A stamp mill is a mechanical device used to separate gold from rocks and ore. It features a number of sizable steel stamps. These stamps are attached to powerful battering arms, which raise and lower the stamps.

Putting Together A Small Free Gold Mill. May 2018 by Chris Ralph. Most small-scale miners want to know how they can set up a system much more cheaply. The difficulty is in the balance of putting together a decent small-scale system at a reasonable cost. Online access required.

 — The average duty of a miner's inch in a gold stamp-mill is given by P. M. Randall as 12 tons of quartz if the head under which the water is supplied is 4 inches, and 15.88 tons if the head is 7 inches.

Stamps mills were an efficient way to crush the rock into powder and thus free even fine particles of gold. Stamp Mill manufactures went into production all over California funded by east coast old money.

The cost of milling in arrastras under proper conditions is 6 to 8 cents per ton; by stamp this would be 25 to 40 cents per ton." Kern County, California horse-powered arrastra being built ca. 1890s. Arrastras remained popular throughout the 1800's, and even into the early 1900s for smaller operations.

The Standard mill at Bodie is significant as an intact example of the "model California stamp mill" that emerged from the flowering of 19th-century developments in mining and milling technologies in the wake of the California gold rush.

 — Publications such as the Engineering and Mining Journal, frequently wrote on comparisons between milling and concentrating practices in the Lake Superior copper district and those of the California gold mines.

Crisson's 140+-Year-Old Stamp Mill. The Stamp Mill is a very simple machine. The flywheel builds momentum to turn the cam. The cam lifts the stamps and then gravity drops them back down at a rate of 40 times per minute. It can process approximately 1 ton of rock per hour. There are several ways to power a Stamp Mill. One way is a water wheel.

Stamp Mills. A stamp mill is a large mechanical device used to crush ore and extract the desired metals from the host material. It uses heavy steel stamps to crush and break apart material, releasing the valuable gold from worthless rock, allowing for the extraction of gold for further refining.

The earliest, and simplest method of crushing ore was the use of arrastras. When enough capital was available, stamp mills replaced arrastras at most mines. The following sections take a look at various types of stamp mills, the most common milling facilities at mines of the frontier West.