Silver Bullet Mines Corp. (TSX-V:SBMI, OTC:SBMCF) has revealed strong initial assay results from the interception of the upper main vein at the Buckeye Mine near Globe in Arizona.
The Burlington, Ontario-based company said the vein was intercepted approximately 380 feet from the entrance to the adit. Immediately on contact with the vein, the first significant assays from the vein were 43, 178.6, and 270.6 ounces of silver per ton, said the company.
The samples yielding these results did not include material from the footwall. The samples were selected at random from the mineralized material removed from the vein and then sent to SBMI's assay lab for processing.
READ: Silver Bullet Mines discovers new sulphide vein structures at Buckeye Mine and a new gold occurrence
Silver Bullet is now mining along the exposed vein with assay results pending from the face. It has extended the workings to 420 feet from the entrance to the adit, the vein is 10 feet wide and 11 feet high, and the footwall is estimated by the field team to be 4 feet wide.
The company has stockpiled over 450 tons of vein material at surface at the Buckeye Mine site, for shipment to the mill. Silver Bullet is mining 150 to 200 tons of mineralized material per day in the US Silver State, although this rate will vary, noted the company.
Achieves the targeted grade
Silver Bullet believes it has achieved the targeted grade necessary to support processing the material at its mill and to then pour dore bars or create concentrate. Significantly, both the dore bars and the concentrate will be “saleable product,” and Silver Bullet doesn’t expect to encounter any difficulties in finding buyers. The firm said it has begun to resolve the issues with pouring dore bars from the material.
The firm thanked Dr Andrew Macdonald, a mineralogist with Harquail School of Earth Sciences at Laurentian University, for his assistance. Initial results from his work indicate the presence of “a highly magnetic iron alloy” in the mineralized material.
The iron alloy smelts at temperatures of over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (F), which is above the silver smelting temperature of roughly 1,800 degrees F, and therefore it interferes with the silver smelting process, the company said. It has confirmed this thesis by using a high intensity magnet to pull the iron alloy from the concentrate prior to smelting. The dore bar (featured below), poured in February 2023, is a result of concentrate after the iron alloy was removed.
As a result, Silver Bullet plans to permanently install a high-intensity magnetic separator in the milling operation to improve the likelihood of being able to smelt silver dore bars. The firm said it intends to store the magnetic concentrates for future research.
The company is still waiting for the check assay results from American Assay Labs and Actlabs. Silver Bullet said its near-term goal is to “process the higher-grade material at the company's mill to produce saleable product.”
The firm told investors that the company’s facilities have been designed for “quick production grade control.” Duplicate sampling with other ISO labs has been done on past samples with good correlation, added the firm.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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