About Us — Gorilla Drillers | Hawthorne, Nevada

Built out ofMineral County dirt.

Gorilla Drillers is a Nevada-owned drilling contractor working the Great Basin out of a shop in Hawthorne. We started with one rig and a bad road. Seventeen years later the crews still do it the same way — show up early, build the pad right, and hand the client core they can defend in a technical report.

Nine rigs. Four divisions. One yard.

Surface core, reverse circulation, underground and geotechnical all run out of the same Hawthorne shop, which means the same mechanics, the same safety program and the same standard for how a hole gets finished. Crews live in the region — most of them within two hours of the projects they drill — so mobilization is measured in hours, not weeks.

We keep our own dozer, backhoe, water truck and fuel truck. If the claim block has no road, that is our problem to solve, not a line item you have to go bid somewhere else.

1.2M+

Feet drilled

Rigs

Years in Nevada

Four rules on the pad

Own the hole

The hole is ours from the road cut to the reclamation. No finger pointing, no change-order games.

Recovery over speed

Footage is easy. Core that a geologist can log without an asterisk is the part that pays.

Everybody drives home

Written JSAs every shift, stop-work authority for the greenest helper on the pad.

Fix it in the field

Full shop truck, welder and spares on site. A broken part should not cost a client a shift.

From one rig to a fleet

2009Two men, one used skid rig and a Mineral County claim block.

2014First 24-hour rotation. Lighting plants, fuel truck, two-shift crews.

2019Underground division opens; first tight-heading program in a Nevada decline.

2023Own dozer and backhoe fleet — road, pad and reclamation in-house.

2026Nine rigs, four divisions, 1.2 million feet in the ground.

The people behind the yard

Dale R.

Yard Superintendent

Thirty-one years on Nevada ground, the last twelve running the Hawthorne yard. Dale builds the rotation, sets the mob schedule and answers the phone at two in the morning when a rig goes down.

Ana V.

Safety Director

MSHA Part 46/48 instructor and the person who signs off on every JSA in the company. Ana wrote our stop-work policy and has never once questioned a hand for using it.

Ty B.

Lead Field Mechanic

Diesel, hydraulics and mobile welding out of a fully stocked service truck. If it broke on the pad, Ty is already halfway up the two-track with the part in the bed.