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Bill Southern mentioned in a Nugget Shooter video that the small tacks found while metal detecting were often misidentified as boot tacks. The tacks were actually used to attach a drywasher bellows. Found this older video of a homemade drywasher that helped to demonstrate what he was explaining. In the foothills of the Sierras the temperatures during mid to late summer in the river canyons get hot enough to dry the pay dirt for processing in a drywasher. When I now detect a tack upslope far from water I start looking for drywasher piles. Either way great idea for a DIY non-motorized drywasher.

I don't think so, it seemed to be washed out by the little creek.. I didn't think to smash away any more of that bank, now I wish I had.. Thanks for the tip! This was on milder ground where the GM24K was still behaving itself, but just a few metres away it was hard going.. Cam also ran his GPX over the same gully and also didn't hit any targets..

Do you think people have been digging out under that bank to look for gold, there was a spot around here that was very similar to that, I kept smashing away the edge of the bank and finding gold in the collapsed soil. I kept going and going until it ran out. Prior to smashing it up no gold was detectable in the soil. Mine was a lot rockier than that though.

I think the guy on the left is “American Detection.” He puts out videos on First Texas Products. The guy in the back is “RAM Detecting.” He swings a Time Ranger Pro. That’s what it looks like the way the coil connects, except there’s a rag or something hanging off the other side. The guy on the right is “Finding Alabama.” F75. You can even see the knob on top. The new coils have a fatter connector which makes it look different.

So far, I've only done cross-sectional analyses of circular coils. I'm not sure it can do more complex shapes. It appears Elmer can, another free FEM tool, but I haven't found any idiot-training videos for Elmer as yet. I'm also to the point where I need to do some 3D analyses so if I find anything usable I'll post it here.

My son Cameron and I have just returned from a six day prospecting trip at the goldfields around Warwick, Queensland.. He was using a GPX 6000 which he bought in a pawnshop for Au$5700 (around US$3700) with 11'' and 14'' coils and I had a very bad feeling the thing was going to be a dud.. But it turned out to be a trooper, running smoothly and hitting tiny bits of metal and bird shot at very impressive depths.. I think the dude in the pawnshop might've mixed up the 5 and 7 on the price tag, but even at $7500 it still would've been a bargain.. At first I was using a Goldmaster 24K but the ground in most places was too hot for it to run smoothly, so I ended up using the Equinox 800 instead.. Needless to say using a VLF detector on this sort of ground was always going to be a struggle and Cam was digging a lot more targets than me.. In the end he took pity on me and we ended up swapping detectors for a few hours a day.. This gave both of us a chance to learn another detector, but he was always glad to have his back.. Cam's normally into panning and sluicing but he's recently been struck by detector fever and digging every target was an adventure in itself.. It was a subtle reminder of the thrill I first got when hitting upon a likely target.. Even digging no end of shotgun pellets didn't curb his enthusiasm one bit.. I once jokingly told him that he'd be digging 1000 bits of crap before his first nugget, after that it's 1 in 100.. This seems to have stuck in his mind and he's now counting down to the big moment.. We were out of luck on this trip and didn't find any gold.. This was mainly because most of these goldfields are now public fossicking areas and their proximity to Brisbane (about 2 hours away) meant that they've been well and truly hammered to death.. But somehow none of that mattered as it was the adventure of it all that kept us going.. Also camping out in beautiful country and the chance to hunt gold with my son (and his dog) made the whole show an awesome experience.. It was another reminder that prospecting is not always about finding the yellow stuff..

I carry mine in a 5-gallon bucket. : )

I am bummed nobody is yet making coils for the axiom:( would love to get a round mono 18 and see what it can do with depth and big gold. The 16 mono has done well so far nothing to deep yet..., still has sensitivity to small gold, only weighs a small amount more then the 13 if u don't use the coil cover. Wonder if a gpx coil converter plug could be made!

It was a great visit by Mitchel and his family, very short though, he's so rushed I can see why he's had no chance to put up photos, by very definition it's a whirlwind trip. We made use of the time we had, unfortunately my wife came down with covid a couple of weeks ago, last weekend JW and I went detecting while my wife had it and I didn't, I even tested myself the morning of our detecting to ensure all would be well and I wouldn't spread it, I came back all clear. JW found 7 nuggets that trip, I was skunked. Fast forward to this weekend and JW is down for the count in bed with Covid, damn it, bad timing! So, he was unable to join us for our adventures, not wanting to spread it to Mitchel and his family while they're on holiday. I did my best to take Mitchel to spots I hoped he'd come away with a piece or two, places I thought I'd have hope of finding something, but gold is gold, if I knew where it was, I'd have it all already so I just took him to productive areas where I'd found gold. We also went to the local gold shop, where the guy that runs it is a very experienced detectorist and had been detecting my local area well before even JW came into town, he was telling Mitchel all about the areas we were detecting and how much gold he used to get out of these areas, let's just say Reg Wilson would be happy to detect these spots back then 😛 The shop also has lots of big nuggets found in the local area on display, including a 500 gram nugget found on the West Coast and plenty of large nuggets found locally, even in the river right beside the shop. Mitchel got some great photos, I was not using my phone much for photos or anything as I'd forgotten to charge it, I plugged it in before taking off but I forgot to plug the other end into the charger plug so it was just plugged into the cable!!! I had to conserve whatever battery I had and I didn't have a charge cable in my car to use while driving. Either way, I hope Mitchel had a good trip, short but sweet, now he'll know when I do my gold posts what I've been going through to the find the gold and the basic idea of the areas I'd be in, a bulk of the gold I've shown found on this forum has come from the two places he went to including my two biggest nuggets, one from each location and both just over 4 grams. Mitchel was very kind and used some of his suitcase space to bring me over an F19 from the Fisher fire sale, I got this for my daughter on the odd time she comes up to the ski fields looking for coins and rings after the seasons over. It's about the only time I can get her to use a detector as it's at her favourite place, the ski fields and her favourite detector is the Gold Bug Pro. I have some really great Nel coils for the GBP and the Detech Ultimate 13" so the F19 is a good update to give me volume control. Now the other wonderful thing Mitchel did is bring both JW and I a selection of his finds, we each got a little baggie with some [Place name of them here, I've forgotten] and a meteorite. As Mitchel likely knows, meteorites are a massive deal in NZ, they're impossible to ever find, and when one hits people go by the hundred in organized groups to try find it, it's something I'll treasure forever. I can even look like an American now crusing around in my new Santa Monica T-Shirt. 🙂 Day one we went to a place Mitchel had a good chat to the gold shop guy about, we only had the afternoon there with it being such a busy trip. Its a place my best patch was over 15 grams with the biggest nugget being over 4 grams. I used the 6000 and my favourite coil on it, the 10x5" Coiltek. I managed to get a short little video of the target when I first found it as I was starting to clear the dirt off the bedrock, I knew at this point it was very likely to be gold as it was inside the schist, not on top of it like a bit of junk or pellet would likely be so I walked over and gathered up Mitchel and his wife to come have a look. As you can see, even my sparkly new F19 would have found this one. This is after the bedrock was smashed away, Mitchel actually helped doing that as he was using the heavier pick which was better to smash the rock away, his wife I believe filmed the whole thing so he maybe able to put up a proper full video when he gets home. Took us a while to get it out of the rock. And this is it. Close to half a gram, not too bad. A shame we didn't find any more than this the entire two days, but that's gold for you. A real shame JW wasn't with us, I think he would have found a few more, he has the special knack. The next day I went back to old faithful, my GPZ with 8" coil, one of my favourite combos, probably should have used the 15" CC in this big open country area but I'd previously done well at this spot with the 8", probably the combo that's found my most nuggets there, and one of my biggest, a 4.1 gram. This is the only photo I took yesterday. It shows all the exposed bedrock Mitchel was talking about. And here are the videos of my best two days in the area. These are for you Mitchel, the 8" At the spot we went yesterday. And the 15" Concentric when the patch was found They were in the same general area you were in yesterday, walking distance from where we were and I could see where the 4.1 came from while we were there detecting, so you can see why I had hopes we might find some gold around there. You'll probably recognise the area a bit when the camera moves around 🙂 We stopped in to see JW on the way home, Mitchel got to see JW's gold collection, thousands of bits, many thousands. Anyway, I hope you make it back to this side of the world again Mitchel, and I hope next time you have a lot more time to spend here to give finding some local gold a really good shot, thanks again for coming to meet us.

It's been available since day one - read the three posts I made here:

Having been irritated at how much dirt enters the coil covers on both the Equinox and Manticore, I wonder has anyone discovered a method for temporarily sealing these more intricate designs. Recently, I came across some versions removable caulk, such as these products here: https://www.reddevil.com/products/product/zip-a-way-removable https://www.dap.com/products-projects/product-categories/caulks-sealants/specialty/seal-n-peel/ Has anyone ever tried these for sealing the interior parts of a fenestrated coil?

Whatever happens when you look at the gold price it should be quicker to pay off a new machine for an experienced prospector. Based on Aussie gold price it was around $1300 an ounce when the 5000 came out, $1500 for the zed, $2300 for the 6000 and now sitting at $3600 with a bullet. Just have to spend the time on the ground and get out and enjoy the beautiful countryside.

Don't be so sure Steve.... from what I hear, this isn't so far from reality, Hopefully the 20% more depth is on all sizes and shapes of gold and not just a chart claiming better depth. I would still like to see the actual Star Chart and GPZ 40% deeper testing site details on how they came to these conclusions. I am also worried that the next release will have proprietary coil options that do not cover all gold types or sizes until you upgrade to the flagship version, even the 7000 never allowed us to buy any approved coils under 12”. In the end, I guess Minelab still controls the market and I’ll just have to conform and buy whatever performance improvements help me be able to find more targets.

I think thats a Fisher f4 in the first pic not an garrett at

Just a fun note: I didn't get a Manticore until they had the 15" coil in stock! We're both sides of the coin.

Those look useful. That larger stash will be handy when picking up other small stuff I find like topaz crystals and fluorescent pebbles and other mineral samples. But Doc, will I find larger gold nuggets if I order a larger Nugget Stash? 😉 A guy I know dropped his snuffer bottle with gold in it and it floated away down river. He needs a stash that comes with a leash!

Carl; I will give FEMM a go. Can it model DD and DOD coils?

I have been noticing the same thing. In ground I was running my monos in fine gold, the dd 11x7 was terrible and had to be in normal or large. Normal seemed to work the best. Was really surprised as with all my gpxs I've had was just the opposite with dds and monos, but it's not a gpx and a beast of its own...

Waiting doesn't work anyway, I waited over 12 months for the GPX 6000, still got a dud 🙂

Well, too late for me since all I received was a military discount. But I am not going to have any regrets about it and treat it as "water under the bridge." Things like that may happen about a lot of product we buy, including automobiles that are discounted shortly after one buys it. Haven't you noticed all the EV-discount offers these days, including Tesla EV's? A few months ago these buyers had to pay a lot more $ for some of these cars. I am taking about a bunch of money, not just two or three hundred dollars. I don't plan to buy any more detectors. Well, maybe a gold detector one of these days. But in reality, with some many of us swinging detectors it won't take for a few short years for the "old dropped" coins to disappear. These things just don't grow like plants do. And yes, beach hunters will continue finding new coins and jewelry; I do understand it. Minelab has been fine with me, and so Toyota, Honda, Ford, and even Canon cameras.

I run HY/Normal/19 all the time on my GPZ, they may be considered insanely high settings but to me they're normal, they're not ratty, if the GPZ let us put up the sensitivity to something like 25 then it would probably become ratty, the reason I don't go to 20 on the sensitivity is it gives that little bit of instability that 19 doesn't. I haven't noticed an improvement in performance using 20 over 19, so I just prefer to keep it purring along perfectly at 19. The GPX on the other hand even on lowest sensitivity is more ratty than the GPZ on 19. Well at least for me it is as soils conditions don't create noise, so I guess a way for someone to replicate that would be to run their GPZ holding it up in the air away from soil 🙂 I find the little 8" runs really nice too as it's just not affected by EMI as much as bigger coils being so tiny. I understand people loving the GPX for its performance, it's great, I'm just a GPZ type of person, and I'm not at all bothered by its weight. I get no more worn out swinging the GPZ all day than I do the GPX, it's not my arms that get tired, it's my legs 🙂

😆Pretty bad when you still have to prove your machine is under warranty at this point!

Maybe I wasn't clear. I put a bead of silicone all around the edges of the coil cover to stop water and things like that from getting trapped between the coil and the cover. I don't detect in the water but looking at the edges of the coil cover (or skid plate) you will notice that it is possible-at least for some beach hunters in areas where there is mineralized sand-for it to buildup on these skid-plate edges. Maybe I am overthinking this issue, but I have always felt that it is too much trouble to remove the coil cover in order to wash or clean the coil's bottom. By the way, I am not saying that I only silicone the outer edge of the coil cover. I put a bead of silicone over all the cover's edges, while preventing the silicone to get inside or between the cover and the coil. It is much easier to just pop the cover off, and then reinstall on the coil, too😀

Nokta removed the V 1.14 update from their site, only V 1.13 for now. I tried V 1.14 and thought the DT mode showed promise, BE not so much. I'm using V 1.13 now. Here is the e-mail I received from Nokta, Dear Valued Legend users, Thank you for testing the Legend Software Update v.1.14 Beta 1 & 2 Test Versions and your valuable feedback. We have now removed the beta versions from our website and we're ending the testing stage here. We'll work on a few more tweaks and release the final version in the upcoming weeks. Please use v.1.13 until we give you the final update of the v.1.14. Best regards, Nokta Detectors

In WA, an easy focus is any igneous or Volcanic rock types (schist, Diorite, granite etc) and keep within 5km distance of these. Plus North or South of known gold mining areas.