So far, the main means of drilling holes for blasting operations at open-pit mines are percussion rods. At mines and quarries work more than 1500 machines, the total volume of drilling by which exceeds 3 mln. pog. m of wells per year. Increase of productivity of machines and improvement of drilling works in recent years has been paid much attention, but drilling productivity grows still very slowly. At mines with a good organization of drilling operations, where machine downtime is minimized, drilling productivity in recent years has not practically increased, i.e. the reserves of productivity increase due to organizational measures have been used to a large extent. For further increase of productivity it is necessary to modernize the machines.