The working face of an open-pit iron mine: stepped benches of freshly blasted rock banded blue-grey and rust red, with a haul truck small on a lower terrace for scale.

Bench 4 · face after the June shot

Iron Range · since 1974

We core it before we shoot it.

Contract drilling, blasting and pit development across the Mesabi. Every shot on your property is designed off a hole we drilled and logged ourselves — because the cheapest blast is the one you do not have to do twice.

Ask for a shot plan See how we log a hole

−12 m

What we're hired for

Four things, and we bring our own steel.

We work as a contract crew for pit operators, aggregate yards and county road projects across St. Louis and Itasca counties. Licensed blasters, our own drills, our own magazine.

A crawler blasthole drill standing on a pit bench, mast vertical over a row of collared holes, spruce treeline behind.

Production drilling

Down-the-hole and top-hammer rigs, 3½ to 6 inch, holes logged as they're drilled so the pattern answers to the rock and not to a spreadsheet.

A freshly blasted muckpile spilling from the toe of a bench face, the broken rock evenly sized, dust still hanging.

Blast design & loading

Electronic detonators, timed to keep vibration inside the limit at the nearest structure — and a seismograph record you get whether you ask for it or not.

A hydraulic mining excavator swinging a bucket of broken rock over the bed of a rigid haul truck on the pit floor.

Pit development

Access roads, benches cut to a surveyed plan, highwall left at an angle the inspector and the geologist both sign off on.

A radial stacking conveyor building a conical stockpile of crushed stone in the aggregate yard.

Aggregate supply

Crushed ledge rock, base course and rip-rap off our own permitted pit near Chisholm. Scaled, ticketed, delivered.

−34 m

The part nobody photographs

The core box decides everything after it.

Powder factor, hole spacing, how much of the shot ends up as fines you can't sell — all of it is set before anyone loads a hole. It's set in a wooden box on a steel bench.

A wooden core box holding four rows of drill core, banded dark blue-grey and rust red, with blank depth tags between the segments. — Hole VC-114, boxes 3–4. Logged wet, photographed before it leaves the bench.

Hole VC-114 · logged interval
Depth	Unit	Fe
0–6 m	Overburden	—
6–24 m	Glacial till	—
24–41 m	Cherty hematite	31.4%
41–58 m	Magnetite taconite	36.8%
58–96 m	Magnetite taconite	38.1%

−48 m

How a job runs

Six steps, and you're told before each one.

Walk the ground

We come out, look at what you've got and tell you if it's worth opening. Sometimes the answer is that the ledge is too thin and you're better off buying rock.

Drill and log

Two to six holes depending on the block. Core boxed, photographed and left with you — it's your ground, it's your record.

Design the shot

Pattern, timing and powder factor written down, with the predicted vibration at the nearest structure and the margin we're keeping.

Notify and load

Neighbours notified, road closures arranged with the county, magazine drawn down the morning of. Nothing sits loaded overnight.

Shoot and record

Seismograph on the nearest foundation, high-speed record of the face. Both go in the file with your name on it.

Peak particle velocity 0.28 in/s at 410 ft. Limit 0.50.

Muck, scale, and hand it over

Highwall scaled to a safe face before anyone works under it. You get the survey, the records and the ground.

A pit wall of stacked benches seen straight on: bands of blue-grey magnetite and rust-red hematite, with a haul road between each pair and a single truck small on one road for scale. — Six benches, one haul road each · the truck gives the scale

−72 m

The end of the contract

Reclamation isn't the favour at the end. It's a line in the bid.

Minnesota makes you bond it. We'd price it in anyway: the crew that opens a pit badly is the crew that gets to close it badly, and around here everybody knows whose pit is whose.

A reclaimed mine bench: the stepped terraces still clearly readable under established grass and young birch and pine, with a settling pond at the base. — **Sturgeon pit · closed 2009 · photographed this spring**
Same benches, sixteen years on. The steps stay — regraded to a stable angle, seeded with a native mix, and the pond left as the pond. It's the only picture on this page with anything green in it, and that's the point.

−84 m

The outfit

Three generations on the same range.

Started by Einar Vaarala in 1974 with one wagon drill and a pickup. Same family, same county, and a crew that mostly grew up within twenty miles of the pit.

1974Founded in Hibbing

19On the crew

4Drills, all ours

0Lost-time injuries since 2019

Two crew members in hard hats and high visibility jackets standing at the base of a drill on a bench, seen from behind, looking up at the mast. — Nineteen on the crew, and most grew up inside twenty miles of this hole

−90 m

Asked often

Straight answers.

How close to a house can you shoot?

Closer than most people expect, but it depends on the rock and the structure, not on a number in a book. We put a seismograph on the nearest foundation and design the shot to stay under the limit with margin. If we can't, we tell you before you spend anything.

Do we need our own permits, or do you handle that?

We hold the blasting licence and the magazine permit. The mineland permit and the reclamation bond are the property owner's, but we prepare the plan and the maps that go with the application, and we've never had one come back.

What does the core logging cost if we don't go ahead?

You pay for the drilling and you keep the core and the log. If the ground doesn't justify a pit we'll say so, and we'd rather tell you at four holes than after you've bought a crusher.

Can you supply aggregate without doing the drilling?

Yes. Crushed ledge rock, base course and rip-rap off our permitted pit near Chisholm, scaled and ticketed. Delivery inside about sixty miles.

−96 m

Floor of the pit

Tell us what you're sitting on.

Send the parcel number or just the township and range. We'll pull what's on record, drive out, and tell you what we think — including that it isn't worth it.

Call (218) 555-0142 shots@vermilioncut.com

Yard4180 Brooklyn Dr, Hibbing, MN 55746

HoursMon–Fri 6:30–17:00. Shots are daylight only.

LicenceMN Explosives Licence · MSHA Part 46

Emergencies(218) 555-0199, any hour