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IronDigger

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IronDigger last won the day on November 22 2017

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  1. If your in the area come and visit , we can talk shop at the museum. I work there and can give you a little tour if you like. This is the official California State Mineral collection that started up in the 1880s. It moved form the Ferry Building in San Francisco to Mariposa in the early 1980's. Our vault holds some nice gold specimens and the famous Fricot gold specimen found in the 1860s weighing in at 13.8 troy pounds. The museum also has many minerals collected from many countries. Free parking, only 4 bucks for adults, children 12 and under are free. Anyhow, hope to see some members come up our way.
  2. Hey Reese, good to hear your back safe in Montana, congrats on the nice pile of yellow. Hope this season shines for us all, lots of water, and run off form this years heavy rains. Would love to see some of your sapphires. Fred
  3. I agree with the above, I have owned a few large coils from the 20" NF round mono to the 18" Coiltek round mono and everything in between to the sadie coil. I got rid of the 20", 18" and kept the 11" commander mono because its just a dang great coil, 17x13 Evo, I have the old 16" N.F. fiberglass round mono which I enjoy using for deeper targets. The large coils sound good but after you spend a few hours on it, you begin asking yourself...WHY did I buy this. 🙂 I'd pass on the big ones. Just my 2 cents.
  4. I have been diving for 40 years, and have used my Tesoro tiger shark in southern California beaches. I primarily hunted areas where scuba shops took their students on their first beach dives. Leo Carrillo beach was one of my favorite do to the fact of many beginning divers would lose their gear coming through the surf, mostly their weight belts, dive knives, but at times other gear too. The key is to keep your stuff together, especially the detector, should be on some cord connected to your arm in case of rough entry / exit through the surf or wash zone. Most of my finds were in the intertidal zone, the area that is covered when the high tide and low tide. A ping pong paddle worked out the best for me as all I had to do is use the paddle to fan and move the sand, plus it was easy to tie down to my arm, and it didn't react to the detector. Diving with a detector is challenging in the pacific coast along california because it rough waters, IMHO detecting beaches would be more lucrative, many of these guys who hunt beaches find more gold than those of us who hunt gold nuggets with detectors. I would still get your scuba cert as its nice to be able to rent and scuba dive anywhere in the world.
  5. Hi Chase, I didn't do any adjustments so perhaps its why I struggle a bit with separation in trashy areas. I am sure if I gave it more time in the field and learned the machine I would have been able to seperate the targets better. Great machine and one I would own but as most of us know once you get used to a detector the finds get better and you just have more confidence in it. The gold setting really blew me away..as I have owned number of gold machines form the whites goldmaster to the gold bug, the Orx really is that good.
  6. I decided to keep the MXT after I tried out the Orx after trying it out I weighed out the pros and cons. The pros, light weight, collapsable, love the fact you can charge it and have a run of approx. 19 hours. The control monitor/box is removable is pretty cool. The gold setting is incredible sensitive to extreme small gold probably one of the best vlfs out there for scanning tailing piles for speci gold. The cons, comes with one coil HF 9 inch elliptical, a smaller coil is not available for extreme trashy areas, found it a bit difficult to pinpoint and to isolate one target from another in close proximity. My mxt has the small 4x6 shooter elliptical which does a great job picking out the non ferrous as opposed to the 9 inch HF in trashy areas. Overall I think the Orx is a great little detector for specific purposes like nuggethunting and coin shooting beaches, parks, but the limitations in extreme trashy grounds and cost of a new coil was the factor for me not to do the trade. If anyone is looking for a nice Orx, the owner is willing to sell it, it works as it should..he is asking 350.00 but willing to negotiate. Contact me for his number and you guys can take it from there.
  7. Chase Goldman, The fellow let me use it for a few days, he is a beginner and I thought the mxt would do him way better than the Orx. I got to use it in the front yard just this morning and I like it. I like the light weight, the fact as you stated you can take the control unit and hold it in your hand or put it in the pocket. I like the high freq for fine gold, perfect for tailing piles and hard rock speci hunting. Amazing how sensitive it is to small gold. I also briefly tried the deep coin setting and appears like it goes a bit deeper on coins then the coin fast setting. I will try it out after work this afternoon, as of now I am enjoying this little compact detector. The real test will be a 6 hour tour on the ranch. Only concern I have is the battery going out in the control unit, not sure how old it is, but its charged up and works. I will have to research the internal battery longevity and how to replace it, perhaps a factory replacement if it ever goes bad. It didn't come with wireless headphones, but I never use then on the vlfs anyhow.
  8. Great input, my main use of the MXT is relic hunting, in the gold fields and trying to pick out non ferrous items cherry pick trashy areas. I have a 4500 Minelab for my primary nuggethunting detector. I do like the compatibility and the hf coil which may be of good use on tailing piles. The only concern I have is the digital control unit having an internal battery that may be required to ship out for a factory replacement.
  9. I have an opportunity for a trade, my Mxt with small elliptical coil, for a Xp Orx with HF 9" elliptical coil. Both in good working order, would you make the trade? I like the concept of lighter, a bit more challenging newer detector. Been using the dials and toggle type for a long time. Appears of what I have seen on video the Orx is pretty decent little detector.
  10. Well my daughter made her decision and chose to order the Nokta Legend Pro package. She got the detector all put together and now we are setting up a time in April when she visits the Sierras to test her detector out on some old miners camps I regularly hunt. She found a local dealer in her area and decided to make the purchase on her own, which is good 😃 with me. Thanks to you all who gave me some advice! Will update after our first hunt.
  11. The SDC 2300 is a very very nice detector thats for sure, I had a chance to use one for a bit and like you said turn on and go detector. Its one detector I would consider owning as its effective on small gold and its collapsable.
  12. Thanks for all the advice folks, my daughter has used a metal detector before but very briefly while growing up here in the Sierras. I had her try my ML 4500 on some areas I found gold and amazingly she found her own piece of gold. Prior to that she found another when she was like 12 years of age under some manzanita bushes. For 24 of her years she seen ole dad hit the hills every week and seen my finds. So I am not surprised but still surprised that she wanted her own , guess some things rub off the ole shoulders onto new youngster shoulders. It would be a weekend thing for them, and when she visits the hills from the big city. I am actually happy about it as perhaps they will visit more often and instead of solo hunts they would join me. They can also take it on their trips to the coast and play around with it. The Legend seems like the one we will pick. Kids these days are pretty tech savvy and I have no doubt they could figure out the machine pretty fast. They will be heading my way in April for a visit so it will give us a chance to try it out on some gold camps..perhaps they will be bitten by this sickness only time will tell, and besides if they dont catch the fever I can always use a new machine. 😄
  13. I have a dilemma I hope my fellow forum members could help me with. My daughter expressed her interest to get a detector for her and her boyfriend to use. My dilemma is I have not really followed the evolution of vlf detectors since the Whites MXT days. I still use my MXT and ML 4500 for nugget hunting. I would say I had better then average success with both detectors, but I simply have no idea on what to recommend for 2 -20 somethings on choosing a vlf detector. Their primary interest would be to hunt relics in the gold fields, coins & jewelry on the beaches and on occasion gold nuggets when visiting the Sierras foothills. I was looking at the Minelab Equinox 800 w/ wireless headphones, Nokta Legend as far as those I have NO idea. They are pretty savvy with tech, I would imagine wireless headphones are a must and a machine simple to learn for first time owners. I am open for suggestions..appreciate the help fellas.
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