This X-coil Will Hunt

[mn90403]

Some time ago I had to make a decision about buying a new coil for my 7000, buying a 6000 or buying an Axiom.  I decided to buy a 15" CC X-Coil and it arrived about a month ago.  The family is off on a trip so yesterday was my first try with the new coil.

The coil was sent by post with a tracking number all the way from Kazakhstan.  Here is the coil as I unpackaged it.

The coil I've had on for the last few years has been the 15x10 Spirial X-Coil so seemingly there is not that much difference but in actual use I think there is a great difference.  I've found lots of nuggets with the Spiral, but I just had this feeling that it could be better based on what Simon has said.  Simon was right.

My testing ground is a place where I and many others have been for years.  When we first started there we were able to find quite a bit of trash and WWII 50 cal and shells.  Those are long gone and so are most of the little wires which gave us such good 'potential' among the nuggets and hot rocks.

My testing method was to go out with the coil I had on first and then come back and put on the new 15" CC.  I marked targets I found but did not dig them.  I had three areas/targets marked by the time I made it back to the SUV.

I switched the coils by unscrewing the adapter with the chip from the 7000 and screwing in the new coil and replacing that back on the 7000.  I didn't change the settings and I tested the new 15" CC on my test gold chips laying on the ground.  The sensitivity was at 12.  Ground smoothing low, high yield, normal and I use the SP01.

The first thing I noticed when going over the test chips was that you had to have the coil directly over the nugget or you couldn't hear it.  And furthermore, as Simon had told me the receive coil is smaller than the outer coil so it acted as a smaller coil.  I didn't mind because it is a light coil.  It seems ligher than the Spiral but I'd have to check it.

So off I went to find the 3 marked targets, but I had pretty much of a dead battery in my phone.  I put the phone on a charger and took off in search of my 'marks!'  Finding the marks proved to be a bit harder than I first imagined.  All the pretty flowers and dried bushes looked the same.  My first mark was about 15 minutes from the start.  I spied it and before I could get there, I got a loud target.  It was a little sharp and it could be bullet jackets or the wires.  It wasn't very deep so it moved with the light scrapes, but I couldn't see it in the scoop.  It got down to a little bit of black sand and then I saw it.  A little, flakey nugget!  This coil can hunt I said to myself.

I had to go back and get my phone so I could take some pictures.  I'll have to add I carried it around later and it didn't cause an EMI problem for the coil.

When I came back these are the pictures I took.

I was impressed by a coil that big finding a nugget that small.  The 7000 allows you to mark 'find points' which I have always liked.  It asks you the depth which I said was 2" and the weight which I said was .1g.  I was on the board and no matter what happened the rest of the day I had a nugget.  This was good for me because the last 3 trips I've made to this location I got skunked.

I then went to the target I had marked about 10 feet and it was a piece of trash.  I went on to check the other marks I had made and could see all of those targets except one.  I had dug one target and left it in the hole with the Spiral.  It was a wire and the 15"CC did not see it.  Another thing the 15 did not see was the hot rocks.  That was a good thing.  I was learning how to use it as I got into a couple of hours.

At first I was worried that I was going to miss things under the bushes because the outer coil would be 'dead' and I couldn't get the center of the coil under the bush.  Larger bullet trash and a couple of cans showed me that I could hear targets before the coil got to it.  I was digging under bushes.

It was time to leave this spot and go to another pounded spot where I wanted to test the new coil for depth.  I knew this was deeper and perhaps the main reason why I bought it for $1200.  I covered a lot of areas with no joy but I was learning to use the coil.  There was one area that held deeper nuggets and that is not something I am good at.  I can hear shallow nuggets that scream but deep iffys get the best of me.

With that in mind I was looking for a repeatable iffy at this location and I found one.  I dug a couple of inches as the first nugget and it was still iffy.  I dug more and it brightened a little but not enough to make me think it was a nugget.  Now I'm down about 6-7" in some moist desert soil with a lot of iron hanging off the magnet on the pick.  I run the coil over the dig out pile and it screams!  It is right on top.  I scooped it and said YES.  I don't remember digging a deeper small nugget than this.  The phone was a long way from me so I don't have a picture but once again, this coil can hunt.  I'm ready for Rye Patch now.  Franconia here I come.  Watch out Quartzsite.

Here are my results.

Notice just to the right of the .06 nugget on the scale a little wire piece.  The 15" found that also.

The desert revived me and reinvigorated me.  For the next few weeks I'll go as much as possible.

This was my trash.

[phrunt]

Good report Mitchel, wait and see you'll be digging tiny bits deeper than you ever expected so much so that you will think they're much bigger than they will end up being 🙂

I really like that 15" CC more so than any other coil on the GPZ, now you have a spiral for the better edge sensitivity and covering ground better and the 15" CC for going over areas you know gold should be and you're set, a good combination of coils.

I see they've included the new polycarbonate skid plate for you as a bonus over the standard one, that's the clear sort of one, they're super tough and will last you a long time.  A guy in Australia that detects full time has had his on now for 2 seasons as he bought one when they first were introduced, he was going through standard skid plates like mad prior to getting that poly skid plate.  He's an aggressive coil scrubber.

[mn90403]

The Spiral will be good for certain brushy areas and maybe more so this summer after all the rain.  I just think this will be a really good coil for Rye Patch.

[mn90403]

Thank you Dave.

[Gerry in Idaho]

Glad we are getting good lighter options and I appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.  Hopefully the next new version of GPZ-7000 will have lighter coils.  Well they might as well make the complete detector lighter as well.

[rvpopeye]

 

 

mn

It's good to see a package from that part of the world made it to you in such good condition. 👍

Hope you have good luck on it's big desert debut ! 

Keep that phone charged , we're gonna want to see what you find with that Hoover coil !👍   (and maybe a review/pic of that new coil cover after you use it a while ?..)  

[phrunt]

How long did the coil take to get to you Mitchel?

The Aussies seem to average about 2 weeks to land in Australia then another week for it to go by horse and cart from the Airport to their house.  In NZ they seem to take about 2 weeks to my door.

Is it the same in the US? Do they go by horse and cart once they arrive there?

[mn90403]

It took about 2 weeks for the coil to enter the country in New York and then it took about 4 days once through customs.  It had a tracking number as good as any FedX number as I've ever had.

[mn90403]

I went back to the location of the 'deep nugget' on Saturday afternoon and I got a skunk this time.  I did get a snake sighting and that was time for me to leave.

 

Tomorrow I'll go find some meteorites at Franconia.  It is a 300 mile trip of about 5 hours or so.  I'll hang around for a night and try to find a nugget if it is not too hot.  This is a 2-3 day cool spell so I have to fit it in quickly.

[mn90403]

I took a short trip to Franconia on Wednesday and Thursday.  When I first got my 7000 I had gone there and had fun.  I even got Minelab find of the month!

The coil handled the hot rocks well.  I would say better than the spiral.  I left it in the settings I had used for gold with the sensitivity around 10.  I was kind of looking for the bigger targets but the first day I didn't get them for the longest time.  I finally ended up with a .9g iron and a smaller one nearby.

 

 

My first target was actually the most impressive.  It was down about 6 inches and it turned out to be a button.  I didn't put it in my other picture as it got spilled from my other finds.  But I thought my settings were good and I guess if big objects were around they were.

The next day I went to the iron field and had to walk in a different way but I was not finding many there.  I thought things had really been hunted out in the last 3 years or so.  I was finding but things were too iffy until I got them in the scoop.  Pinpointing was hard it seemed.

It was time to change my settings.  It was then I discovered that I had been detecting in General rather than High Yield.  Bad on me.  I had not run through that setting.  I had been upping the sensitivity and put on low smoothing.  That was some better but then the last couple hours in the day I went to HY, Normal, 17 and High Smoothing and they started to pop!  Some of them are very small but I could still make them scream with these settings and it was more fun than a struggle for my ears.

The tiny wires are always a problem there and the big 50 cal and other bullets let me know if I was over a chondrite, it wouldn't be bashful.  I finally had some settings to find irons easily.  I remembered that Condor told me he cranked his sensitivity all the way up on his 17" CC.  I was trying to find these targets with conservative settings but no more.

When I go back to my gold area I'm going to up the settings.

What say you Simon?