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Recommendation On Locations And Multiple Detectors?


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My apologies in advance for asking so many questions in one post.

Two of us in Alabama are planning to drive west in October or November to go prospecting / nugget shooting for the first time. We plan to devote a solid 2 to 4 weeks to learning to find nuggets and placer deposits. Priority will be on shooting nuggets with metal detectors and experimenting with ground penetrating radar. 

What locations or regions should we hit? Northern Nevada seems favored by various blogs and the BLM claim data.

Which two or three detectors should we buy given about $3000 to put towards detectors? Would it be better to get three detectors (one as a spare) or put more money into two better detectors?

Steve's guides are the best resource I've seen and suggest the following detectors:

Fischer Gold Bug Pro
White's MXT or GMT
Minelab X-Terra 705
Used Minelab GP 3000/3500 or GPX 4000/4500

Is interference a concern because two of us will be operating simultaneously? Or should we plan to operate some distance away from each other?

Thank you!!

 

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I just have to ask.... have either of you any experience at all with detectors?

 

If not, you should get some long before you come West. (even relic or coin experience would be a great help)

 

It takes some people months if not years to learn their detector and find their first nugget.

 

It may take some time to find an area that is not claimed or private to detect also.

 

My suggestion before you buy anything, contact someone like Arizona Outback Prospection(one that comes to mind) which sells detectors and gives "on ground" instructions on how to use them and get their suggestions.

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Just curious. Ground penetrating radar? Are you looking for gold using ground penetrating radar? If so, invest less money there and more in better detectors.

Your questions are simple but basically cover the entire field of gold prospecting. Where to go and what to use? Entire books can and have been written on the subject. The questions have been asked a thousand times on dozens of forums and answered with every opinion imaginable. There are no definitive answers because there are so many ways to approach the subject.

Being new, sad to say, just making your trip and finding just one nugget each is going to be a challenge for you and you friend. Problem number one? The maybe 100 hours of use it takes to become reasonably proficient with a metal detector. You may just start getting the hang of it when you run out of time.

You really do not have a ton of time to play with. I can spend weeks at a single location, in fact just spent two months detecting on a single creek and could go back and hunt there for years. So you really only need to find one or two locations to focus on.

I am in northern Nevada, new to the area, but I think Northern California offers me better opportunities so am concentrating there. But when it gets cooler I will shift to northern Nevada, then follow the weather south, ending up in Arizona this winter. There are opportunities everywhere.

If you hit a known location, say Rye Patch, you have the benefit of knowing gold has been found there. Apply yourself, you can find a nugget. If you do blue sky prospecting in unknown areas you have to expect to find nothing but if you do score the payoff can be much larger. Best best is to initially try and get into a known productive area.

You can find gold with any good detector if you know what you are doing. I would go with a GPX 5000 and Gold Bug 2. Since your budget is limited substitute whatever used Minelab will replace the GPX 5000. If new with warranty is the goal a Garrett ATX and Gold Bug 2 would do the trick.

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Steve & LipCa,

Thank you for the detector recommendations. Sounds like the GPX 5000 or its predecessors are the best detectors to invest one's time learning. Which predecessors of the GPX 5000 could best transfer learned-skill to the 5000? The 4000/4500? What about earlier models?

You're both absolutely right. We basically have zero experience with metal detectors. But we're willing to spend time and money learning, hopefully with good detectors in a good location. I did become effective with several detectors as a child in the late 1980s for coin and relic hunting. And I bring decent experience in geospatial software, 3D sensing, signal processing and general RF work.

Has anyone published a list of locations to hunt for nuggets? Maybe even a list of geographic coordinates? I can analyze that with DTED and BLM claim data, pick out some patterns and maybe narrow down the list.  

This GPR is for indirect detection. Characterize the mineral content and layering rather than find nuggets directly. Its also fully experimental (don't mind if it fails), and quite inexpensive (less than $2000 total investment so far). While GPR will have excellent ground penetration, the discrimination challenge will be much harder versus a metal detector. Smooth rocks and conductive minerals will have similar radar cross section. I have no doubt that modern metal detectors are impossible to beat for direct detection. Its possible GPR might be capable of direct detection and discrimination of nuggets. But that would require a contrast mechanism other than basic radar cross section.

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  I would recommend something in the way of the ATX or SDC. They are far easier to use, perform very well and cost less than the 5000. With your limited experiance using detectors, these would be far less intimidating. You also get the added water proofing and compactness for easy transport, and ease of operation. 

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I have owned each Minelab PI model in order and never regretted each upgrade. Each is better than the last, even if only by a tiny amount. They are in order:

SD 2000

SD 2100 (or SD 2100v2)

SD 2200 (or SD 2200v2)

GP Extreme

GP 3000

GP 3500

GPX 4000

GPX 4500

GPX 4800

GPX 5000

Details at Steve's Guide to the Differences Between the Minelab SD, GP, and GPX Detectors Start with the GPX 5000 and work backwards until you can find what you can afford. In a nutshell they all excel at finding large nuggets at depth. The newer the model, the more options for handling difficult ground and the better the small gold capability. Coils are compatible on all models. GP 3500 and earlier use a different battery and battery cable than the GPX 4000 and newer. The only model I would avoid is the SD 2000 as it is now considered obsolete and will not be serviced by Minelab http://www.minelab.com/gold-mining/customer-care/obsolete

Locations? That is easy. Go to http://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/map.html# and click gold on the left. Zoom and choose location details. This is historical geologic data only, and so ground may be private, parks, claimed, etc. Finding where the gold is really is not so hard. Getting legal access is actually the biggest issue and one that can be a research nightmare. Alaska is the only state that has a relatively simple and up-to-date interactive land status mapping system. I use a combination of ONXMAPS http://www.huntinggpsmaps.com/ and Minecache http://www.minecache.com/ to at least get aimed in the right direction. Between the two I can stay off private property (ONXMAPS) and determine what sections are void of claims (Minecache). The problem with Minecache is figuring out exactly where claims are located within a section, or in dealing with claims only filed at the recorder office level. That would be recent filings, normally within last 90 days.

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GPR for location nuggets???  Man, if you find one, you'll be rich because it will probably have to be many pounds(which is not very large in volume) in size to be visible..

 

Again, as Steve said, not trespassing on someone else is going to be a challenge.

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Steve, thanks for the USGS link. The mine location data is probably more useful than the BLS claim data I've been working with.

 

I will let you know how the GPR works. It can already detect pieces of aluminum foil. Still lots of work to do. Even my homemade PI detector could detect small pieces of aluminum. 

 

LipCa: even if a GPR was limited to targets weighing over a pound (which it wouldn't be), I could still mount it on a truck and survey tens of square miles per day. A suitable radar antenna can achieve a decent stand-off distance and possibly a 10 cm to a meter penetration through ground, depending on the ground type and frequency. A metal detector has a field strength that rapidly decays away from the coil. Enlarging a metal detector coil to achieve greater depth increases the necessary target size. Radar works by very different rules. 

 

Based on this video:

 

the Garrett ATX appears to match or slightly outperform the GPX 5000. Is there anything wrong with this comparison? Looks like this was done with both detectors on default settings. Probably the GPX 5000 can be optimized by a skilled user.

 

EDIT: Just found Steve's review here: http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/160-garrett-atx-vs-minelab-gpx-5000/

 

The ATX looks like a winner for me. I would indeed use the underwater capability. 

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Nothing wrong with the comparison per se, just more in what it leaves out. As you say, the GPX can do better in skilled hands, and certainly nothing matches it for overall performance in a wide range of ground conditions. If you go back you will see I recommended the ATX as an alternative if you want new with warranty and want to stay in the $3000 for two detectors range. Which I see Ken seconded.

 

If I had to get a PI to nugget hunt and was prohibited from getting a Minelab the Garrett ATX is what I would get. Most of my caveats regarding the machine for nugget detecting have more to do with ergonomics than capability. I would be happy to give up a little Minelab edge and go Garrett if they would just stuff the ATX in a 3.9 lb box instead of the 6.9 lbs it is currently saddled with.

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  I would in no way say the ATX performs at the same level as a GPX5000. The ATX is a very good detector for what it is designed to do, Be a waterproof, portable easy to pack detector that has very good sensitivity to small gold, and works very well in hot ground.

For most people, the ATX will be all the detector they need, For those that want the biggest baddest detector, with the most performance currently offered then its the GPX5000. 

Steve has used the SDC, ATX, and the GPX, and has alot of info on all three posted here and on many other forums that makes for some very informative reading, and he knows what he is talking about and explains it in terms we can all understand.

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