Blasting for Gold! Drilling and Blasting a Gold Vein at My Mine!

Join us as we witness the process of drilling and blasting a gold vein at my mine. In this video, Jason demonstrates how to drill out a face round on a gold-bearing quartz vein on the surface. Once the drilling is complete, he loads the holes with explosives and blasts the round out to reveal never seen gold-bearing quartz vein. Watch as we excavate the blasted rock and reveal the results!
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Keywords: gold mine, drilling, blasting, gold vein, quartz vein, explosives, excavation, mining process, gold-bearing, rock blasting, surface mining, mining techniques
Tags: #goldmine #drilling #blasting #goldvein #quartzvein #explosives #miningprocess #goldbearing #rockblasting #surfacemining #miningtechniques
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00:00 Introduction
00:10 Drilling A Round
11:34 Loading Explosives
23:48 The Blast!
24:23 The Blasted Rock & Results

[@rom65536]

I used to work as an IT tech for a coal company. I got sent to one of the company's mine sites to work on a mine engineer's computer. When I got to his office, there was the absolute worst taxidermied deer head on the wall. I mean, this thing looked like a real life example of a deer as drawn by a kindergardener. I asked the engineer "What's with the derpy deer head?" and he told me the story. Just before quitting time two days before Christmas, with the mine going to shut down from Christmas eve till New Year's Day, they were going to blast off a cliff face. So they drilled the holes on top of the cliff, loaded them with their blasting compound, wired the whole thing up and were ready to go. It was just before quitting time, and the men were all anxious to get home for Christmas. Everyone was clear of the blast zone, and the clock was ticking. They blow the siren and just as the engineer reaches for "THE BUTTON", out of the woods comes this big 12 point buck. He walks right up to one of the holes full of blasting compound and starts sniffing at it. Everybody is screaming at the deer to run, throwing rocks (way to far away to be effective) and trying to get the deer out of the blast zone..... and the clock keeps ticking. Finally, the engineer has had enough and just mashes the button. The deer goes flying, end over end into the woods and the cliff face comes down and everyone has a chuckle and goes home for the holidays. Some of the guys came back and searched the woods, eventually finding the mangled deer. They had the head stuffed and mounted as best they could, and gave it to the mine engineer as a Christmas gift.

[@FishFind3000]

Lol, that would be a great gift.

[@awesomecronk7183]

That's bloody hilarious

[@nunyabisnass1141]

Lmao, merry derpmas. I shouldn't laugh at that and i suppose none of the engineers wanted to either (hence trying to scare it away), but thats just the way it is sometimes. No use crying over spilled deer parts.

[@ahoytheremate1954]

Rom i will never have a dead animal on my wall because there's nothing left i ate them

[@arnoldgrubbs2005]

@@ahoytheremate1954 Well, you can't eat horns though... just saying..

[@Askjeffwilliams]

Finally ....now you're talking Jason ..... feel the burn baby ....you can get away with a 3 hole burn as well but it won't be as clean.... we noticed you didn't stem your holes after loading a round.... now tghe fun part ....mucking time ..... good job my friend and can't wait to see more on this mine ....take care sonny Jim

[@mbmmllc]

Hey Jeff! Thanks for the comment. You and I will have to get together some time and talk about loading and blasting. I really dropped the ball on getting you up here this year! I will get in touch with you in the next few weeks and we can make a plan for the future. I might be heading down your way after Christmas and if you're up for it I might stop by and see you. We will talk soon my friend. So c'mon lets go!

[@anatikus1050]

PVC can potentially build a static charge. It's safer to use a wood broomstick or wood dowel rod. Your videos are great. Can't make them if you're dead.

[@HeadakusMaximus]

Interesting how video showed how much of that rock was loose. If that was my portal, I'd be clearing at least ten feet to each side of the original drill pattern and probably twenty-five feet above. Thanks to this video I now know to load light for the first round on a new portal. 🤣

[@epiphany7573]

When using explosives the rule is always P for "Plenty!" Great video Jason!

[@vadenk4433]

This is hillbilly gold mining if I ever seen it. lol. I love it. This is exactly the crap I’d do if I was blasting a hole. Love seeing gold coming outta my home state of Washington!

[@PaulAllee]

Jason does everything fun I like to do. Melt stuff, go underground, work with metals, use all the fun tools and recycle stuff I have learned so much from this channel.

[@adventureswithgoat8515]

Yes! It's boom time!

[@StreetMachine18]

looks like fun!

[@gr2269]

We always reamed the zero hole out with a much larger bit, this insured the cut would break in a much more predictably, great video I enjoy this very much from an old hard rock gold miner.

[@chrisb2381]

If not reaming a hole, I like to use a 6 pack burn. Pulls well!

[@Porty1119]

Oh yeah. We've gotten good results with around a 3.5" ream using an air track drill. We extend the reamed pilot hole well beyond the other holes; it seems like it pulls about another foot.

[@blacklabelonthebedrocks]

Jason, While loading your holes, it would be better to unroll the first three or four feet of the fuse lines only. Open the rest right before connecting. This would avoid the spiderweb-like mess you had.

[@joen4520]

Or just batch tie ;)

[@mridaho7871]

My thought was to uncoil just enough line to reach the back of the hole then wire tie the rest so you’d end up with a coil of wire dangling at the face. Cut the tie as you’re connecting them.

[@geradkavanagh8240]

Yeah, that was a total mess, one alternative is to set a post and clip them in order from top to bottom as you go. Used to do open cut coal mine blasts and when your dealing with 100 plus holes you really have to have your act together. Chance of misfire because of overlapping lines was pretty high in this video.

[@hunnybunnysheavymetalmusic6542]

@@joen4520 Shots are timed for a reason. Blowing them all at once is not as efficient as properly timing each shot. People spent a lot of years and a lot of money to determine the best possible patterns to time the shots.

[@joen4520]

@@hunnybunnysheavymetalmusic6542 the timing is in the cap, not in the length of the cord. Clearly you've never lit a round. You still time the round as normal but instead of clipping each clip onto the det cord you can tie 5-6 cap cords into a knot and just tie a clove hitch around the knot. Det cord detonates lighting all the caps in the knot simultaneously, while the delay is inside the cap. Source: have drilled, loaded, timed and lit dozens of timed jackleg rounds in an underground mine

[@larryevans7669]

Great Video, Thank you so much Jason. Loved it. But really, blowing stuff up, what's not to love. Easy to follow your logic and processes.

[@robertatpierpontbeach]

Jason, when you drill your next round, would you mind showing a diagram of your hole pattern? When I was a mining engineer at the San Manuel mine near Tucson Arizona, we had a small book with pages of diagrams of patterns for different-sized drifts, crosscuts, raises, etc. The book and pages were coated to prevent water (and sweat damage) and we used spray paint to lay out the pattern. Of course, we used drill jumbos for the drifts and crosscuts, but I remember using a stoper to drive a raise, holding on to the air supply hose to keep it from spinning around. Happy Days!

[@MOTOMINING]

Nice! I'm taking a Mines Supervisor Course as we speak! It covers everything from quarrys to underground! There's a large section on explosives!

[@adventureswithgoat8515]

YeeYee

[@nunyabisnass1141]

That makes sense, since explosives are very good at making things larger over an area.

[@redmist6131]

Good luck and don't blow your fingers/hand off remember safety 3rd

[@paulcragg1315]

This guy would fail it.

[@anonymousanon9084]

Hopefully it’s not online learning 🤪

[@jaratt85]

If I was doing that I'd have a wood stand with grooves in a crossboard or a piece of cardboard with slits in it that I could stuff each of those lines down into when rigging them. It'd keep them a lot neater and make it SO much easier to rig them without getting a huge tangle.

[@willlinke2849]

My very first job out of high school was a road construction job and I got to see an enormous section blasted. I can still see the little plastic pieces all mangled up after wards. Really cool stuff !!!! Next vid?

[@chuckbaker6935]

I worked at silver, gold mine for 38 yrs, done a lot of jobs at that place but never had chance to work with rhe blast crew wish I had now. Nice video.

[@mindseyeproductions8798]

1:40 tools; I love them and this one is extraordinarily cool. 😎

[@carlwest859]

> Can't wait to see the next shot. Years ago a licensed blasting crew was pulled over on an interstate in Tenn. Inspection of the pickup truck with two employees revealed blasting caps loose on the floor board. both were smoking, had a 12 pack on the seat between them, a few cases of explosives in rear with a gas can missing the filler cap, a rag stuffed into the filler cap of the fuel tank for the truck, and some other oddities not typical for their profession. Take care and hope the vein produces well.

[@shucksma6337]

Thanks for the long videos.Others gold seekers are making short crappy ones.Your videos really hold our attention for learning.Thanks for all of your knowledge.

[@rodneygilbertson2231]

So it’s the birth of a mine! Loved it!

[@marknunya3035]

Thanks for making a video of the blasting it was very interesting. I can't wait to see the assay of course.

[@illeagle6024]

Jason is living my dream. 😁

[@StirlingLighthouse]

Big badda boom! 💥 🧨 💥 Cool stuff Jason. Thanks 🙏

[@rdaw33]

Not being an explosives expert, or even an "armchair blaster" I held my breath every time you rammed each explosive piece home!!!....Glad you know what you are doing!!!!

[@susanturcotte3176]

Thank you for explaining how blasting works. It was educational in that no one else has ever talked about it. Looks like a great entry into a rich quartz vein! I can't wait to see more Jason!

[@michaelleeadkins9611]

Several years ago I worked underground coal mines. I worked in the engineering department but we had coal mines from 36" to 18 feet high. The 18 feet section was conventional in which we drilled and shot coal. I did get my certified shot Forman card. The face was shot with liquid gel tubes and caps..the shot fire was what we called a "20 shot" fire..it was about 200 vdc supply and when you pushed the charge button and hollered fire I the hole three times, the next button the whole earth shook..that was crazy. Good video. Can't waite to see your harvest from the project! Be safe

[@Seven-Seven-77]

Who doesn’t love blowing up stuff - great vid thank you 👍😀

[@freddking4389]

Jason, that was a great blast. I couldn't stop watching it. Over and over. You can never go back down to the other size blast after that. I have been waiting for this video. Thank you.

[@GSProspecting]

Great job all around fam. What a blast. Keep on having fun and living the dream fam. Gold Squad Out!!!

[@CaptainKaos420]

the inner child has been satisfied within me, what a boom and great video

[@michaelpass2176]

The new fuses that go boom!❤😂

[@nunyabisnass1141]

Pink surveyors tape is awesome for tying up cords in the field to help keep them organised.

[@eeoo570]

Finding gold and making booms…looks like fun!

[@Michael-rg7mx]

You can use a third of the jelly if you use stemming. The holes where you want a smooth wall Crack really good with 3 runs of det cord. Blast just one in the center then the perimeter all together. Saves on caps. Only need 2 and use the nonel ignitor.

[@francisjahera1150]

Hallo

[@OregonAuExploration]

Can't wait to see the development of your mine.

[@MakingUsThink]

The Best in Color blasting I ever seen! Thanks

[@silvaorgold]

That looks like a lot of hard work but a whole lot of fun great job Jason please tell me you're crushing all that stuff I can't wait to see what's in there Keep up the great work you always do a great job

[@etarheel1]

Go big or go home, right! 😂. Always learn things in every single video! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and adventures with us!

[@Scottaaa]

120lbs drill rig that's a hard day's work? Definitely enjoyed the nuts and bolts of it

[@jeffatkinson3288]

THAT was COOL!! Looking forward to seeing what's next!

[@SasquatchBioacoustic]

Great video. Please show us how you clean up the debris and bolt up the walls to make them secure.

[@alexkaring]

Really appreciate you teaching us noobs about how to use the tools and the entire process.

[@garyschlagel995]

THANKS FOR SHARING, JASON! GREAT VIDEO! VERY EDUCATIONAL!

[@seaofredkc]

That was cool!!!! "Big Bada Boom"- (Fifth Element Quote fits good for this one)

[@itatane]

Thanks for the highly informative video Jason. While it's best to have everything go perfectly, I reckon a slightly mistimed blast is always better than, "where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom!"

[@physicsfan314]

Love to see a collab with the Slow Mo Guys on this sort of deal. That would be incredible!

[@caseybenner4530]

Definitely got my vote on more explosions.

[@Michael-rg7mx]

Just one more. Do you want to shatter the rock on the foot wall first, try not to turn the pay into dust? How about just cracking the rock. Cut the sides and 3 holes to crack it. All of that fuming out was wasted. Stem the shatter charges then you can do it with 1 or no delays. Cord cuts clean on 2 foot centers. 3 feet between center holes. That hard rock shatters easy. If it gets softer load more. Try that it is half the holes and a fraction of the jelly. In that wet hole use 1/4" crushed rock to stem. That 5 dice was on 3 foot centers, 6 feet deep. Pounding on a cap may be the last day in the mine. Great video, thanks for posting.

[@twisttwister8254]

Nothing can stop gold fever...not even a mountain 🎉😮😊

[@soberone6322]

Love your channel great sense of humor lol 🙂

[@jamesthompson7825]

I really appreciate the time you take to explain the process. It reminds me that it’s time to untangle the Christmas lights for this year.

[@susanturcotte3176]

Hee hee hee James! That though crossed my mind several times as Jason picked up the tangled mess and shook it!!! Lol!! (It even sounded like Christmas lights!!!)

[@wes11bravo]

My nephew is a Combat Engineer and I keep thinking about how his facility with the good ol Danger Putty will translate into a civilian career. I can't think of anything better than this!

[@kevinhubbard8039]

Very cool I really enjoyed how you explained it and showed us what you were doing great video

[@UtmostOutdoors]

It was very interesting to see how the miss-timed delay still blasted a huge hole, but created more work to clean up all the fractures before the next blast. Always great to learn from you Jason!

[@larrytischler570]

Nice drilling set up Jason. Looks like a minature oil drill bit

[@Gueronorteno]

Jason you should invest in a powder punch for making cap wells in your bang sticks, much easier than shoving the cap directly through the explosives packaging.

[@FishFind3000]

I noticed you didn’t use any stemming for the holes. Any reason why not to pack the holes?

[@carroll-w7wxv]

Thank you Jason for bringing us along !

[@seymourpro6097]

A properly stemmed hole uses less powder for more useful work, and usually the drilling makes the stemming. you need to use a wooden tamping rod (Broomstick?).

[@MrD308]

What is stemming?

[@markfudger5267]

@@MrD308 stemming is where you plug the holes with inert material after loading the explosives. Otherwise most of the explosive power just exits straight out of the hole wasting explosives (you need to contain the explosion for a short time to gain the best effect). If you're drilling downwards you can pack the hole with the waste from drilling the holes. Horizontal holes can be filled with clay plugs by filling a plastic pipe with clay, inserting it into the hole and pushing the clay out with a wooden rod down the center of the pipe. Plastic tubes of inert gel can be used instead (more expensive and you're spreading plastic waste everywhere).

[@christopherleubner6633]

Very good shot. When using the detcord caps, you need to make sure the cords are separated by a minimum distance or else they will trigger other ones prematurely. Detcord is mighty fun stuff. One cool use of it is to crimp lugs or splices on large cables. It basically cold welds the lug on as well.

[@sidpierce1]

Holy shit, the Ancient Granny Masters could learn a thing or two from you about knots.

[@peterdhanes8771]

Thanks, I had a blast watching the video.

[@gregkretchmer3588]

I used to work in a scrap yard, we cut everything in our path to 12x18 inches to be made into cast iron. One day, there was a big explosion, caused by a mine using steel pipe to tamp explosives without a plug on the pipe. They didn't realize they tamped a couple of pipes full of explosive rather than the hole and when our guy cut it with a cutting torch, it went off and there wasn't much left. I was much more careful after that to what I was cutting.

[@bobbyhoward9672]

Been waiting for another one in this series

[@Ethan-xm4fv]

I love your sound effects of the blast. The slow motion was awesome.

[@susanturcotte3176]

Me, too Ethan! It was almost a great rock band's beat!

[@kkahkes]

KABOOM that was RAD! I rewatched the blast like 7 times

[@dominickfagan4050]

love watching you dont have stuff like this in Ireland you are lucky. Love your mobile processing unit on the truck to well thought out

[@MegaSilverStacker]

That will be the most excitement I get to watch all weekend!!! 🍿🍿🍿Thank you Gaber🤗🤗👊

[@daubinks]

smile on my face, that was fun to watch, got me inspired to claim a pocket lode mine near my house...

[@CuriousEarthMan]

Great information/detailed explanations throughout! Much appreciated!

[@jph8266]

Holy crap that was awesome!!!!! BOOM🤘🧨🧨🧨💥😳😮 Love this stuff! Now I’m excited to see if you got gold from that debris.

[@d.t.4523]

Great. Better than expected results are always a bonus! Keep working. Good luck! 👍

[@Ed_in_Md]

That was awesome! I must have watched it twenty times!

[@elyworsley3764]

That was awesome!!! What a great video brother!! I love blowing stuff up.

[@minniskata]

I’m very interested to see how this video turns out. I was a rock driller, currently a blaster for quarry and construction applications. I do much larger scale than this, and very different techniques, but the same concepts. Very cool to see different methods in the industry! Really enjoying your content! Keep doing cool things!

[@mridaho7871]

Great video again Jason. This shows how much work actually went into making all the mines scattered around the world. Can you imagine doing this to produce a mile of tunnel.

[@CaptainDansWanderings]

I could watch this kind of footage all day long.

[@bobcansee]

Blasting is pretty cool. I never really knew how it was done. Thanks Jason for showing us how its done. Good luck man!

[@danielteague4626]

Awesome, love it. Although it looked like one of my fishing trips after a few to many drinks 🤣🤣 trying to sort those wires out. Cheers

[@scrapitjc]

That blast was awesome, as always, luv the videos..

[@danielfmyers]

17:40 best description of delays on the internet

[@davidbeer]

Really enjoyed this Jason 🙂

[@BiggestKev1960]

Thank you for sharing Jason, interesting stuff 👍

[@Ekaern]

i would recommend to put tape marks on your loading rod, for anfo/ dynamite and plugging the holes with sand if shooting vertical angled holes, you lose up to 30-50 percent of the effect from the GP/Dynamite.

[@Sonex1542]

I just like watching things go BOOM!

[@RealLifeFinance]

Your videos are so educational. Thanks!

[@nickvie71]

Hi Jason. That was a real blast :) Can't wait to see more of this.

[@CabinOnTheWater]

Now we know why Gold Coins are so expensive. So much work from the time a site is surveyed, blasted, mined, recovered, smelted, assayed, sold, delivered, struck, packaged, sold, delivered, etc. So many steps I missed in getting gold from a mountain into your coin collection or bullion stack. Wow!

[@labandonaldhock80]

Great job! Lots of fun!!

[@ericmcrory4668]

The 14 year old pyromaniac that still lives in my 53 year old body thinks that was really cool! Would love to experience the percusion of that blast in person.

[@joshuajackson6442]

Thank you, that was beautiful!

[@mikewinings4120]

Love it Jason,can't wait to see you in the next series

[@cz8189]

Always interesting and refreshingly direct and honest ! Thanks - love learning from these videos

[@Ukepa]

wow, great video... lots of room for error... glad you know what your doing

[@JoshuaRosaaen]

That was awesome! It didnt seem that big but I cant wait to see what happens once you clean that up...please show a before and after if possible. Thank you as always for the adventure.

[@donaldtayloe4406]

If you go too big you fracture the rock around it so it becomes unstable at the entrance probably not a big deal but you wanna use just enough to blow chunks off not break the wall basically because you gotta walk under those walls later

[@chrisa1559]

Awesome Jason! I have been wanting someone to upload a video showing the drill/blasting process.. Like you read my mind!

[@MADDLADO1]

Always great videos Jason 👍

[@socksthc3095]

loved the vid i cant wait for more updated on this amazing mine!

[@JhonDiamond2021]

awesome work buddy, blasting gold mine.

[@tinamathews3379]

This is very interesting. I highly doubt that I will ever do any mining, at my age, but it's always good to learn I may well use this knowledge for a story, sometime.