I use this pan when I want to work fast & sample a lot of ground. The riffles are DEEP & catch everything. It also fits in a standard 5 gallon bucket!
Only drawbacks are:
1.) The riffles are so deep, it can take a while to finish even just enough to pull back early when sampling ground. So I got a razor knife and cut some angled grooves on 1/4 of the circumference of the bare sides (blade engled toward the lip of the pan) to catch small heavies. When the material gets low I just work it back down below the knife cuts, knock off the bulk of overburden with a few shakes & dips. You all know the routine.
2.) Not the best pan to over fill because it's a bit awkward to stratify when there's a lot of material, especially clay. A wide bottom pan is much nicer for working the clay. Just take smaller bites. I power pan about half a bucket down to about a half pan's worth of cons, which equates to running about 6-10 pans worth of material. I combine & pan the cons from each down a bit slower. 2.5gal of dirt down to 1/4 cup of heavies. I take a peek, put in an old pill bottle, with a number written on the top with a sharpie, & I mark the way point on my GPS app with that number, so I can identify the richest or easiest ground to work.
Trust me. You can work a lot faster than you think if you just keep fast shaking as you work the lighter material across the riffles which just grab all the heavy materiel. Pan into another pan, working about twice the speed you think is too fast. You'll see. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to cut a full pan down to 1/8 cup of cons in about 2-3min if the clay isn't bad or 1/4 cup in about a minute. If the gold is chunky & material is sandy, not silt or clay, you can trust this pan to catch darn near everything in about a minute.
The relatively tall sides with the razor modification make it my go to pan to toss in my bucket.
The small diameter of the floor of the pan is less than ideal, but I'll take that over short sides.
Summary, this is the overall packable fast prospecting pan I've used & what I hand beginners. My Estwing plastic pans with two riffle sizes and large floor is my favorite overall but I think they stopped making them. Also too big to fit in a bucket. My best finishing pan is an old iron pan. The fine gold sticks to the rusty and in the pits and micro grooves. Best backpacking pan is my Motherlode Prospecting titanium pan which triples as an egg frying & gold drying pan.
Definitely add one of these to your arsenal because there is no one pan that will do it all. This one is also very durable. Surprisingly rigid. I'm ordering another one or the 5 pack right now!
