Hog pan or banjo pan?

K

Kuntzy

Jr. Member
Jul 24, 2015
75
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North Vernon IN
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IMO what you need to do is concentrate on accumulating concentrates rather than panning each pan to completion as it sounds like you are doing now. Save your efforts to recover the gold in accumulated cons for the end of the day and this will up your production many fold. Most time panning is spent on the last tablespoon or so of concentrates and if you pan that on every load instead of constantly upgrading and accumulating them then you are decreasing potential production due to extra time spent. Concentrate accumulation can be done with a regular gold pan* or with either of the ones you mentioned and one you did not and that is the Pyramid pan. The major downside for the Hog Pan is that you will have much more concentrate at the end of the day since Doc recommends that it be emptied after each load and each load is about a cup or more and that amounts to a lot more overall concentrates at the end of the day thus more recovery panning. The upside is that you can really move a lot of material. Were I you I would also seriously consider the Pyramid Pan. Watch his videos.

*Keep adding material to the pan after first panning off most of the lights, larger stones and some or most of the gravel and repeat (the end result is much like what you would get with a pyramid pan, super concentrates). Careful to save all the black sand while so doing this method. Do the same with the Banjo pan for more production.

Good Luck
 

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Point taken about panning off the lights and getting more cons. Will be trying that in the morning.
 

I've had good luck accumulating cons with a banjo pan. No experience with the other tolls mentioned so I can't do a compare sorry. With the banjo pan, I run it down to the heavies in 30 seconds, dip it vertically in a bucket of water for a quick rinse out of the cons and go again. All the cons in the bottom of the bucket go home for final separation.
 

You would be surprised what you can do with the simplest of tools such as simple hand tools and a few pans. My advise would be to keep it simple and get good with the garret pan, take it down to black sand then dump that into another pan or bucket and focus on the areas you dig and quality and quantity of material more so than the equipment you can use. Bring that last pan of super cons home and spend the time then to separate. For example if your in a hands and pans area try focusing on bedrock and small gravel/sand deposits and cracks and crevices as this will almost always pay off better than digging gravel from the river bed and panning that all day long. The Garret Super sluice is what id recommend over anything else, get good with that and you can run just as much as any other pan or new pan based product.

Most of my prospecting is just panning these days, personally I prefer to pack light and simple as possible in order to get to the most remote and richest areas, less work digging, more like hunting/prospecting for gold than mining and almost always pays off better, but not always.

This was my take from my last outing, one day all done with a pan and simple hand tools. Did probably about 30 pans and maybe got a a few specs at a time, but its the time I saved by doing it this way that let me focus on ground quality and running as much as possible, every bit counts in the end. IMG_20150727_172831.jpg

Best of luck to you and hopefully this helps some, possibly you know all this already and im preaching to the wrong person but to get to your point of what pan to use it stick to what you have and get good with it!:icon_thumright:
 

Under a zero sluice rule system here's how I would do it:

Shovel into Hog Pan classify.
Empty Hog Pan concentrates into a 17" pan. Most pans this size are steel and heavy but Proline do a plastic pan in 17" size

Pan the 1/4 to 1/8 lights out of the 17" pan, taking it down to the black sand level and begin to take the top off the black sand.
Retain this for reduction offsite later and toss into bucket.

You'll find a 17" pan has a great number of riffles and due to this you can pan at an extremely fast speed, and coupled with a Hog Pan pre-classification stage it will make a very efficient combination.

I use a 17" with a 1/2 " classification and it's comparable with a conventional riffle sluice which required classification to 1/4 inch.

But to use the 17" you must have an elbow resting on each thigh, in crouching posture, as that eliminates back strain from such a wide pan.
The wide circumference allows faster reduction of lights than smaller pans, to get down into the black sand layer.

If you're a small build person consider a 16" instead, but it will handle fewer Hog Pan output loads per fill.
 

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I bought the hog pan it works great. You can consintrate a lot of material in a surprising quick amount of time the fluidization slots on bottom really lets the lighter material flow out while retaining the heavys. It's great for either packing in with it and a pan. Or for getting a good sample before you take the time to set up your sluice.
Just don't overload it, heavier and doesn't get the fluidization to get the fines to settle as well. It's my favorite piece of equipment.
 

I have only used (and own) the Pyramid Pro Pan but I was in a fairly heated debate about it and the Hog Pan.

Honestly they will all work great, but I still like my PPP the best for many reasons.

I will mention one issue though, mine cracked up the side where the plug goes.
I am going to JB weld it when I get a chance, but they do have a lifetime warranty.

I believe it cracked because I had it stored for a couple months with the plug in it.
I would suggest putting a zip tie on the plug and around the handle if you are going to store it for the winter.
 

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Smithsgold said:
Donkey Gold Prospecting with Buckshot

you can see us using the Pyramid Pro Pan hope you enjoy !!

Jeff
Click to expand...


I just want to say that you guys are way too gentle with that pan.

This pan is a speed demon, no classification needed and use those hands to whip it back and forth in the water quickly.

It works well if you have a friend bringing you material while you sit in the water and try to be just slightly higher than it.
Let your arms take a resting position and when you find that you are comfortable then you have found your working position.
There is no need to bend over this pan and kill your back.


This pan also works for underwater sniping as you can place good material from a crack in the pan underwater and snipe the pan. YUP! Snipe the pan!
The sides are steep enough that gold will stay in the pan while you fan material out.
It beats getting in and out with buckets of material.
 

had fun with the banjopan tonight.its really just a awesome gold panning method
 

I've used everything from Garrett pans to the Banjo pan and just about everything else in between. The Hog Pan is the exception though so I can't comment on them. Here in the desert we do a lot of dry panning for testing due to the lack of water in most (spell that ALL) of the areas we hunt. In my opinion the Banjo pan is a great tool as long as the soil is not to "dusty". If there is a lot of fine particles the mat will clog up with them pretty quickly. The Garrett "Super sluice" or "Gravity Trap" pans also do a very good job and you don't have to worry so much about the fine dirt clogging them up.

Any pan is only as good as the person that is using it. The more you practice with any pan in different conditions the better you're going to get with it. Most people I see panning are overly gentle on their actions and so it takes them longer to get the materials worked down to "concentrates". The heavies are going to sink to the bottom as long as you do a good job on your first shake down so the top layers can be worked off much more aggressively than many people realize. That's pretty much how the guys that do the speed panning competitions do it. Once you master a more aggressive panning style, you'll be taking home a lot more cons in a much shorter time.
 

Bought a Banjo pan today at the Dayton Ohio GPAA gold show. Was the fastest selling pan at the show, seemed everyone was walking around with one.
After watching the demonstration by Mike Pung of Gold Cube fame I had to have one to add to my arsenal.

The strip of vortex mat just after the nugget trap is what sold me on it because I am such a fan of the mat. Takes just a few seconds to go from full pan to super concentrate.

It's like a pan and mini sluice combined into one easy to use unit. And just like any pan No classifying required. Cant wait to start using it in the field.
I may never use any of my other pans again.:tongue3:

bpan1_1.jpg

Banjo pan $29.95 $25 at the show.
Hog pan $279.00


GG~
 

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Kuntzy said:
My best prospecting area is limited to pans, shovels and buckets only. I am looking to move more material for more gold. Anybody had any luck with the banjo pan or hog pan?
I am getting 3-5 flakes per pan now with just a garrett pan. Would either of these other pans up my production?
Click to expand...

Your production rate will only improve with proper technique.

There is a technique called production panning.

You fill your pan with classified material (or unclassified if it is fairly uniform) .....

You then pan off most of the material... do not try to finish it down....
just get it to about a half cup of material left in your pan, now put in more raw material and do the same...
finish that down to about that half cup....
just keep doing this ....

if you start seeing some gold in that half cup of material in the pan empty the pan into a suitable hold container and start the process all over again.

You will be amazed at just how much material you will be able to go through and turn into super concentrates.

Here is my favorite production pan. It is a pretty good cleanup pan too...... I have brought my panning time down to under 30 seconds per pan with this method.
One of these days I may get around to putting a video together on the subject, But just too much other crap going on at the moment.

The pan in the video isn't even seasoned yet and it still works great.

 

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I have an Easy Pan, a Pyramid Pro Pan, Banjo Pan and the Super Sluice. I do not have a Hog Pan just because it costs so much and I do limited amounts of material. I like the Easy Pan and the PPP a lot. Both are very easy to use and you can move lots of unclassified material through them but that slows you down a little with the PPP, picking out the big rocks and such. I let my 10 year old grandson use the PPP because he can use it without supervision and still not lose gold. It takes a place where the water is pretty deep. The Easy Pan does not need as much water depth and once you get used to it and quit worrying about seeing every little spec of gold you can go through dirt pretty quickly. The Banjo Pan is fun and easy to use but I have not done much testing with it to be confident I am using it correctly. I recently got a Super Sluice and have been using it the last month or so and it is the only pan I take to the creek when I am by myself. It gets heavy when loaded up but I can get 2 to 3 shovelfuls of dirt in it and have it down to all black sand in under a minute as long as I don't have a great number of large rocks. I pan it down to black sands and then dump in a plastic container and fill it up again. If I am feeling lazy I will pan down most of the black sand and admire the gold specs for awhile and then dump it. I go out for 2 hours and get around 200 specs of gold, just about all of it goes through a 60 mesh screen (I don't have anything smaller). Once in awhile I will get a flake that is +40 mesh. All those pans do a good job once you know how to use them and understand that gold sinks pretty fast and shaking the pan around after the gold is on the bottom doesn't help. If you have the extra money I am sure the Hog Pan would work great too, Doc does not make junk. Just depends on your needs and your budget.
 

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Back to your original question, would the banjo pan or hog pan up your production. Depends on which garrett pan you are using now. I don't see how the banjo pan would up your production vs. a super sluice pan, perhaps with a hog pan, but you will have lots more concentrates with the hog pan if used as directed. As mentioned before, work on getting concentrates at the creek instead of panning everything down. If you do that, any of the pans, banjo, PPP, EZ, hog or super sluice will up your production.
 

my best tool so far here in california is the battery operated gold magic wheel. i can run up to 2 inch matrial through it and loose no gold. i just dig right out of the creek and into the wheel. no classifying. its awesome. but, as for backpacking i would reccomend the pyramid pan.
 

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Gpaa green pan ifs my favorite, super sluice is great just so darn heavy. Cheap plastic black pans are too thin and flex when loaded up. All the gimmicks and designs aside nothing makes up for panning skills and understanding of what's happening to the material in the pan and trusting it. Garrett 1/2 classifier and gpaa or ss pan is the ticket imo.
 

Some interesting comments and the pictures of the various pans are great! So, here is another offering "The Gold Claw". I know only what I've read and watched from their web site. It has limited capacity, seems to work quickly and is 'interesting'. Anyone here own and use one?

Gold Claw.jpgPersonally I own and use a Batpan though it is somewhat difficult to backpack due to its depth, of course if I would leave out a little of what I carry with me it would be easier to carry the BP. The Gold Claw is significantly smaller though as shown in the videos on their site, it works quickly and due to its limited capacity it limits back strain.

When panning in northern California in the summer I like to put a piece of blue foam in the water to sit on while resting my back against a rock. This makes the panning comfortable but limits the panning locations. Enjoy...............63bkpkr
 

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I have tried both of them and I am in the production pan camp, make a pile of dirt and then pan down to rough concentrates using whatever pan you have on hand, every 5 pans or so of dirt concentrated fling into a bucket to take home and process however you see fit. If I were to recommend anything it would be a Garrett super sluice which is fool proof or a big steel pan, gain confidence in a big steel pan and you will be set.
 

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