Vault Strategic in Nevada: Four Months of Work on One Tungsten Property

Since July 3, 2026, Vault Strategic Mining has sampled its War Bond tungsten property in Nevada, flown a 73.6 line-kilometre magnetic survey over it, closed a C$1.5 million placement and engaged a qualified person on its first technical report. Its statements for the six months to November 30, 2026 will be the first to show the cost of that work.

Those four months began with a decision to focus on one property. On July 3, 2026 Vault said it would no longer pursue its options on the Wheeler and Mirage-Mariposa tungsten projects. It cited its technical review and its capital allocation priorities, and said it would put its resources into War Bond.

A 1950s tungsten producer in western Nevada

War Bond is a package of 20 unpatented lode claims, about 400 acres, in the Delaware Mining District of western Nevada. An unpatented claim gives the holder the right to explore and mine federal land without owning the surface. The package takes in the historical War Bond, Tactite and Thursday workings, which the records may treat as overlapping names for one tungsten occurrence area, according to Vault's May 13, 2026 release announcing the deal.

The deal is an option. Under the May 13, 2026 agreement, Vault can acquire 100 per cent of the claims from Mining Dealer, LLC, an arm's-length vendor, for cash payments totalling US$135,000. The money is staged from closing over twelve months, with the two largest instalments at the end; Key numbers sets out the schedule. No shares change hands under the terms set out in that release.

The company's audited annual statements to May 31, 2026 record the War Bond option agreement as a subsequent event, show the first US$10,000 as paid, and state that on exercise the vendor receives a 1.5 per cent net smelter royalty, which Vault can reduce by paying US$500,000 for each 0.5 per cent.

The property has produced before. Records from the US Geological Survey's mineral database, quoted in the May release, list production at War Bond in the early 1950s at roughly 0.3 to 0.45 per cent tungsten trioxide (WO3), the oxide in which tungsten grades are usually stated. Vault states that these figures predate Canada's NI 43-101 disclosure rules and should not be relied on as current resources or reserves.

That caveat sets the task. The company's job at War Bond is to re-establish with modern data what the old records describe.

Choosing one property from a wider list

Vault's portfolio is wider than War Bond. Its investor presentation, which is undated but describes a 2026 road map, lists War Bond beside the Letain nickel project in northern British Columbia, the Mia Silver property and two other gold and silver properties in Idaho and California. Earlier in 2026 the company had also added Wheeler, in Nevada, announced January 21, 2026, and Mirage-Mariposa, in California, announced May 8, 2026, to its tungsten list. The Mirage-Mariposa agreement alone carried US$380,000 in staged payments, according to Vault's May 8, 2026 release.

The July 3 decision dropped both. The same release said Vault intends to form a wholly owned subsidiary to hold its US historical mine assets. Quinn Field-Dyte, the chief executive, said in the release that "establishing a dedicated subsidiary for our U.S. historical mine portfolio is an important step in organizing these assets for future growth." The company's website still lists Letain and Mia Silver among its properties, and War Bond is the one with a work program in progress.

The narrowing matters for a company of Vault's size. Option payments and fieldwork on seven properties would have spread the treasury across seven sets of obligations. Vault's own stated reasons were its technical review, its field work and its capital allocation priorities.

The work, in the order it was filed

The releases since July read as a sequence, and each step was set up by the one before it.

1. July 15, 2026: Vault announced the engagement of William Feyerabend, a certified professional geologist, with Amazona Enterprises, to prepare War Bond's maiden NI 43-101 technical report, as the company's August 6 release recounts.
2. July 24, 2026: Vault reported that surface sampling had returned tungsten values up to 1,100 parts per million, measured as the element rather than as the oxide used for the historical grades, and the same day it engaged Pioneer Exploration Consultants to fly a magnetic survey as the follow-up.
3. August 3, 2026: Pioneer finished about 73.6 line-kilometres of drone magnetic survey, on lines 25 metres apart, according to the October 19 release; the August 6 release had described the survey as under way.
4. September 29, 2026: Vault closed a non-brokered placement of 12,000,000 units at C$0.125 for C$1.5 million.
5. October 19, 2026: the company released the processed survey maps and said the data would support the technical report and, after follow-up surface work, drill permit applications.

A magnetic survey measures small changes in the earth's magnetic field caused by the rocks underneath. At War Bond it is a way to trace the contact between granite and limestone, where skarn forms; skarn is the altered rock that hosts the tungsten mineral scheelite in this district. The October 19 release says plainly that magnetic responses alone do not establish the presence, grade or continuity of tungsten mineralization. Pioneer's report covers acquisition, processing and quality control, and the release leaves the geological interpretation to Vault's own geologists, who will set the maps beside the mapping and the sampling.

An NI 43-101 technical report is the document Canadian rules require before a company can make certain kinds of scientific disclosure about a mineral property. It is written or signed by a qualified person. A first report describes the property and the work done so far, and recommends a program. For War Bond, it would be the first independent account of the property written under those rules.

The money behind the program

Each unit in the September placement carries one share and one warrant, a right to buy another share at a fixed price for a set period. The terms, from the closing release of September 29, 2026:

Four brokerage firms shared the finder's fees. After the hold period, the company may bring the warrants' expiry forward if the shares close at or above C$0.30 for five consecutive trading days.

The placement followed the company's May 31 year-end. Vault held cash of C$589,226 against total liabilities of C$1,582,145 at May 31, 2026, per its audited annual statements, which carry a material uncertainty about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.

The closing release says the proceeds will fund exploration activities and general corporate purposes. The September 29, 2026 placement brought in about C$1,419,600 after the cash fees, before any other costs.

The share count moved twice after the year-end, according to note 14 of the audited statements:

The placement shares are about 43 per cent of that total. The warrant exercise brought in C$144,523, and 12,643,200 warrants exercisable at C$0.20 are outstanding from the placement and the finder's fees.

Vault has moved to semi-annual reporting under the securities regulators' blanket order 51-933, so it filed no interim statements for the quarter to August 31. The statements to November 30, 2026, due within 60 days of that date according to the October 19 release, will be the first to show the placement on the balance sheet.

Why tungsten in Nevada has a deadline attached

Tungsten is the hard, heavy metal in cutting tools and armour-piercing alloys. The US defence procurement rules are about to change how that matters to buyers.

Clause 252.225-7052 of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement already bars defence contractors from delivering tungsten powder or heavy alloy melted or produced in China, Russia, North Korea or Iran. From January 1, 2027 the bar reaches back to the mine: material mined or refined in those countries is covered too, ore and feedstock included. A domestic tungsten source becomes worth more to that supply chain from that date.

Vault has made the policy case itself. Its August 6 release welcomed a reported one-year US restriction on exports of tungsten waste and scrap, while acknowledging that the measure covers recycled material rather than newly mined tungsten. The same release cites the Fraser Institute's survey of mining companies, published February 26, 2026, which ranked Nevada first among mining jurisdictions.

Vault itself links the policy to its Nevada tungsten mines, and War Bond is its focus in 2026.

What has been done, and what is dated

Four months on, Vault has modern surface samples and a survey flown at close spacing over its chosen asset. A qualified person is engaged on the technical report, and the September money is in the bank. As at the audited statements, the option had US$125,000 still to run, the last instalment due a year after closing.

Vault says any drilling remains subject to technical evaluation, permits, funding and access, and the technical report and the drill permit timetable are not yet dated. The next scheduled filing is the six-month report to November 30, 2026, the first to carry the War Bond work in its numbers.