Jump to content

Aussie Gold Monster Appraisal


Recommended Posts

Hi orhirboy.Sorry for the delay.Wow I thought I was an old timer but you beat me by 4 years.By coincidence I also bought a Whites 5000D, but in 1980 from the disposal shop in Elizabeth Street Melbourne across the street from the main post office and paid $400 for it.Went to Wedderburn that Easter and the bush was thick with tents and cars just like a major gold rush. Like everyone else I found nothing that day but did a lot of walking which probably delayed my heart attack 32 years later.Then 2 months later I went back and only found a couple there which I got friendly with and near Chinaman's Hill I found a 1 gram small specimen.The following year I found a half oz. nugget at Cup Gully which was all surfaced at least 7 foot deep but I found it 6 inches deep in the side of the gully.After that I bought a 16 inch coil which enabled me to find bigger nuggets 1/4 to 3 oz. beauties and they just kept rolling in.So now I am back with a more sophisticated machine than the Whites which is more suited to the very high mineralisation found here and much easier to use.Plan to get the 16 inch coil next year.The important difference now though  

is the nuggets have become very scarce but I recently bought over my Russian wife who sticks with me through thick and thin on the goldfields.Best of luck.Mike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Hi Orhirboy

Great review mate! And although these machines haven't been out all that long there are some people finding some nice gold with it! Just have to be patient I guess, And the thing that we also need to remember is that not everyone posts there finds for obvious reasons.  

But as you also stated it's got to be used for what it was intended for ! A Lamborghini is a beautiful car very expensive with some very high tech parts but if you take it out on bush tracks through the scrub looking for gold I can guarantee you it's not going to get you where you need to go!! As yes it's not made for going off road!. Everything has a particular purpose.

I've been speaking to a guy using his Monster on some old areas that some older Pi machines were used over, it's some chunky quartz s and slate crevices and using the small coil to squeeze in and around the big bits that a larger coil just can't get in between and he has done very well indeed with well over half an OZ been found in the past three weeks on a nice patch he found, some nice specimens there that his shown me.

So it's certainly a great little machine that punches well above its weight,  and as we know you can't find anything unless you put your coil over it! There's plenty of dirt out there and not much gold in comparison, so it dose come down to luck a majority of the time,  but the more your out swinging the detector the better your chances are of getting lucky! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 G,day Bhogg . Yes it's certainly an interesting machine . A nice machine for first timers if they can't afford  a PI . As others have said , you have to punch up the sensitivity for specialist crevice work , but the auto and auto plus are great for trouble free switch and go detecting .users have also commented on its beach ability so it might end up being a general purpose detector for a lot of people . I have found the user friendliness of the discriminator depends very much on how tough the mineralisation is your area . The Americans seem to be able to wind up the sensitivity a lot more and the ferrous - non ferrous bar graph becomes more reliable . Try it yourself with a lead shot or small nugget down around 5 inches . The monster pings it as sweet as honey but the graph won't budge to the right for love or money until you get it out of the ground . Sometimes just one swing to the right on another coil direction gives it away . I have become totally dependent on sound identification until it's in the surface pile .ive watched 2 videos of guys in Victoria passing over and missing larger nuggets with the GM , but they are running full sensitivity in high mineral conditions and simply overloading the ground response , running in auto or auto plus would have shown much better results . And your right Gold is not a renewable resource when it's gone it's gone. Good luck.     Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I seem to run my GM differently than most here in the states. Where the ground is fairly even I run manual sensitivity, bumping up or down a notch as required. Place before last 6 - 7 - 8 was good, with 7 most of the time, and up or down a notch as needed. I keep it right where just a hint of ground noise bleeds through. If the ground gets too variable, then it is Auto or Auto+

The last spot was a little hotter, so 5 - 6 - 7 was the magic trio. In worse ground I can imagine 4 - 5 - 6 or even 3 - 4 - 5 as being required.

The only targets I skip are ones where the meter bangs hard ferrous over and over. But just one swing to non-ferrous or no meter reading at all - dig it. Preferable of course to dig everything but the trash sometimes disagrees!

Anyway, I think some people are having issues because they fear backing off the sensitivity. However, in casual testing on a one gram nugget I found the GM at sensitivity 7 to be roughly equal to the Gold Bug Pro at maxed out gain. I only run sensitivity 9 or 10 if I have a very small area that I am certain contains gold. I wish those setting were marked in red, like on my car RPM gauge. "you are redlining sir - hope she doesn't blow"! Just too hot for covering lots of ground in my opinion without creating too much noise. Great for mini patch and crevice work though.

With my Gold Bug 2 the trial was in always being on top of the ground balance. What I am enjoying about the GM is the ground balance is not a worry other than how fast you are moving. That makes just monitoring the "threshold" (faint ground feedback) easy with only a touch of my thumb to bump it up or down as required.

Anyway, perfect mate for my Zed. Sometimes that beast just tires me out, and it is fun to grab a light weight detector and go ping some small gold, which for me unfortunately is always easier than finding the big ones.

I really appreciate your reporting Paul - good stuff.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Steve . I have not tried general searching using the manual as you would on  knob detectors  , I tend only to use it that way in pinpoint and dig mode . Bhogg was interested in the discrimination tests so I thought I would throw in the details . I had a 2 gram nugget ( see picture)that was slightly crystalline found first time out with the Gm that I buried in a test spot in what I would call medium to high mineralization soil ( see ironstone sample from that test spot in picture ) . I then drilled a 3/4 hole 5 inches deep and dropped the nugget in as not to disturb soil density.  I then set the monster to auto plus and scanned from multi directions and through the ground was noisey a typical non ferrous zip showed the presence of a good target ( the meter was pegged to the left on all passes) . I then switched to manual 5  but the ground was to noisey so backed down to 3 to get a comparable noise to auto plus. ( the meter would still show no movement to  non ferrous . But the signal was good . After retrieving the nugget I tested it in the same loose soil and the meter showed positive non ferrous around max 1 1/2 inches from the coil , it bounced between at 2 - 3 inches . So let this be a lesson to all you Aussie GM owners who only dig by the meter reading  . And as Elma Fudd would say " be vewy vewy careful.  .

IMG_0479.JPG

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...