16 thoughts on “It’s A Blast!”

  2. around here the limestone pits use a slurry of ANFO rather than the pellets, but other than that, the technique is identical.
    Although they are more respectful of the blasting caps, and they pole holes into the imitator, then push the blasting caps through.

    • The blasters that I have dealt with as a civil engineer make the stuff on site. It’s easier , and cheaper, to make it than it is to buy it and safely store it. You have to have a manufacturers license, but still easier to deal with over all.

      The blaster that lived in my county when I was an Ohio county engineer had magazines on his property for the more exotic stuff he needed on occasion. The rest of his work he simply rolled his ANFO truck to the site to charge the holes. ANFO works very well, as long as the charge does not get compressed.

  4. Hahahaha, that brings back some memories Phil. Was farmed out to the blasting crew when the boss” thought I wasn’t busy enough”. They got some dynamite from Spain of all places (cheap bastards) and it looked like dog shit and smelled even worse, but maaan it would make your heart race and head pound. We used premade cartridge boosters most of the time and an all electric detonation setup.
    The last time I ever had to help load holes there were just two of us on the pattern and I got way ahead of the guy with the pole and he looks up and most of the powder was gone and asked where it went and I said “In the holes” all he said was “Fuuucck”.
    We set that one off and shit went Every. Where. This was a roadway cut around 250 or so feet long, 125 or so wide, and around 35 feet deep. It hit the highwall on the other side we just spent a week bringing down to grade. No more powder monkey for me. Hahaha.
    Don’t ask about the time they threw 15′ of rock over an existing major roadway and had traffic backed up 20+ miles in both directions, that was expensive.

  7. Signed up for tour. Got to watch this at copper mine SW of Tucson. Stunned to hear yield rate was very low. So a Japanese, maybe Korean outfit figured out how to go through those miles long slag piles and profitably render even more ore.

  8. Went to a local pit to check on availability of a certain size of rock. Lucky me got in the gate before a shot was set off. MSHA rules, I was now there for the duration. It was interesting though, the shot was about a half mile away but, the ground rocked pretty well.

  11. I remember when i a kid, an outdoor mag had recipe for ammonia/diesel. For blowing duck potholes in prairie.

    • I used to know the proportion, but forget it at least 20 years ago. It’s hard to get the AN prills these days, since OK City.

  12. In ’76 and ’77 I worked at a hardrock mine in Alleghany, Sierra County, CA. We bought our Prill from Alpha Explosives, which at that time was located halfway between Grass Valley and Marysville. More than once I was sent to pick up a load of Prill in the owner’s ’68 Ford F-250. I can’t say for sure it amounted to three-quarters of a ton of it but it was a full bed. I was just a 25 year old kid with a driver’s license and no FBI clearance or anything like that, just a kid driving a pickup with at least a thousand pounds of explosives. Good times.

    Another interesting thing is that Alpha Explosives started on the main street of Nevada City, CA in the 1800s and as late as the 1960s they were still mixing and selling Prill out of the basement of the Alpha building in downtown Nevada City. Pretty wild.

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