Drilling

West Coast Placer offers drill testing that is specifically designed for placer gold properties.

Our system is designed to offer low-cost drill samples for placer claims at every stage of development. Our versatile, tactical drill platform provides the most reliable placer grade measurements in the industry. Our drill can get reliable samples down to 100 meters and we can sample through any type of material including gravel, clay and solid rock.

Get to bedrock every time

In placer gold exploration it is essential to test down to the bedrock interface. The challenge is how to do that on a small budget. Digging test pits with excavators and bulldozers is expensive and can take weeks to reach bedrock. In British Columbia, permits and reclamation bonds make it difficult to explore using excavated pits. Drilling requires a much smaller commitment.

With our RAB Drill we get to bedrock every single time! Usually within several hours of starting a hole.

WCP RAB Drill
West Coast Placer RAB Drill
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The most efficient way to explore deep placer deposits

Placer Drilling
Placer RAB Drill Rods

If your bedrock is deeper than 20 feet it is not economical to test with an excavator. Your costs to reach bedrock can be enormous, not to mention the reclamation bonds, permits, etc.

We can do several holes per day and accurately measure your gold grades over a large area. Our drill is mounted on tracks and can get to just about any area that needs testing.

We can drill up to 60 meters (200 feet) in a 10 hour shift with a maximum depth of 200 meters (600 feet). The material from every 10 foot section is stored separately and analyzed for gold content. Even though we are sampling a small area in each drill hole our sampling technique is extremely accurate. Our technique has been developed through years of working with placer miners all over the world.

How RAB drilling works

RAB stands for Rotary Air Blast. Our drill is powered by compressed air. It uses a huge air compressor (400CFM/200PSI) to power a down hole pneumatic hammer. The hammer breaks up rock and hard-packed gravels, the air pressure pushes the sample up to the surface. The sample material is caught in our cyclone and stored in 5-gallon pails for processing.

With this technique we can accurately sample placer material at depth. Each sample is recorded and sampled in a systematic way.

We provide a detailed report with maps and interpretation of the data explaining the results in an easy to understand format. We record gold grades as well as drill logs showing the types of material and bedrock depth. This work qualifies for placer assessment work in BC and the Yukon.

Advanced sampling technique

Drilling is only part of the story, it’s the data that we really want. After all, there’s no point putting holes in the ground unless we can figure out how much gold is down there.

After the samples are recovered from the drill they are subjected to our processing technique. The volumes are accurately measured and then the samples are concentrated using precision sampling equipment.

placer gold scanner   
WCP Gold Machine Vision
What our algorithm sees in our gold samples.

The final concentrate is analyzed using our proprietary gold scanning system. We have custom software that analyzes the number of gold particles in a sample, the distribution of mesh sizes and several other metrics about placer gold. Our final report will give you detailed information on the gold grades and particle sizes at every interval from surface to bedrock. We provide detailed maps in an easy to understand format. You don’t have to be a scientist to understand the results, we take care of the science for you.

Your Placer Experts

Contact us to take your placer project to the next level.