Nowadays in opencast mining there are more restrictions on the use primary mining method by blasting to excavate hard rocks with compressive strength material about 20 MPa. This situation is caused by high ranges of paraseismic vibrations and air blast wave which have a negative impact on protected objects and population living close to open pits area. In such cases it is necessary to replace mining by blasting by other mining technology which will keep the competitiveness of sourced mineral. The paper shows overview of the mechanical methods mining with using crawler rippers, surface miners, hydraulic breakers, vibratory rippers and transverse drum cutters. Some of them are well-known and used for a long time in Poland. However, others like surface miners are still new in Polish open pits, despite the fact that there are commonly used in the global mining over the years. In the other hand the use of vibratory rippers or transverse drum cutters are still new approaches to mechanical rocks mining.