Gold Racer Is The Real Deal

[goldbrick]

Yesterday I took my new Makro Gold Racer to an old railroad siding to do a little testing and learn the machine. I did not have a large learning curve as I already own the Red Racer so I understood the menu system. The Red Racer is the easiest VLF I have ever operated. The Gold Racer has a few more functions but it was read once through the manual, turn on, a couple easy adjustments and I was off and running.
I did not find anything worth keeping during my hour of testing. I was not surprised as this place has been pounded relentlessly for 25 years at least but it is close to where I am camping. I did learn that it is true the GR loves low and mid-conductors and bangs hard on them. I found more than a few bullets, shell cases, foil, bits of copper, etc, etc....
But I did not buy this machine to go relic hunting (although I will use it for that on occasion) and I have no interest in jewelry hunting in parks. I want this machine for prospecting. So this morning it was off to a super secret location in the NV desert with my brother. This site is an old hardrock mine that has a dump with a lot of quartz in it. There is some gold to be found in the tailings. Mostly very small stuff still encased in the quartz. A lot of the signals are so faint you have to chase it around the pile with a GBII because if the pebble the gold is in turns wrong you lose the signal.
Neither my brother or I am scientists. Nor are we neophytes to prospecting with metal detectors.  We only do testing to answer questions we ourselves would like to know. Otherwise we are too busy having fun detecting to be bothered with detector shootouts, videos, or the like. Please let's not get into the minutiae of particular settings on the detectors, depths in centimeters, or my astrological sign. I am on vacation and don't want the negativity in my life.
My brother and I compared inground, undug signals between the Makro Gold Racer and the Fisher GB II. If we inadvertently gave one detector the edge it would be the GBII as I probably could have ran the GR hotter if I was more familiar with it. 
In all instances we could not discern a measurable difference in the performance of these two detectors on the smallest of gold targets. The signal would vary a little due to the differences between the 3"x6" concentric and the 5" round DD but one detector never received a signal that the other could not. We were actually quite surprised by these results but in this ground on this day detecting these targets the GBII and GR ran neck and neck. This is not only my opinion but that of my brother as well and he is a big GBII fan(he owns two of them). Your results may vary and probably will.

HH,

Merton
 

[strick]

Less philosophy.... more pictures and please include the surrounding landscape .....

strick

[Steve Herschbach]

Thanks for the report Merton. I have been cautious and careful to always give the nod to the Gold Bug 2 when questions get asked about it and the Gold Racer. Mainly for the very serious reason that I know they are very close, but that I no longer have a Gold Bug 2 for direct comparison. So when in doubt, I figure I am not going to stir that pot. There will always be a Gold Bug 2 fan club in my opinion.

[Monte]

I also appreciate your report, Merton, and I am sure you will find, in time, that the Gold Racer is a worthy model in the Low Frequency range class of detectors.  I know I will use mine from time-to-time to seek gold jewelry simply because it has that advantage in its favor.  But I have used mine at some Relic Hunting sites when evaluating it, and it definitely can perform well on those lower-conductive targets.

Relic Hunting sites I frequent have a lot of trash, especially iron trash, and my preferred models for Relic Hunting, in order I might employ them, are my FORS Relic, Racer 2, FORS Gold + and FORS CoRe ... then the Gold Racer.  The exception are my visits to some of the gold mining town sites where there are still a lot of tailing piles where I will use the Gold Racer more in the gold prospecting areas.

I have used the Gold Racer in a few places where it was handy to pick the Discriminate mode and only reject some of the hot rock challenges, and Makro's smart move to provide us a detector primarily geared for gold nugget hunting and having Discrimination capabilities is sure a welcome relief.  White's, Garrett and Fisher all let us down in the past by not doing this, but I'll bet some future Gold Nugget Hunting models will wake up to the challenge set my Makro's Gold Racer.

Best of success to you in the gold fields.

Monte

[goldbrick]

Yesterday was just one test, at one level of mineralization, hunting one particular type of location(hard rock tailings)on the second time I had ever used the GR. In a different scenario the GBII may beat the pants off the GR simply because of the small elliptical coil versus the round 5" may present a large advantage at a single location where you have to poke the coil into tight brush a lot. But generally speaking I think you will not be sucking wind if you have a GR and your buddies are covering the soil with a GBII. In fact I think the exact opposite MAY occur due to the 5" round is likely to obtain better overall depth on a consistent basis than the 3x6" and the GR thru use of high gain levels in conjunction with the iSAT function may run better and punch deeper in areas of high mineralization. In areas of highly variable mineralization I think a prospector may see a distinct advantage with the GR just due to the fact that the Auto GB (ground grab) will allow him to cover more ground in the same amount of time, not even mentioning the possible use of GB Tracking and the inherent advantages therein.

The GR balances better than the GBII with the bigger coils installed(my opinion only) and I think many differences may be magnified when using the larger coils as the small coil is what made the GBII a brilliant machine in the first place and when you put the 10" on it I thought a substantial performance loss was apparent. All of these scenarios are of course  while in All-metal Mode as it is the best mode on both machines for prospecting in clean ground.

I will not enumerate the many advantages I see possibly occurring when  comparing the use of the GR to GBII in discriminate mode. If you ever run both machines in trash I can not for the life of me see how any one could argue when I say that GR will simply kick the GBII's butt in that scenario.

HH,

Merton

[fredmason]

fun, vacation, gold and new toy....sounds good to me! I thought I was immune to wanting a new vlf...but, all the Gold Racer talk is heating up by blood...

dang this forum

fred

[goldbrick]

Hey Fred it doesn't get much better, life in the NV desert this time of year is great. Marstin and I have been all over Pershing County exploring. Some days we don't even turn the detectors on, just soak up the beauty of the desert. I hope you get a chance to use your new RV on some trips soon.  

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hello Merton... thankyou for sharing your experience and insights... this is a very good, sensible report that I can understand. Your non-technical or philosophical remarks place a perspective on your findings that  I enjoyed, and certainly appreciate where you are coming from... many thanks and good luck with everything. 

Jim.

[goldbrick]

9 hours ago, Jim Hemmingway said:

Hello Merton... thankyou for sharing your experience and insights... this is a very good, sensible report that I can understand. Your non-technical or philosophical remarks place a perspective on your findings that  I enjoyed, and certainly appreciate where you are coming from... many thanks and good luck with everything. 

Jim.

Jim, I haven't seen you posting on the net lately, glad to see you are thawing out up there. I always look forward to your analysis of your latest adventure, I usually read them a couple times so I don't miss any kernels of knowledge you have passed on. Your comments on different detectors have taught me a lot. Please keep them coming my friend.

HH,

Merton