Cat launches its smallest rotary blasthole drill yet

The MD6200 drill offers flexibility, portability and performance, Cat says. Photo courtesy of Caterpillar.

Caterpillar unveiled the MD6200 rotary blasthole drill, which is designed as a production drill with the flexibility to do pre-split drilling.

According to Cat, the MD6200 is set up in a package that makes it the company’s most transportable rotary drill to date.

The MD6200 is designed to perform rotary or down-the-hole drilling in single-pass or multi-pass modes, and can drill holes of 5 to 7.87 in. in diameter. Also, the MD6200 offers the ability to drill at a negative angle up to 15 degrees, which enables matching the slope of the highwall for pre-split drilling. The result is cleaner highwalls with less waste material going to downstream operations, Cat says.

For traditional production drilling, the mast can tilt from vertical out to 30 degrees. The operator can adjust the mast angle in increments of 5 degrees from the touch screen in the cab – with no special setup required.

Additionally, the MD6200 can be transported over the road with the mast on, so it can simply roll onto a truck when it’s time to transport it to another site.

A Cat C18 engine powers the drill. It is available in a Tier 4 Final configuration, as well as in a Tier 2 equivalent configuration.