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Today was the last day I could get out before a week long relic hunting and possibly water hunting trip. It's been raining since Saturday night on and off, windy and in the 60s so I didn't expect to find much at the beach I went to. I recently updated the D2 to V1.1, did some air tests to create a new beach program. Used Beach Sensitive, disc at 10, no notch, no Silencer, Bottle Caps ended up at 5. High Square Full Tones audio. Gotta say I really thought XP had got the iron falsing under control with my air tests, even aluminum makes a distinct "brassy" sound with this program. However, all that glitters is not gold. 🤣 This beach is rough, at one end there is a motel and the beach is almost all pebbles, you cannot go barefoot or wear sandals if you have old feet. 😀 In the middle it's a mix of sand and pebbles in bands, and the other end it's a mix of sand and red clay. Ground balance varies from 79 to 95 depending on where you are. Got here early hoping at least someone braved the weather and came to the beach, it looks like some did and I was the first to hit it. 3 other people showed up later and complained they weren't finding anything, I sort of had to bite my tongue. 😏 Iron did false until I changed bottle caps a bit, there is quite a bit of junk in the sand. Pushing disc to 10 helped a little, I'm glad they fixed the audio. With disc at 10 most iron will disappear. (Thanks Andy!) Most pull tabs have that brassy sound, I dug a few to prove it. I think one was in the 70s so I dug it anyway. That one fooled me. I was getting coins here and there, they jumped out sharply with very close IDs. Managed to get at least one of every US denomination, and a nice 1945 wheat. That was a great sign. On the pebble beach I got a 47 and found this tiny ring, I doubt it's anything good but it was a solid tone and ID. It was just in the surf, and pretty deep. Next one was this bling ring, a hard 85. Looks like it's been there a while. My best ring today was this tungsten carbide and malachite ring that my wife took immediately, it was a 54: About $15-$30 on Amazon. 3 Keys Jewelry. Here's the total take: And the trash: The doll swims if you tighten the innerspring by spinning the arms. 😀 Second small doll I've found there and second pair of tweezers. 😵 It was interesting to see the difference between air testing and real world, never done it before. Think I'll stick with real world.

The great debate of DISCRIMINATION, Iron ID and Target #'s when detecting for Gold. The war of words is about to begin. So lets try to stay on point and be courteous of others ways/ideas or skill levels for those who are newer to the game. This is an open end post and all who respond, reply, ask questions, disagree and or partially agree is 100% totally fine and discussion desired. So many times I’ve heard from the Experts who detect for gold, they say “Dig It All” and to never used Discrimination. So I guess there really is no debate? Just do what the Experts do and live with the results. Is that such like good advice from so called Experts. So if this is the case, then why do the detector manufactures offer it (discrimination or ID) on their machines? VLF Gold type detectors have had Iron Identification on some models since the 1980’s and I also know earlier General Purpose detectors offered DISC as far back to the early 70s. I imagine those of you who have been around for longer than I could even know of detectors with such capabilities go back before the dates I mentioned? Heck, even Minelab Pulse Induction detectors in the 1990’s provided Iron DISC feature. So are all those manufactures and variety of detector models, just selling us bells and whistles? Remember what so called Expert says, “dig it all”. The manufactures have to know something? Maybe there are times and or locations that Discrimination and or Iron ID is indeed a needed feature? Maybe the models with such are for dummies who know nothing as they have never spoken with an Expert? Could said Expert who does this for a living be wrong? Well most certainly not in his mind anyway. I’m going to give you my reasons why I end using detectors with the Iron ID or Discrimination features and I’ll even go into detail of using both the traditional VLF’s and the more robust Pulse Induction power detectors. I’m not an Expert and I do not do this for a living (well I do not hunt gold for a living), but I do sell detectors as my full time job. So since I’m not an Official Full Time Prospecting Expert, does that mean the knowledge I have of various detectors not count? That is to be debated down the road. I will say this though and those who know me for many years know I can back up my words with the amount of gold and the sizes of gold I have recovered. 1st off, when you are out there detecting, I want you to do what you are most comfortable with and what has provided you success on previous trips. I’m not here to make you change your ways. In fact, those of you who are just as happy with your results and not using DISC., I totally understand you are not about to change your ways. That’s totally fine with me…I’m happy for you. It’s the rest of the folks who are newer to the game of Electronic Prospecting for gold and or even those who are experienced hunters that have decent success…but you are wise enough to realize at times ..just maybe there is a better way at doing it? This article is for those folks. The average guy who goes detecting a few times at the same locations with a little jingle in the pouch. Your success at those sites tell, you’re doing it correctly so you’re quite pleased, happy and not willing to change your ways of thinking or doing things. I’m fine and happy for you. But, sorry that is not me. I’m all about Adventure and Travel with detectors in hand. I enjoy new detector technologies and trying to find ways to make them perform better for the task. I like gold and the varieties of gold I pursue is quite varied when compared to many other folks who chase it. I don’t know if it’s because of my knowledge and skill level of gold detecting or just that others are stuck in a pattern and don’t know any difference? My travels in pursuit of gold have guided me to more states than most (NV, OR, ID, MT, SD, WY, AZ, AK) 8 to be exact and 2 different countries (Australia and Mexico). I’m not counting gold jewelry and coins/artifacts (my list would be much larger), just natural Au gold in it’s raw form. All the states and countries I mentioned, I have had success with my metal detectors. In fact, I have yet to hunt a state and not find gold with a detector. CA, CO and UT will eventually get checked off my list. OK, back to the Discrimination/Iron ID discussion and why I want it on my detector tools. Why I feel DISC and Iron ID are of desired features on a metal detector and there are many times when they need to be used. Those features save me time and energy. Both Time and Energy are something I desire more and more each year and seem to get less and less of. A detector with the features of DISC and Iron ID can save me Time and Energy when digging. When I use a detector with such features, I get to SELECT the amount of targets I want to dig. Here is a typical situation I experience many times in my hunts. I hunt gold where gold has been found and I like to detect in such sites. Here are the main sites I prefer to hunt and use DISC and or ID machine. Old hand placer workings, Ore dump piles, and Dredge Trailing Piles. These golden grounds were proven producers at one time and they leave plenty of targets for us. Old hand placer workings (6 pics below of Au digs using PI DD coils with DISC or VLF's with VDI Readout) In OR, NV, ID, MT, and SD. The problem is most of the targets are trash and many of the trash items are man made iron. My DISC and Iron ID capable detectors save me time/energy in these gold rich locations. Using common math to show. How many times will that person dig in an hour? How many hours a day will that person hunt? How many days on that trip will they swing the detector and dig targets? Let’s say a person can dig 10 targets an hour and 6 hrs a day = 60 targets for the day. On average, average site produces 15 non ferrous targets and 45 iron targets. So of the 15 non ferrous targets, lets say 20% are gold (3 pieces of gold) of the 15 nonferrous targets and of the total 60 digs. In Eastern Oregon those numbers are pretty close. Here is where I like the ID. I can save Time and Energy by not having to dig 45 iron targets. I now am digging more non ferrous targets than the average guy so my gold count goes up. Say I saved T&E on those 45 iron targets so I still get the 15 Nonferrous, but the extra T&E allows me to dig 15 to 25 (not 45) more targets that are Nonferrous. I’ll be extremely on the cautionary side and say I only dug 15 more NF targets. That ends up 2X my gold count for the day and also still saved me T&E. Plus as well all know, the extra boost of finding more gold seems to earn me a little more Energy. Ore Dump/Hardrock Piles- (5 pics of success using VLF's & their Identification systems) Many areas I hunt in NV, ID, MT, OR and I’ve seen many in AZ have such hard rock ore dumps. Do you know the preferred detector for this kind of gold? Do you know if you take a target identification VLF and use it at such sites, you can recover more desired nonferrous targets. I select only certain VLF type detectors for these sites. Iron ID is nice and if that is all I have then most certainly, I use it. But I know (from previous testing) that certainly VLF gold capable detectors can go a step farther and provide me with even greater odds of Success at gold and saving me T & E. Dredge Tailing Piles – (8 pics of gold using VLF's & their ID features) Love hunting these locations and my success in Tailing Piles of ID, OR, AK, NV is golden. Some of my largest gold recoveries are from such piles and the funny part is most all of them were recovered with VLF detectors using Iron Discrimination. Why you ask? Because in dredge tailing piles, even a VLF detector can pick up a rail tie spike at 12” down. Even a VLF can hear a rusty prospectors tobacco tin or smashed sardine can at near a foot and a half deep. Even a VLF detector can hear at depths of 2 feet down for a rusty grease bucket or lid to a 55 gallon drum. How about the 55 gal drum itself…well I know for a fact some VLF detectors will respond pushing near 4 feet down. Are you man enough to dig those monster holes in loose rocks and gravel? If you have never attempted it, good luck. The material you are digging keeps caving in as you go down and the next thing you know…after 45 minutes, you have a 4 foot wide and 3 foot deep hole. Only another foot more to go. Oh those days…can kill an old mans ego for the whole trips…I’ve seen it happen. As you can see from the Success pictures, the ability to use Iron ID on Pulse Induction & VLF detectors has proved golden. Now, taking today's newer Identification ID machines a step further saves me much time on pursuing only the best and most probably signals to dig. No, there’s no magic to it, but I’ve learned a lot more than most about different kinds of gold and how it reads on these ID machines. So many of the sites I currently hunt, the bigger solid nuggets are gone and have been for 10+ yrs. But there’s still some of that specimen stuff the older technologies missed. Sites I enjoy detecting are the trash areas most others try for an hour or 2 and then they walk away is discuss. They’re tired of digging holes and finding iron nails, boot tacks and shovel heads. Sure, I dig a few of those shovel heads, but not as many as most others do. I’ve spent the time in the field and learned. I’ve purchased most of the newer technologies and tested/compared each to see how they stand. No one detector does it all, but I know this. I quality PI and a new technology VLF sure does cover most bases. After all, I can tell you with fact, that the last 5 yrs, my gold finds are better than most and the majority were recovered using my techniques in the locations I mentioned. It’s hard to beat what works and puts the gold in the safe. Knowing where and how varying gold finds register on your VLF detector is crucial. Here’s an example of what most folks encounter when in the field at an old gold producing site. Ore dump piles, are full of rail tie spikes and blasting caps. Also seems to be a beacon for lead bullets of a variety, but usually .22 and 9MM slugs. Many of my gold recoveries from these sites, the newest of VLF gold detectors can ID the difference between such targets. Also, the majority of gold specimens in a certain pile, seems to ID the same #’s or very close to it. Yes it does take practice and time to learn, but in the end, you have knowledge to be selective and save time/energy. Hand working placer digs has a bigger variety of trash items and one some of my locations, the gold is thicker, more dense and reads different. I usually use VLF ID’s to help identify and ignore the high conductor targets while concentrating on the lower ones. Most gold (not all) will read in the low to possibly medium range. Even using a Pulse Induction detector with Iron DISC is possible and quite rewarding. Dredge Tailing piles are a lot like hand placer workings, but they provide even a bigger variety of trash. These piles are the hardest to learn and use a PI detector. I prefer a VLF for most of the tailing pile hunts I do, as the machine itself is much lighter and easier to swing on side hills all day. Besides I don’t want to dig 2’ or 3’ deep holes and those occasional 4’ ones will practically kill you. On the rare occasion there is big thicker gold (Ganes Creek, AK). I recommend if you swing a PI, you better have a quality VLF detector handy to help ID as you dig. So many varieties of gold and the areas, terrains and methods they were minded in the US. Australia and other countries of the gold bearing regions are different and those of you from there may not see any use in my techniques and style of hunting or the detectors I use. That’s totally understandable and I have no issues. But if you do have hard rock ore dumps and hand placer workings with trash, it might be worth the time to swing PI and DD coil or a VLF with good target identification. I look forward to hearing from those who use my techniques and I also want to hear from others who might have things to add. What is most important about this post and discussion is the actual discussion and sharing of knowledge. After all, that’s why were on here right? Thanks for your input and reading.

SnakeJim - Glad you are using the features some detectors provide and saving your back/legs for another hunt. Yes, I too used to dig it all and then wondered why some machines have those features on them. Just like a new truck has options and features most of us never use, but in the right situation, those bells and whistles actually make the truck that much more enjoyable. Thanks for the input. D&P-OR (Del) - Eastern Oregon (my stomping ground as well) has some really nice gold. Here's a golden grin of the Idaho find before I cleaned it. Below is a pic after cleaning. Your neck of the woods below (Eastern Oregon). The 10 ozt. specimen below, I recovered in ore dump piles with a GM-1000 while training customers. They were running GPX detectors and the amount of iron they were digging was very frustrating for them. I tried explaining the importance of using different gold detectors in situations that can save time and energy. I used one of the students Monsters and recovered this $5000 rock. I didn't keep it though. When you hand over a chunk of gold that size to the claim owners and explain why they make different gold detectors with varying features, it surely makes a believer out of them. Could a GPX detect it? Most certainly, but they had about given up with those machines as most PI's raw depth and power is a double edge sword. It's a hard pill to swallow, when someone with a $5000 gets so frustrated and then a sub $1000 recovered the gold with much less effort. Just another reason why I try to help educate folks on the importance of different technologies and detector methods. As for the piece I recovered with 24K, that's an Idaho find from ore dump piles. The gold in the pic with the bill, is from Oregon and was also Ore Dump piles using Iron ID. Thanks for your enthusiasm. Blackjack - Most certainly different regions/areas require varying tactics. Knowing where/when to use Iron ID/Target ID/Disc is key. At one time (we all) used to dig it all. Some of eventually wonder if there is an easier or more proficient way. Most certainly is in many (not all) situations. Glad you are open to trying features on your detector. Heck, when the Equinox 800 came out, how many people actually used it for gold? Most laughed at me and thought it was all salesman talk. I'd say more on the subject, but my mouth is full at the moment. Thanks for your input as well. Geof_junk - Yes, it's an art in a way and knowing when/how to use it can be very beneficial. I realize many areas are not the same as I hunt here in the USA, but the area you show in the picture with rusty cans and tin, is a good place for different detecting techniques and approaches. Expert hunters as yourself even said you walked away. That's exactly my point. The best of us give up on certain areas and explore the fringes and outer perimeters of that site, in pursuit of less trash. But in all honesty, here in the US, it's time to go back to such sites and use features some of the detectors provided. 1st thing I would do on that site is drag some super magnet bars and try to remove as much as possible. You're experienced enough to know different tricks to get a few more pieces. Now, I agree 100% if small bits in that trash area, then I'm not as desiring to spend a lot of timing cleaning up the trash. Sure, I know some gold may still be there, but I'll chase bigger stuff 1st. Actually, at my stage of gold nugget hunting, I'm not one to get excited on small bits anymore and I don't do it for a living. the last 5 yrs, I spend most of my time focusing on the few bigger chunks. Thanks for adding.

Yesterday I found 15 cents in change, and today I found 3.50$+ in change, No rings this time , but found one good heavy piece of copper wire, happy with the finds.

If a person had neither and was serious about nugget detecting, money no object, I'd lean GPX 6000 with aftermarket coils. If they want the detector for additional uses other than nugget detecting and/or budget is an issue, I'd lean Axiom.

I have screwed up and made technical specs mistakes on forums and I often apologize for them. I try to do the same when I mistreat someone because of a misunderstanding or because I am having a bad day and let it filter into what I write. Merrill and a few other YouTubers have made basic technical mistakes in their videos. Whether they do it on purpose, accidentally or out of ignorance, for me it really doesn't matter. What does matter to me is how they handle it when people actually call them out for their blunders/bloopers/deliberately wrong information. My experience with trying to suggest that some of these YouTubers are giving out wrong information based on a technical mistake has generally not gone very well for me. Merrill stopped responding to my comments on his videos long ago and I have stopped watching them also.

There is an art in discriminating, but I have seen a lot of failures with it. Most of my spots are virgin areas and not much junk and when it is fully of junk I conserve my time walking away from it. In the photo below got gold right up to the junk (It is not the junk you can see that is the problem it is the small bits) and I walked ½ a mile away I got my largest specimen 3.5 kilos with 16+ gold in the second photo.

Some of these video guys get more wrapped up in view and follower numbers, rather than learning the machines.

Recovering from a record breaking Winter of Snow, now we are suffering from near daily Rains. My Theory is there is so much moisture in the Sierra’s coupled with warm Spring days turns it into afternoon Thunder Storms. Anyway a person addicted to our hobby has to get out and search for their fix. This story is about my 3rd trip and just like the first two trips knowing that the ground was subpar for detecting…but, it’s the hunt and hunt we must! Met my Pard Lucky Larry out of Elko, NV we quickly hoped into my RZR and hit the trail. Notice I didn’t say Dusty Trail. We hit several old haunts with limited results at each. We ended up hunting some new ground, I dropped Larry off on one side of the hill and I drove over it to hunt the other side. Hour later, I went back to my RZR to pick up Larry and my trusty machine would not start! During the over a mile hike back to my truck, I figured it was my Fuel Pump…of course no Shade Trees out in the high Desert to confirm my diagnosis. Lucky I have a winch on my RZR as we would have never got her loaded up, didn’t bother trying to crank it before loading as I knew I’d need every bit of my battery to load it. It rained on and off as we drove back to camp and continued thru the night. Next morning we drove to a nearby patch and pulled a few more dinks before I loaded up and left with rain drops just starting to fall. Back home with my newly Amazon delivered fuel pump, I hoped in the bed of my truck where I left my RZR. Let’s see if the battery recharged itself, the sucker cranks up! I unload it and take it for a ride in the back 40. Cranked every time I turned it off too! Still no shade trees, but in my garage I thought maybe it was Vapor Locked? I read up on it and it’s not uncommon…so if you see my little Red RZR way out in no-man’s land laying in a puddle of oil, know I shed a tear! It’s Memorial Day and according to Weather report 3 more days of afternoon thunder storms. Rye Patch area will need a few dry days to get the ground settled down to hear them dinks, but there is always some shallow ducks to get your coil over until better conditions arrive! Here’s our loot for the day and a half trip…yes, my poke is on the left. Both Larry and I used the 10x5 Coiltek on our 6000’s…great coil. Until the next hunt! LuckyLundy

Just a bit alright, "discrim... groundhog... " , We are spoilt rotten now days

Not a lot between them, both are magic lightweight cordless PIs, however I`m still on the fence, waiting to find a virgin patch with the Axiom, it has not got much on flogged 6K patches, once I`ve flogged the first Axiom patch that`s only a few swings away .... I`ll flog it with the 6K that`ll sort it out for me. Well sort of, because the Axiom with its settings and large OEM coil choice, thus versatility will keep it in my arsenal if its just short of the 6K as I suspect. Just a matter of working out which is my grab and go to machine. MN tis a bit like that piece of string....

Well done, old son. Perhaps the finest and most informative article you've written to date. If I was still at "Treasure" magazine it would certainly get published. After 40 years of wearing out my knees digging the Most Happy Yellow Metal, I (k)need all the help I can get. HH Jim

I never notched out pull tabs...or tried to.... because as we all know they ring up in a similar range as some nice targets. But I thought I'd experiment with 32 random pull tabs from a variety of manufacturers using Deus V1.0 and V1.1 just out of idle curiosity more than anything. Had the new update versions changed how pull tabs were identified? What I confirmed was more or less the obvious...pull tabs, like bottle caps, are not all created equal. In other words, pull tabs in pristine condition rang up in a range from 61-65 in my tests. Now keep in mind these pull tabs I used were relatively new. None were broken or had been in the sand for an extended period of time and the tests I ran were air tests...yes I know...air tests...ugh! In real salty beach life, pull tabs are found in a wide ranging state of deterioration, age and design, as well as an endless array of parts and pieces. As a result, I've found their VDI to ring up anywhere from the 50s to the 70s! Notch out that range at your own risk...regardless of the update version or detector used. Now if you want to focus on recently dropped pull tabs, i.e. new ones, you can try notching out 61-65 which will indeed get rid of SOME new ones. However, a women's 22K ring I brought back from Saudi Arabia after DESERT STORM rang up as a solid 62!!!! So again, enter that door at your own risk. Granted, you'll find tens of thousands of pulls tabs for every 22K ring but what other nice gold items of various metallurgical composition will ring up in that same 61-65 range? In any case, it was an interesting exercise and I enjoy interesting exercises where metal detection and detectors are concerned. Bottom line for you; the results of this personal lark is worth exactly what you just paid for it...🤣

All terrain general is still all terrain general regardless of the disk being engaged or not....the targets will still appear in the same locations on the TT allowing you to still see bottle caps easily when in all metal and ignore them...if you get tired of all the noise when in all metal engage the disk and take your chances of missing a small gold chain. And he is just now finally impressed at how the M Core disks out bottle caps? Makes me wonder if he is even using the machine much.. strick

I'm with Gerry 100% on this topic. Back in the day we dug it all, and only had a magnet on a pick as a discriminator. Digging a hole 3 foot deep for a rusty can was a total waste of time and effort. Today, I use all the features of the detector I'm using as a time saver and it works well for me. snakejim

This subject came up on another thread recently and, coincidentally, member King of Bling told me of this YouTube video which just posted today: Pirate Mike finds a gold dental crown at 19:54 and acid tests it at 22:45.

What is the latest? Which one does what better?

June 13 2002 It was another peaceful night on the claim. The only movement I heard was a black bear who had ventured near camp and circled us a few times until Jacob let loose with the Thompson to scare the critter away. It no doubt smelled the remnants of our supper but was too timid to come all the way into camp. We got to work early and tried to send as many yards through the tom as possible before the heat came on. And come on it did. With a vengeance. By noon it was over 90 degrees and we took a short break for lunch. This time I gave in to my yearnings and had a cold beer as did the rest of the crew including Jacob and man, did it taste good. Jacob had the gold cleanup done and we drank out beers and looked at the pan of gold. All 11 ounces of it. And from only 35 yards of gravel. It was unbelievable but it was real gold. I even asked Jacob if he was tricking us and he just laughed and said to enjoy the view. We got back to shoveling gravel and worked until dark. I didn’t have any sweat left in my body and had drank gallons of water. The entire crew was shot to all heck but we had processed 44 yards of pay gravel. We were all pretty damn proud of ourselves as we sat down to supper. We were becoming a rough and tough crew like the old timers. TO BE CONTINUED ...................

But this is two in a row (the 50% more power video and this one) that he has posted a video title that throws Manticore under the bus but then retracts and needs to explain his previous video as "Maybe not as bad as the title sounded". It's as if he's experimenting trying to find something bad with Manticore and then pushing out a title that is going to grab everyone's attention to get more hits. Good on bottlecaps? That's the best you've found about the machine? Really?

Hi Dsmith, I own a Whites TRX and was a little disappointed that it doesn't detect only at the tip which a lot of people seem to think. You can try an experiment . Turn on the trx. Take a penny ,start at the tip and run the penny down the side of the detector towards the base.You'll find that the detection zone is right near the tip,and then near the letter" r "and to just below the letter "x' . So there's the possibility of trying to pinpoint something in a hole you've dug not knowing whether it's in the side or bottom of the hole. The Garrett carrot isn't any better as it detects along the entire shaft from the tip to just below the button to turn it on. The Garrett also seems to be way more sensitive at it's highest setting. Just my observations. These are the only two pinpointers I've used.

It's odd there have been no replies to this! I have seen how the 6000 can work, and pretty good. I have the Axiom but haven't been out yet so can't say, hopefully by the end of next week I'll be able to report back.

Haven't broke it out yet, ( and it won't ever see a beach)! But I did have the Bandito 2 and the cleansweep out at the beach today; it works fine for shallow recent deposits! (in the dry)!! Anybody need a little clad and a bunch of tent stakes?? 😂 Tent stakes are obvious on most detectors, for those unfamiliar, but I like to get rid of them, (and any other detected junk, of course), so no one gets impaled by one in the feet!!😵 Beach conditions here; and my luck, have been lacking since our back to back hurricanes last year! And renurishment projects only made it worse!! Also had the 800 with the 15", and Tdi SL out today, they didn't fare any better! In fact the Tesoro ended up with the most clad, not that there was alot! A couple of friends fared a bit better than me today, thankfully!!🍀Oh well, can only get better!! Back to the parks for some targets!👍👍

100% Norvic 40 years ago in W.A. I never used disc on my Ground Hog, now I'm older and the equipment has improved "just a bit"

Thanks Doc! I've pretty much wiped out the place I'm going to, but they are expanding it, and they even let me search the tent campsites when I told them I found live ammo near fire rings 😀 There is no beach but there is waterfront with piers for jumping in the water. I'll have to watch the tides to be able to get anything with my scoop, neck deep water makes it pretty impossible to press a scoop in. I don't have scuba gear. 😁

Thanks! 🙂 Iron detection is better for sure, the falsing can be mostly eliminated by turning on a target.

Noriv - I'm totally content with you using zero DISC for those open areas. When I visited Au back in the 90's, I never once even thought of using DISC as the sites we hunted were as your mentioned and pretty much trash free. Sure there is the occasional surface target (usually trash), but nothing like I encounter here in the US as I mostly hunt previously worked gold bearing ground. And yes I agree, as we age with wisdom, we learn to conserve the amount of energy our body provides us each day and use it most wisely. No more spring chicken left. Thanks for chiming in. Gold Catcher - Yes for the average beginner Joe, I feel using DISC or Target ID features is not desired. Those folks have not learned the ropes yet and need to dig their share of holes. Heck, that's exactly why I don't mind having a group of newbies go swing an area before me. Just make sure they pack the trash out that they are digging. In the end it makes my job much easier when they remove the majority of trash. Yes, small gold and even bigger gold at depth will not register properly on all detectors. Each one built that has such features, there's a depth or ground conditions that all of them can be fooled. That's why when I'm at sites like Rye Patch and realize the gravy is gone, I'm more apt to use ZERO DISC. I usually won't chase those screamer surface targets out there either as 99% of the time, they are fresh bullets. Knowing when to be selective is very important. Thanks for adding. Andrew - I'm glad to see you chime in as I know your experience with a PI for relic hunting is near the tops. You have tested, compared and listened to enough targets to teach yourself the fine lines of PI's and how they respond. Heck, even your skill with many of the VLF's is tops. I've seen enough of your posts and videos to know you're one of the few who takes the time to go out and just compare/practice/train your ears. Using DISC in your head is very important and you do better than most. Jasong - Interesting quotes my friend. Being a WY guy who travels to many areas/states hunting gold, I think you/I are alike as we encounter many more options of gold bearing grounds. The rules to gold hunting? I honestly don't think there are rules to hunting gold, as there are to many variables for the ones who travel. That's part of the reason why some have success more often. But being able to adapt is a big part of it as well. Thanks for providing. Dirtman - The ear is a great tool. I just wish more newer customers relied on it and not the LCD screen on their detectors. Even advanced hunters such as yourself use Mind Discrimination and make a decision based on signal width, strength and site location. I noticed your profile does not give a location of you and it's hard to tell where you spend your hours swinging? Based of your comments and style of detecting, I'm willing to gestimate you usually don't hunt dredge tailings much? No worries, as many folks don't, just for the facts that not are around. Everyone has one.... I've seen that before. Alls good and thanks for input.

Last week--biggest back left 14k, 6.5 gr. pendant 7.4, 10k, front center 18k, 5.2 ....Manti, Impulse AQ, GQA2... French Foreign Legion with waves...about $1700 CDN minus dealer cut. cjc

Top insights Gerry to start this this thread, I`ve not used iron reject/discrim at all in my 45 plus years, mainly because there is not any need for such out in the unworked fringes where an occasional horseshoe/nail/bullet/pellet is encountered. Aged legs are dictating those long searches in rugged country via shanks pony are near over so part of this season on day trips I`m amongst the junk in closer to the mines/settlements. I will be following this thread with much interest to pick up any hints from those who work such areas that may help the Manticore or Axiom w/. DD score amongst the junk without losing what`s left of my sanity from our crazy fever. Young fellas get out into the unworked fringes whilst your legs can...... it can only drive you crazy but.... when you score... tis magic no.

Bottle caps are not created equal. Corona is the worst for fooling you. If you zeroed in on 5, you avoided some of those ferrous caps. It’s the aluminum ones that are a pain. I actually notch 0-10 since iron on our tourist beaches are always junk. On the treasure coast, I don’t notch anything. However, they have dumped 5-8 feet of new sand along the treasure coast!!! Redefines the term “buried treasure”. 🥴

Your beach was more productive than the Cocoa Beach area this past weekend. 🥴 Your dedication and persistence was rewarded!!!

Hey Chase, Yes, I have been having great success with the Manticore. So much in fact that I wrote a story on it and Minelab picked it up. As a nice reward, they sent me a Nox 900 as a thank you gift along with their Pro-Find 35 pin pointer. I thought that was extremely nice of them. If you Google, The Mythical Beast and the Harvest you'll be able to read the story if you'd like. I have grown accustomed to Minelab detectors since the Safari came out. At first, their detectors were hard for me to learn because of all of the different "flute like" sounds. However, sticking with their detectors and learning the different sounds has really helped my silver coin finds excel like no other detector. I am nearly 58 and have been detecting since I was 14 years old I used the 900 yesterday and pulled out a few Wheaties from a very worked out city park. My wife showed up she tried the 900 too, and pulled a 1935 Buffalo nickel. Not counting over five bucks in newer clad. My Manticore is my go-to machine and I am looking forward to the smaller M8 coil being release. I detect a lot of trashy sites and those small coils do an excellent job and plucking the silver from the trash. My wife really like the 900 because she has the 800 and it is similar to use. The collapsible shaft is an added bonus. Hope this helps 🙂 Happy hunting! John

To answer your question yes if you set the bottle cap rejection to high, it can cost you good targets I experimented with it a little just to see at what point you start to loose good targets and for me personally I decided to leave it set to zero which is no bottle cap reject, as phrunt said the more filtering you set can cost you good targets

Test on my iron filed (English subtitles)

Well done F350, some very nice finds for the day. Good to here some reports on the update, I haven't been able to get out and test mine in the wild yet. I have done a few tests in my small test garden but cant wait to try it out for real. I enjoyed reading your story thanks for sharing.

Every filter poses the risk of losing some targets.

Thanks for taking the time to give us your perspective Gerry.

I am not in the same area of the world as Minton so I am not going to offer any Legend help other than to move away from the default settings since most of them are for basic hunting by people with very little experience who also do not have difficult conditions to detect in. Minton's conditions appear to be fairly extreme. XP ORX with one of the HF coils or even a Deus 2 Lite with 9" coil and WS6 Master would be my choice over the Minelab X-Terra Pro 10 times out of 10.

Welcome aboard Jeff ! You're right that many places are off limits , but... If you ask at state parks , the ranger might just issue a permit. Town city parks aren't all on the no list either. Research helps you locate old long gone buildings and other areas of occupation long gone....talk to older residents to find hang out spots etc. Knock on doors , ask permission, the worst that can happen is they say no. Campgrounds and Fairgrounds are a good place to detect, again ask for permission. Most public beaches are allowed and like I said some of the state park beaches are open through the permits. This forum is loaded with experience , you chose wisely . The best of the best call it home. No question is stupid. Just ask. Steve's Guides is also a great place to learn more.... Happy hunting.

Another "expert" bit the dust! 🙂

Everyone has one............ An "opinion" 😁🧐 As for myself, no screens, no readouts, no "automated opinions or guesses. Time spent on my machine and total guidance from my ears. In other words "the sound" 😎👍🎯⛏️.

At 0 and 1, the silencer is wide open and helps you find some good targets in the middle of iron but you have to dig a lot ! at 3 and more, the silencer transform some false signals from iron to pure iron signal so it's more comfortable if you have plenty of little iron. on the V1.0, the silencer is a little more effective at high values if I remember well so to not change too much the program 3, XP decided to change from old silencer at 2 to new silencer at 3 (as I understand) is it more clear this way ? tell me 🙂

Gerry, You ARE an EXPERT. Mitchel

The Manticore ID screen will definitely talk you out of digging some signals. It seems like people with more hours under their belt are pulling back the upper and lower ferrous limits for the reason of letting more signals come in. They are digging a little more iron junk but they are also reporting digging good stuff they otherwise would have missed with near factory preset ferrous limits. I figure it's nice to have that feature to be able to set it as you wish. There are some sites I've dug every good quality sounding signal out of that I plan on hunting again with the limits stripped back just to see what comes up.

It was so odd this morning, as I was getting ready to duck out for a few hours to get some more trigger time on the D2 with V1.0 before the afternoon storm came in to see if I could tame this beast, when @abenson posted that XP had released V1.1. What?! I read my emails this morning and didn't see anything about an update from XP. So I logged on and sure enough, there it was. I updated my gear and reloaded a couple of my slightly modded programs and hit a nearby park as there was only an hour or two before a rainstorm was coming in. The two programs I loaded up are based on Fast with the following settings: (Note that these are based on settings that have worked well in my particular mineralized soil conditions) Both programs had Max Freq at 40 kHz, Disc= 6.8, Notch= 7-30, Sensitivity= 95, Reactivity= 1.5-2, Audio Response =4, Iron Vol= 7, FE TID= On, High Sqr Audio, but one program in Full Tones with Offset FT= 5, and the other in Pitch. I set Silencer and B.Caps at 0 because I wanted to see if I could. My part of the country (US Rocky Mountains) has a lot of iron and coal in the soil plus it been raining every day for over two weeks so the ground is saturated with water, and in V1.0, the machine ran too hot with Sensitivity in the 90s so I had to use some Silencer and B.Caps just to calm down all the iron noise, and of course there was a lot of falsing. One of the things that I was going to try was running the Audio Response lower than my usual 5 as suggested by Paystreak in a video. I had no idea that Audio Response was one of the things that was beefed up in V1.0 and it turned out that was one of the major contributors to my falsing problems. Instead I was bumping up the Silencer and B.Caps to quiet the machine down and it was just making things worse in my scenarios. When I hit the park today with V1.1, I was amazed how quiet the machine ran with no Silencer and no B.Caps with Audio Response only lowered to the stock 4 setting. Also, with AR at 4, target size and depth was much easier to gauge. Running in Full Tones was glorious again. I really liked Full Tones in V0.71, but it wasn't working well in V1.0 for me (probably because I was running too hot for my conditions), but in V1.1 it's even better! I was able to hear eveything well defined and was able to call almost all of the targets before I dug them. A couple of canslaw pieces fooled me and, to my surprise, a nickel fooled me. I thought it was going to be a pull tab. Speaking of pull tabs, I was able to call almost all of them by lifting the coil and hearing the squeaks in High Sqr Full Tones. Also, checking suspect targets in Deus Mono in 17 kHz with the XY screen correctly exposed all the tabs and iron I encountered today. The two rusty nails I dug were obvious to me so I used them to test out the Silencer and B.Caps functions while still in the ground. Silencer started to break them up at 2 and almost eliminated the falsing entirely at 4-5. B.Cap handled them well at 3, after testing I set them both back to 0 to continue hunting. I didn't find anything earth-shattering today, that wasn't the mission, but I did find a silver bracelet and my first gold coin! Well gold-colored coin anyway... I almost dropped a duece when I saw that in the hole! 🤣 But I will say I'm impressed that XP managed to get these fixes out in just 10 days after releasing V1.0 and I'm sure there's more to come, but now I feel like my D2 is even a better than before, so thank you, XP!

Moisture in the ground is killer even on the top PI's performance wise. Trying to hear and sniff out the small pickers on those pounded patches is really tough during normal dry conditions. You guys did well for your efforts. Sorry to hear Old Red getting crankie with you. The bad part now...knowing her ability to totally shut down with no warning and you not wanting to get far off the road. Sometimes those are worse than a gold skunkin. At least you were able to spend a little time with Lucky Larry and tell the same old stories. This time though, you were able to make a new one to tell down the road. I'm most certain Larry will be telling it much better than you though. LOL. Thanks for the update.

That is one of the better videos I've seen as the screens were so clear and easy to see, often in videos people try show the screen but it's so hard to see. A good demonstration of the 3 detectors on the target, I liked how stable the 900 ran in the video. I hope XP can resolve that, surely they can it just hasn't been a focus yet I guess, hopefully they're not just holding it back to keep sales of the ORX and Deus 1 going which are clearly better than the Deus 2 for prospecting, not only because of the lack of small gold sensitivity but also because they have the better coil with the 9.5 x 5 HF coil.

I find the audio filter should be used with caution. Higher levels 3-5 take the iron buzz out of the deep targets, let's say ground saturation at depth. Also I have been told higher levels can offer advantages when hunting in the surf. The downside is higher levels can soften iron signals and you may be fooled into thinking they are good targets. Also shallow targets can sound a little wooly. Lower levels 0-2 can give better iron identification, as they are "pure" unfiltered signals. Lower levels are best for iron contaminated sites, I find my go-to settings are mostly 0-1 for UK inland. But I have some deep pasture and will be testing higher levels once the grass is cut. I would love to hear your thoughts. Hope this helps Gary

Nothing all that spectacular here just some more of the stuff that often turns up at these early western sites that unlike the gold camps were inhabited by folks that did not have a whole lot of money. Mostly I just wanted to show another piece of millitaria that was found that I am not completely sure about.I'm thinking that it was either a very large two piece general service type coat button missing its back portion or perhaps part of a stamped two piece buckle although there is no signs of it being attached to a frame. I have had to resort to using primairily the deus 1 with the elliptical coil due to the unbelievable density of the weeds and native grasses which are the direct result of the very wet winter.Relic site detecting in my area is going to be real tough until the fall die off. A few eyeballed items Some of the more interesting trash.

So, I get a call to help out at a Revolutionary War camp site.... I declined 😥 Hell no 😄. So 4 of us spent the day working with Archaeologists doing the metal detecting survey for them. Total Regiment buttons were 10 plus 3 round ball. This place has been hunted twice before with detectors, so we did pretty good, considering the grass was really tall and there were cow droppings everywhere. 💩 I ended up with 5 Regiment buttons and 2 round ball, plus other good stuff. I only used the GPX 5000 since the grass was so high and iron was rather light, considering the present occupation. I also found a large colonial copper & a small copper coin - both unreadable - and a odd 2 piece button that I can't figure out what the heck it is. Pictured are 3 of the Rev War buttons, since they are the only readable ones, plus the odd button. If anyone has ever seen that odd button before, I would appreciate any info on it. I've detected a lot of cellar holes and other old locations in my life, and have found quite a few military buttons, but these are my first Rev War buttons ever. Nice to get that monkey off my back.

Ok, that setup with concentric Silver Scout coil works very well. MPV3 is easy to set up and works perfectly in iron. Also is good weight balanced. The audio is very smooth and easy to learn. In my conditions - a lot of iron is necessary to use a single ton and VCO only to check suspected targets. The LED meter works like a second-hand tool. If you are not sure you can use it to examine what kind of conductor you have under your coil. Single-tone audio is easy to distinguish, iron targets are longer and blurry but low and high conductors work faster and crisp - beep - beep in both directions just click on them. When you are on VCO you hear two tones. No place for mistakes even with tricky targets near iron and a fast look at the LED meter to be sure of 100%.