerned and waited until the end of the video in the hopes for an explanation or comment in this regard. You all have had extensive professional training since working with Jason, so maybe one of your teachers or the manufacturer could offer some insights on how to get a more reliable *serial* blast that reassures you that all of the cartridges have been detonated. Even if the cartridges only detonate in the presence of a certain frequency, one never really knows if a *compromised* cartridge reacts the same way. An overall safer solution might be the use of feather wedges - despite the hardness of the rock, you were able to drill holes into it. Feather wedges might have been able to create that kind of crack we saw as well. It would be more hard manual labor but likely much safer. I look forward to learning more about your various approaches in the future - just please stay safe 🙏🏼
Hi Mike, no they weren't required. The Sierra Blasters provides a certification program online as the 375 Magnum Cartridge is not regulated by the ATF. You'll still need to check with local/state agencies to ensure the legal use of them. We might get better results using expanding grout to pull off large sections and then use Sierra Blasters to reduce the size of the material. We need to try this option.
IF I was certified for explosives I would be interested in using Det Cord like this fellow uses Det Cord th-cam.com/video/FXMFH8cHlPo/w-d-xo.html . Det Cord could be cut to length and you could have delays between holes if needed.
@@mineoperator One advantage I can see is you can include split second delays between charges. In old school under ground blasting they would drill a dice 5 hole pattern and blow the center hole first followed by time delayed outside holes.My big problem is the *DRILL* , the SDS Max cordless drills can just barely drill Quartz and slow as a snail. I need to be able to punch 20" holes and I am going to try rolling my own charges with smokeless powder.
@kenchappelle816 Agreed. Ya, going pneumatic will help. Find the smallest air powered drill and a compressor to power it. Something in the range of 20-30cfm at 100psi. The challenge is the cost and then having to run air line or piping to the working face. I know running a full jackleg drill uses a lot of air. There are some small rock drills out there. I'm not familiar with them all. American Pneumatic (APT) has a couple. I'm not sure of other manufacturers yet.
What a blast, Lol! Playing in an old gold mine, you'all got it made & getting paid (occasionally, lol!) it's a learning experience for sure, keep it happening! ⚒️⛏️⚖️👍🤠
It's a little surreal. We enjoy what we do and love the fact that we get to share it with others. I appreciate the fact that we get to communicate and collaborate as a prospecting/exploration/mining community. Thanks for your comment!
@@mineoperator Speaking of collaboration, are y'all planning to spend time up with Jason at MBMM this mining season? Y'all were a really entertaining and fun crew to watch, and his channel is how I discovered you guys. I get the feeling y'all are trying to do your own thing this year... Either way, I love watching both channels and learning about mining. Keep up the good work!
@monkeyhombre Yes, Harry is headed back up. As of now, my schedule won't allow me to go this season. If it changes, I want to head back up and support season 2! Either way, this will be an exciting summer as our team was filmed for an episode on a big time network and it should be airing soon. We're excited to say but we can't spill the beans yet 😉.
Oh yeah now that is awesome! What a blast!
I'd just use gun cotton.
Not as shocky, but great for good gas development, and will soak into the cracks better.
Also, I would drill much larger and deeper holes to make sure I got good heavy lofting.
Did you ever consider making some tamales out of Pyrodex or black powder? Some of the large drill holes are still there and might be useable.
Hi Guys! I had an epiphany when watchin you put clay into your blast holes ... that is, what about using Great Stuff expanding foam!? It would be fast, and cheap, and maybe very good! Love your stuff. Please keep at it. Persistence will eventually make all the effort worth while.
Allen, it's definitely worth trying. That might make all the difference for keeping those gases in and blasting that rock 🪨!
14:00 suggestion: take thick, medium softness clay, and pack it into unused [emptied out] long tube self mixing epoxy tubes.
The idea being that you can use [and reuse, since it is not epoxy] the tubes with their really long stems [the parts that look like straws] to insert the stemming into the holes all the way back to the charges.
In fact, if you were really careful and timed it just right, you could even use slaked lime to make the stemming self harden, and make up a mix you apply on site.
All you would have to do then is be sure to rinse out the gear between loads, and immediately after the final stemming load, so it would not harden in the tube or stem.
Give it a few minutes to set, and you'd have super solid stemming. (~_^)-b
Picking and grinning!!! Hard Rocker!!! bang your head!!!
I'd MOST DEFINITELY mine that for the copper and iron in it!
And gold and silver, as a side product would be nice too, but it looks like it can pay for its self from the base metals alone.
Good vid, waiting for the next.
Excellent video!
Always enjoy being along for the ride.
I wonder if you were to drill a center hole with no charge, circled by charges, if that might not give a place for the force of the charge to move towards. I think you might move more material that way.
Just a thought. I don’t blast for a living. I
Congratulations, you independently invented the burn cut! Seriously, the concept of providing open break-to space for rock to break towards is foundational to underground blasting. Your idea is conceptually 100% accurate although I'm not sure if this Sierra thing has enough energy to make it work.
@@Porty1119 I not claiming to have invented anything. I just know that the force needs somewhere to go to be most effective.
Thanks for the idea of not using the heads and just stemming. Like the portability and capability of the hand blaster. Sure beats lugging a generator around, lol. How about trying Bondo to stem the holes? Think I'll try it next time I take out the Sierra Blaster.
That's a great idea. Some of the locations we go to our so remote, we'd have to run several hundred feet of extension cord to initiate Sierra Blasters with a generator. We're happy to hear this idea helped you. Let us know if it works out well for you. Thanks for your comment!
4:10 To clean the walls, get a heavy duty sand blaster suit and respirator, and use an indistrial air compressor with a blow nozzle.
Start in the back near the face [why is the 'face' in the 'back'?] and work toward the portal with a large exhaust fan helping to move the dust along.
That, or a pressure washer and a big tank of water [makes the ground mucky, but a lot less dust].
A pressure washer on a really low nozzle setting won't make as much airborne mist to settle and won't back-splash as much.
Either way, to be honest, while lazy ideas on the one side, really difficult and troublesome on the other [because one would have to drag all that heavy junk up to the mine, and drag long hoses into the mine].
Another, less mass-intensive method would be a big barrel vac and some vacuum hose.
Weighs less, puts much less dust into the air, and leaves the mine dry.
Might even pick up some super fine gold in the barrel.
Just use it on spots of interest and it won't take as long, the vacuum hose it way lighter than the other types of hoses, and will retract it self part way just by putting your hand over the end of the hose every few feet you walk back out of the mine with it [because of how pressure works on vacuum hoses].
Careful ya dont drill into an old misfire. I was in a mine that had a loaded round left from 50 years ago. No stemming, fuse hanging out of the holes. Many deep holes that were unable to determine if loaded.
MSHA has rules about not collaring in bootlegs for a reason. If you can't see the back of the hole, you have no way of knowing whether it's loaded.
Yes for sure. I was thinking about intersecting an old hole not collating a bootleg. Some holes can be hard to identify without a thorough examination. I guess 8 Inch deep holes nor likely to be a problem. Intersection seems possible if drifting perpendicular into the wall of an old drift or adit one could run into an unfired perimeter hole. Just me being creative with what-if scenarios! Haha. Cheers.
Love seeing your new skills being used, I wish I was closer, but the drive from Nebraska makes it just a wish. Keep living your dream and we can't wait for your test results! Peace.
GBR!!!!! same here I live in Idaho but am Nebraska born
Awesome, keep an eye out for those snakes they’re sneaky. I hope you found some yellow for all your work.
We'll find out soon and share the results. We crushed the sample, split it and sent it off for chemical assay. I'm going to pan some and we're going to table some as well. Can't wait!
Great to see the blast,
Love the content guts. Keep up the momentum. 👍😎👍
Ya know, for that clay packing backer, I got thinking. Why not try using some expanding foam in those holes? The stuff dries in about 15 minutes and would definitely give a tight seal in the void so the blast goes outward rather than back up the drill hole. For $6 a can, its cheap, and easily packable to a remote mining area.
Wow I really like that idea! We'll try it and let you know! Thanks for that great suggestion.
@@mineoperator glad to help. Next would be trying some hydrolic concrete mix. Its cheap and available at most hardware stores. It doesnt have rocks in it, its has a fine sand like consistancy. Its what I call "hot mud". You mix by gloved hand,only what you can use in about 3 minutes. It would set up hard in one of those holes within 15 minutes also. Maybe worth giving a shot to. Both of these could be tried somewhere close to your shop am sure. Those new caps dont serm to make too much noise that neighbors would complain about. 😎
I wonder if spray foam would work to tamp the charges. Some can dry fairly hard.
Good work be waiting for the results of your work next video thanks
Are those cartridges really worth all the time of drilling, wiring and mucking to get so little ore? just wondering of their cost vs result? If you just drilled some holes and jack hammered it would be about the same result? Maybe you can do a comparison video? Setting charges are to save time with a big result. It'd be interesting to see.
Since they have a millsite with room for magazines and could haul powder to the mine in a daybox, getting a powder license and shooting with emulsion cartridges is the most productive option.
Yes, for our purposes and testing a 100 lb sample. A cordless drill, Sierra Blasters, and a blasting machine are easy to carry and set up. This location is remote and has a small hike.
This rock is very hard, lots of magnetite. Using an electric chipping hammer would take a lot of time and energy. We would have to run a generator, run an extension cord several hundred feet...
Allways cool to watch things that go bang but really cool when they BOOM!!
Question, would it help to stick a peace the dowl in the hole and run a wood screw into the dowl to expand it and make a stronger seal ?
That's a great idea! I don't see why not. Dowels aren't expensive either. Worth a shot.
Just a thought, buy why not use the clay to hold together the rough stemming material ?
Mix some course "gravel" in to the clay, and pack it all down the hole.
You have water too, a small bucket of hydraulic cement could be handy, mix it kind of thick, pack it in quick, then soak the outside with the sprayer to make the cement slightly more moist so ot adheres well to the hole walls...
Just throwing ideas out there !
We love ideas. I did get to try mixing the clay with coarse material. It did seem to work ok, but we thought it could've been better. Mixing some quick setting hydraulic cement is a great idea. We'll definitely try this suggestion! Thanks for sharing your idea with us!
@@mineoperator thank YOU for sharing your adventures with us all !!
The use of feather and wedges would seem advisable.
Small ba-da-boom. Keep blasting!
Regarding the first blast: How did you know if all of the cartridges had been detonated?
When you blasted at Jason's gold mine, there was a count of a series of blasts, but here it sounded like one blast. What made you feel safe enough to return to the blast site?
Great question, Dina. That was a concern of ours as well. Having 2 or even 3 initiate simultaneously may have actually interfered with the blast results. We haven't figured out away to create a delay with this setup. Other than initiating 1 at a time. When approaching a hole that still had stemming material in it, we rewired and attempted to initiate that single hole. If nothing happened, we disconnected the wiring and had to investigate. In the 2 scenarios that happened, we notice cracks around the rock, then barred down to separate the rock and verified the caps initiated. These caps cannot initiate without 200 watts per cap. No frequency from a phone or radio will initiate these caps. If their was an unblasted cap in a hole, we could clean out the stemming, place a new cap, and attempt to initiate both but it may not work since each cap needs 200 watts. It makes them safer to work with but could be difficult to remove if there is a misfire. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this matter. Thanks for your question/comment!
@@mineoperator Thank you very much for responding. I'm not qualified to offer any advice in that field, but I was very concerned and waited until the end of the video in the hopes for an explanation or comment in this regard.
You all have had extensive professional training since working with Jason, so maybe one of your teachers or the manufacturer could offer some insights on how to get a more reliable *serial* blast that reassures you that all of the cartridges have been detonated. Even if the cartridges only detonate in the presence of a certain frequency, one never really knows if a *compromised* cartridge reacts the same way.
An overall safer solution might be the use of feather wedges - despite the hardness of the rock, you were able to drill holes into it. Feather wedges might have been able to create that kind of crack we saw as well.
It would be more hard manual labor but likely much safer.
I look forward to learning more about your various approaches in the future - just please stay safe 🙏🏼
@4seasonspix we like physical labor 😉. We'll give it a try!
@@mineoperator 😁💛
Try a can of spay foam for stemming the holes .
We'll give that a try. Thanks for the recommendation!
Should use some of that steel and create a barrier for snakes and mice at the front.
Was the explosives training course you attended required to use these blasters?
Hi Mike, no they weren't required. The Sierra Blasters provides a certification program online as the 375 Magnum Cartridge is not regulated by the ATF. You'll still need to check with local/state agencies to ensure the legal use of them. We might get better results using expanding grout to pull off large sections and then use Sierra Blasters to reduce the size of the material. We need to try this option.
Very nice and cool
Thanks Ray!
👍
We use to shoot off an old truck battery
Nails bend when they see us..like Chuck Norris..lol
Copper is often with gold.
Yes, seems to be the case from my experiences in finding gold out there in the desert, iron stained quartz with copper a greater chance.
Don’t think I’d be in the mine with any blasting even the little stuff.
IF I was certified for explosives I would be interested in using Det Cord like this fellow uses Det Cord th-cam.com/video/FXMFH8cHlPo/w-d-xo.html . Det Cord could be cut to length and you could have delays between holes if needed.
Absolutely! We can't wait to try that as well. We'll be sure to share those results!
@@mineoperator One advantage I can see is you can include split second delays between charges. In old school under ground blasting they would drill a dice 5 hole pattern and blow the center hole first followed by time delayed outside holes.My big problem is the *DRILL* , the SDS Max cordless drills can just barely drill Quartz and slow as a snail. I need to be able to punch 20" holes and I am going to try rolling my own charges with smokeless powder.
@kenchappelle816 Agreed. Ya, going pneumatic will help. Find the smallest air powered drill and a compressor to power it. Something in the range of 20-30cfm at 100psi. The challenge is the cost and then having to run air line or piping to the working face. I know running a full jackleg drill uses a lot of air. There are some small rock drills out there. I'm not familiar with them all. American Pneumatic (APT) has a couple. I'm not sure of other manufacturers yet.