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X-Terra 70 & X-terra 705 As Nugget Detectors?


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I have found tiny gold with it, and I've found meaty nuggets with it. I've found lots and lots of coins with it, but what I've found is that there's far more to learn about how to truly use all of the features on the 705; there's a lot packed in there. It's not a whack it together from the box and "instantly go" machine when it comes to gold detecting. There's a learning curve for sure, so that's why it's probably not as easy to get started chasing nuggets as it is with the Gold Bug Pro for instance. So, the 705 isn't as user friendly, but it sure can find nuggets. Now, I've not used it in extreme ground, but I don't think that's any VLF's forte, and on another note, the detector could benefit from a signal enhancer to boost the headphone volume as the stock circuit (at least on my machine) doesn't really ramp up the audio to help with those tiny whispers. 

I love how light it is and the discrimination really works, but you lose considerable depth if you're using the disc circuit to hunt nuggets. I've used it in abandoned placer excavations that were full of bits of bucket, track, and blade shavings where my PI was driving me insane with countless, endless hits, so I used the 705 in discrimination mode and pulled out nuggets that were hiding amid the iron and steel clutter; that was fun as otherwise I'd have just walked away with the PI and been skunked. 

To review, steeper learning curve than some of the newer VLF's, lower volume output to the headphones, love the light weight, love the discrimination, love how it finds tiny gold, it gets pretty easy to ID annoying hotrocks with it, I can scrub the coil on the ground without falsing, battery life is good, solid coin circuit, Minelab reliability. 

I read once on another cryptic post that the people at Minelab research had packed far more into the little 705 than was needed to do the job it was marketed for, and I've found that to be true; there's lots of things it will do that are not evident at first look, and I'll confess, I still have no idea of all that it will indeed do, and I'd love to hear and learn more. I haven't really drilled down on the various coils and frequencies (like JP) as I've got the goldpak and have simply used that configuration. I've put rookies on it, and they've found gold with it, but I knew in advance I was in a hot area with good gold, so the chances were good for them to snag a nugget, but at least they understood the basics of the 705 well enough to find the gold and be comfortable using it.

All the best,

Lanny

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JW, great to see you posting as well, and I really believe there's a place for a little VLF right alongside any PI. As you've stated tight places, but also light weight, great discrimination, ID display meters, etc.

All the best to you and yours as well, and the same to all the rest of you,

Lanny

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  • 11 months later...

I bought a 705 when they 1st came out, it died in a day, kellyco replaced it, next 1 died in a month. 3rd 1 worked great on FL beaches, but was a dog on tailing piles in WY where my Diablo excelled. Called minelab in LV  from the site and a guy named John could not help me. So that was it for me and minelab. Maybe there have been updates in newer units, but I won't try another. I have a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV I bought as a joke and it totally ignores hot rocks here in AZ, still hits on quarters, nickels at 5 to 7 " and a gold 3.3 gram coin at 7-8". Sub gram gold at an inch. Not bad for a $100 toy. My TDI is my main machine here right now. 

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That's half of what was already a low price, so definitely a great price.  Never had one, myself, but gets good reviews.  With high-frequency coils, it runs about the same frequency as the Gold Bug Pro, so probably similar performance on gold.  Seems to be coils available from several manufacturers, including multi-frequency coils from Nel that would turn it into a sort of Multi Kruzer.

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Hi Phrunt,

I've said this before on this forum: in my opinion the Xterra 705 was not a good general multi-purpose detector. It was not a good coin machine at least for US coins in highly mineralized soil using any of the pre-set discrimination modes. I always felt there was too much filtering of the signal before I experienced it and a lot of valuable information was not transmitted to me. The target ID numbers were usually all over the place on good targets past 4".  It was OK as a dry sand beach unit but sometimes struggled in wet sand. It was a fantastic prospecting detector in prospecting mode with the 10 X 5 18.75kHz coil. That is why I sold mine. I already had a perfectly good specialized gold detector at the time which was just as good at prospecting. Had the 705 been good to great in all of it's detecting modes I would probably still own it and the Equinox might not have been produced.

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  • The title was changed to X-terra 70 & X-terra 705 As Nugget Detectors?
  • The title was changed to X-Terra 70 & X-terra 705 As Nugget Detectors?

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