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My First Impression Of The Minelab Gold Monster 1000


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Your forum only review is even better than your Minelab review!!  Definitely waiting for a few months to hear reviews from Oz but you are making it harder to say no. 

I suppose if anyone really wanted wireless they can add the pro-sonic to the package. 

Thanks again Steve  :wink:

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Power and simplicity!!

I believe that this is a combination will soon be a THING.  A while back Dave Johnson posted somewhere something like "I will design the perfect metal detector....and everybody will hate it!"

Full marks to Minelab for dispensing with complication and knobs - focusing on "..the job to be done".

Simplicity and fierce focus! Quite splendid!

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Steve

Being the GM1000 has two coils and you said the 5" coil would or did hit on a sub grain gold. With the 10X6 did you find it would detect small gold but maybe not to the point of the 5" did? What coil did you find yourself swinging most ?

Looking forward to your reply.

Chuck

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The 10" coil will hit gold nearly as small as the 5" coil. My personal take on the GM1000 is that I will use it almost exclusively with the 10" coil as a highly sensitive reconnaissance detector. If I wanted to pound a 10 square foot patch of ground for an entire day trying to get every last tiny bit out of it then I see no advantage using a GM1000 over a Gold Bug 2. The big advantage in my opinion comes in leveraging the 10" coil and superb ground tracking to cover highly mineralized variable ground. The kind of ground where a Gold Bug 2 would require constant ground adjustments, and yet at the same time having more sensitivity than something like a Gold Bug Pro. Imagine a Tesoro Lobo that is as hot as a Gold Bug 2 and you sort of get the picture.

No doubt there will be people who specialize in using the GM1000 almost exclusively with the 5" coil to chase the tiniest bits but I prefer these days to cover more ground in the search for the ones that add up faster. I really hope that Minelab considers a 14" elliptical for the GM1000 in the future for this very reason.

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1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The 10" coil will hit gold nearly as small as the 5" coil. My personal take on the GM1000 is that I will use it almost exclusively with the 10" coil as a highly sensitive reconnaissance detector.

Thanks for that answer Steve re 5" vs 10".  After using the 14"  coil for over 2 years I don`t think I could ever go to a 5".  I`ve got a mate that has orderd the 1000 and I`m pretty sure he will only ever use the 5".  Hopefully I will get out for a detect with him not long after the detector comes out, but I`ll be looking at it wth the idea of using the 10".  Dave

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As usual, you do a terrific review, and thereby pose an interesting question that has plagued me for a coming trip to Alaska where I'm torn about bringing a second detector.  you stated:

"The big advantage in my opinion comes in leveraging the 10" coil and superb ground tracking to cover highly mineralized variable ground. The kind of ground where a Gold Bug 2 would require constant ground adjustments, and yet at the same time having more sensitivity than something like a Gold Bug Pro."

Alaska vs the 7000 (particularly the Nome inland area) - where "variable ground" conditions rule....  Do you think the the GM1000 might work as effectively, or possibly better than the GPZ7000?   You have far more knowledge of the ground conditions in AK than I, so i lean on that experience in this question. Thanks Steve, for the excellent job you do with this site!

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7 hours ago, Swifty said:

Hi steve, any feelings on the monster discrimination? If I wanted to block out some super hot iron stones would I be able to? 

The Minelab Gold Monster 1000 actually has two distinct discrimination methods. The first is reminiscent of the White's GMT "Probability Meter". This is an LCD display that operates in parallel with the all metal mode, and is by far my preferred way of operating the GM1000 while having discrimination. You operate as normal in all metal mode, with no loss of depth or any other changes in operating parameters. The meter is doing its thing at the same time, with a very easy "right = non-ferrous and left = ferrous" indicator as seen below. The farther to the left, the greater the chance you are dealing with a ferrous object or an iron based hot rock.

The GM1000 ground tracking is going to handle all the hot rocks a ground balance system can handle, but it can't get them all. The remainders will normally bang left on the meter as ferrous targets. Be aware however there is such a thing as a non-ferrous hot rock (graphite, copper ore) that can read solid non-ferrous. The bane of all prospectors except those prospecting for graphite and copper!

For ferrous trash in my opinion most people approach discrimination incorrectly. All ferrous discrimination systems can be fooled. So when you use a ferrous discrimination system, look for reasons to dig instead of reasons to not dig. Some people say dig everything, and this is wise except when totally impractical. If you are in a trash pit, use the discrimination to avoid digging 1000 worthless holes.

But still look for reasons to dig. Don't get lazy. If the ferrous meter bangs full left pass after pass after pass of the coil - you can be fairly safe in ignoring that target. But if it goes non-ferrous on even just one pass of the coil, or is only repeatedly one bar ferrous, dig it up. Another way to look at it, try to get the meter to give you a reason to dig by trying to massage the signal with the coil to get a non-ferrous reading. Don't try to turn a non-ferrous reading into a ferrous reading because you do not feel like digging. When in doubt, dig it out!

Finally, there is a "iron reject" mode that is preprogrammed to silently reject ferrous targets. This is similar to the "iron disc" mode on a Gold Bug 2. Just put it in disc mode and ferrous targets, including ferrous hot rocks, will go silent or break up. There is an attendant loss in depth and sensitivity just as occurs with all silent reject discrimination systems. Not only do you lose depth, but if the system makes a bad call as you pass over a target you will never know it was there. Better to use all metal and hear every target, then analyze before making a dig or no-dig decision.

However, a silent reject disc system does provide you with a system of the last resort for dealing with crazy thick trash or hot rocks. You just want to shut the darn thing up, go to disc mode. Again, you really should dig broken and "iffy" targets, but you can go into a simple "dig them only if they sound good" mode for the worst places.

The options: 1. Use all metal and dig everything. 2. Use all metal and dig everything but 100% ferrous meter readings. 3. Use all metal but only dig targets that read on the meter as 100% non-ferrous (cherry pick mode). 4. Activate disc mode and dig all good sounding and iffy targets. And last resort 5. Activate disc mode and only dig them if they sound great.

I am counting at least five different levels of possible discrimination options there.

minelab-gold-monster-1000-gold-chance-indicator-display.jpg

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