The Gold Safari Sluice BoxGuests are gone, new camp is shaping up, and some rearranging is finished. As promised, I have a review of the Gold Safari sluice I bought last year late in the season. Since it is gold propsecting season for everyone, I could not find their website active and there are none listed on e-Bay where I found this one. They may be out finding gold like the rest of us. LOL!
The first thing I liked about this sluice box is the 12 inch wide box and riffle system. This means that the box should be able to handle classified material pretty fast. The second was the combination of three different types of riffles, each meant to help catch material on it's way through. It also came with indoor/outdoor carpeting, which we have always liked better than miners moss. (Too many rocks hang up in it, and you have to run matting underneath.)
The one thing I did NOT like was that it did not have rubber mat or carpeting before the riffles, and it did not come with expanded metal. Both of these items we added.
The first set of riffles are short round bars. I wasn't too sure about this when we got the sluice box, but I was willing to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they worked in tandem to provide a calm area between them that dropped heavier black sand and gold into, leaving the second riffle to clear out the lighter sand. Very nice. The gold showed up, of course, right away in the black mat, and the wide box spread the material out so that I could spade classified material into it as fast as I wanted to. I watched the second riffle to be sure it was cleaning out adequately, and we went through 10 buckets as fast as we could classify it.
All in all, I like this sluice box. Be aware that you will need to add the rubber matting or carpet at the head of the box and expanded metal if you want to. The box sold for around $150.00, and if you can find one, I recommend it. And for your viewing pleasure, here is a pic of the gold we caught with the sluice.
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