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Having spent the better part of the last two decades writing up field tests on metal detectors, I have had the opportunity to use a lot of machines. Due to publishing deadlines, timing of receiving the unit, testing/learning the detector and a lot of behind-the-scenes tasks required to get a field test published, it is not the gravy train that a lot of folks think it is. Yes, it can be fun, but it is work. The toughest part on rare occasions was to not have the time to really flush out a new metal detector, especially when other articles and field tests were lining up. While I could get a sense of using the detector and describing its features in the context of a field test, there were times that I really wanted to have more time to get to know a detector. Well now that I am retired from writing up field tests due to Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine ceasing publication at the end of 2022, time has become available to revisit a detector or two. One such case is the Garrett Ace Apex, Garrett’s first multi-frequency detector that was introduced in 2020. I wrote the field test on the Apex for the November 2020 issue of Western and Eastern Treasures and after that was delivered the detector basically sat idle until about 2 months ago. With all the constant buzz about various new multi-frequency detectors, incessant “update” anxiety and the like, I found myself overloaded on the whole multi-frequency side of our hobby. That led me to recall the Apex. I remember that I liked it some, had good luck with it at the beach and decent but not overwhelming success with it inland. After digging the detector out of my garage I put it on the charger and decided to do a little Internet research to see how the Apex had gone over since its introduction. To my surprise, there were very few recent posts and videos. Digging a bit deeper I discovered that Garrett had issued an update on 11/30/2022 that offered several improvements: · Improved overall stability · Faster and more accurate ground balance in saltwater · More accurate pinpointing · More distinctive tones to better differentiate good targets from bad Just like with the Apex itself, this update garnered very little web/forum activity, again a bit of a surprise. I wondered why the Apex, Garrett’s first multi-frequency detector, seemed to have been forgotten, lost in the wake of the multi-frequency whirlwind that hit the industry over the past several years. That led me to this post. Basically, over the course of the last two months I decided to revisit the Apex to see just what it could, and could not do. I would like to make one thing clear before the post. This revisiting of the Apex is of my own doing. It was not requested by Garrett, nor do I, or have I ever, been consulted by them regarding developing or testing of their metal detectors. This post is very simply reflective of my desire to spend more time with the Apex than my field test allowed. For those of you who are interested I’ve attached a copy of my original field test for your reference. Comment if you wish, criticize at your own risk, and no matter what, dear God please don’t ask me what my settings are. Fair enough? Now, let’s revisit the Apex. The Apex Itself What I had forgotten about the Apex is how much I liked its “landscape orientation” control box. Since the industry has gone all in on the pod design common to just about every new detector release, the Garrett approach is one that I find refreshing. The display is nicely arranged, the menus make sense and aren’t buried, and the thumb wheel of control buttons beats any pod set of pushbuttons by a mile. The detector is also very easy to swing and well balanced. The Viper coil is one that I prefer due to it’s blade like configuration. While I have used the larger Reaper coil which does give greater coverage, I do not think you lose much with the Viper. Plus it is lighter. Setup to Detect Given the fact that the Apex is part of the Ace line, there are minimal adjustments compared to higher end detectors. You basically turn on the detector, select a search mode, adjust sensitivity and go. What impressed me about this second tour of the Apex is that this lack of adjustability did not affect performance in my hunting environments at all. Not to mention it made my hunts more enjoyable. Features News flash: the Apex DOES NOT HAVE A BOTTLE CAP REJECT SETTING. NOR DOES IT HAVE AN IRON MASK SETTING. How on earth can you hunt with such a primitive detector? It’s easy thanks to Garrett’s Iron Audio feature. Yes, when you have it on all the time the iron grunting will drive you crazy. SO JUST USE IT SELECTIVELY. On the saltwater beaches, this feature was terrific at identifying suspect signals. When I got jumpy numbers, or overly high numbers, all I had to do was turn on the Iron Audio. If it was iron or a bottlecap it grunted every time. The only time it would get fooled was on those tiny screw caps that you find on airline liquor bottles. The Apex was also the only metal detector that I have ever used that was not fooled by the most insidious of all bottlecaps: the dreaded foil-wrapped cap. They read good on every machine I have used except the Apex. When you hit one with the Apex you will get a high slightly bouncy number and when you tun the Iron Audio on it grunts. I also used this feature in the parks and it worked equally well. I’d also like to comment on target ID on the Apex. I love the old school bars across the top, they are a handy reference. And the Apex’s 1 0 – 99 scale is pretty solid as opposed to other multi’s that I have used where the expanded TID scales result in jumpy numbers. It’s not perfect but I could get pretty consistent numbers with multiple swings over targets. The Beach The Apex is flat out a great saltwater beach detector. This second tour with it confirmed just that. In my last four hunts I found gold three times using the Viper coil which excellent on small gold. A thin 10K ring that read a solid 44. A small gold earring that gave a good tone but had weird, jumpy numbers, from 40 – 55. I almost didn’t dig it but the sound was, well weird. It was different than jumpy bottlecap numbers. I checked it with Iron Audio and got a partial grunt but also good tone. The reason? When I recovered the earring the clasp was open. Closed it read a solid 55. I had two buddies with their high-end detectors check the earring with the clasp open and both said they would not have dug it because it sounded like junk. And finally, last week a 14K butterfly charm with inlaid diamonds that read 48. All in the wet sand with one bar below max sensitivity. The Apex falsed very little on the wet sand and when it did get a little noisy all I had to do was a quick ground balance. In terms of coins, the Apex did just fine on both wet and dry sand. A mentioned earlier, I liked the Viper coil better than the Reaper at the beach and I think my results speak for themselves. I should note that on these hunts there were up to eight other hunters gridding the same sections of the beach that I was hunting. Every one of them was using a high dollar, top end multi-frequency detector. I did not feel like I was losing anything with my Apex. Now, if you are a surf wash hunter, the Apex is not for you. Yes, it does ground balance easily when submerged in salt water. But the wash will cause it to false with each pass of the whitewater. Personally, since the Apex is not waterproof, only water-resistant, I would not hunt the surf line anyway. Having been hit by a rogue wave years ago I’m not willing to take the risk. If you do hunt the surf and in the water there are better options in terms of detectors. Inland Whatever they did with the update, the general hunting experience of the Apex has been improved in my view. I ran U.S. Coins, which is a nifty option in that it includes all high conductors plus nickels (a range where I have been historically very lucky finding gold). In my hunts in very trashy parks this mode worked great. Some tabs read at the low end of zincs, around 66, and I was able to recognize them after digging several. The Apex target ID numbers are very solid and not jumpy, which given the 0 – 99 TID range is an advantage. While not having a myriad of adjustable settings, the Apex performed pretty well in the high trash. Yes, when you use Jewelry Mode the foil comes to life but that is the case with any detector. I generally don’t hunt in this mode in trash because there is just too much noise to sort through. Using U.S. Coins I was able to hit coin targets easily, even when there were multiple targets. The Iron Audio is a huge advantage when used to check targets. If I got a good hit but it was a bit clipped, turning the Iron Audio on would confirm for me that there was iron present as well. The YouTube idiots who dismissed this detector when it came out because of the noisy Iron Audio just didn’t understand that you shouldn’t leave it on all of the time. Bottlecaps were a cinch to ID. When I got a good high target ID and a solid one-way target response it was always a bottlecap. I checked first with the Iron Audio and confirmed that the target was iron. This worked on everything except screw caps. The other advantage that the Apex has in high trash is the Viper coil. Due to its long, narrow footprint, it can sort out and pinpoint multiple targets easily, much more so than a traditional round coil. By the way, I didn’t notice anything new about the pinpointing. It works just fine but I didn’t have an issue with it when I field tested the detector. I’m just noticing the page length here and need to restrict my field tester instincts before this becomes a full-blown article. Therefore I will sum up this revisiting of the Apex by saying that in my personal view, it is a very cable multi-frequency metal detector that has not received its due. It finds stuff and uses a platform that is markedly different from its competitors. It is a very enjoyable metal detector to use. I sincerely hope that Garrett continues to develop Multi-Flex and I believe that if enhanced in a higher end model it could be a completely unique offering in the world of multi-frequency metal detecting. FYI I intend to keep using mine. Apex Field Test 11202020.pdf

It is a detector so good it takes two boxes to haul all the treasure it finds back to the truck.

Dug up this Connecticut button today I gave it to the landowner so no pictures of it cleaned up sorry but thought you guys might still like to see it.

I went up to my claim yesterday and hunted a sloping meadow with my Gpx5000 and the 25" NF DDX coil and dug a few iron trash targets and then I got a signal that was the best signal of the day. I scraped a layer back and it got a little better sounding. What popped out was a 1.06 gram nugget, to my surprise. This was the first nugget I have found with this coil since I bought it in 2021 from Rob. I got it on video so that will be coming in a few weeks. When I got to my claim I realized I had left my bungee cord on another shaft with my 15" Evo. I had to swing that 3 lb. Coil on a sloped terrain without it. Not fun. Wore me out quicker. Also check out my new video A Good Day Detecting! - Wages met!

Or maybe we should call these “Stupid Steve Tricks” for now. I’ve only begun delving into these weird settings but figure I may as well toss them out there for other people to experiment with also. I’ll post more somewhere down the line when I come up with something more definitive. But for now, I’ll just give a brief summary. Minimum Sensitivity - I was working a location that was dense with trash, way too many signals. Sensitivity 1 really worked some magic in making it possible to use the machine in dense trash. Way too early to say much on this yet, other than that I did find it useful for cherry picking coins in a park by digging low tones only, which eliminates low conductors in favor of mid to high conductors. I was able to get more coin than trash targets. I still dig trash with a VLF so this was a good resultant in my limited testing. I am going to see what happens on depth on a 1/4 oz nugget going from high to low sensitivity in a future test. Salt Setting - yes it tunes out small gold. But how small? I don’t know yet, but it’s not as bad as people might think. It can also shut up some ground and hot rocks other settings will struggle with. I need more work with both this and Large Mode. My initial sense is that the differences between the modes are more subtle than dramatic. Minimum Threshold - this shows the most promise for developing a silent search “Bogenes Settings” methodology for the Axiom. -7 still has some audio break through. -9 is pretty much dead silent but seems too aggressive? I’ve settled on -8 so far as a preference, and was surprised at how well small nuggets jump out still, and with good depth. It also allows for a bit higher sensitivity setting, so I would highly encourage people to try these very low Threshold settings with either a normal or slightly boosted sensitivity setting. For some situations I’m thinking I might be employing this a lot. Super pleasant way to hunt for those that hate a threshold. I just wish there was more nuance as right now the jump between -7 to -8 to -9 is coarser than I’d like. I put it on my wish list for an update. Forced Frequency Setting - default frequency is 50 with range from 0 - 99. The automatic frequency scan is fairly simple. It scans all frequencies looking for the quietest one. It is therefore imperative normally that you do not introduce extra noise by moving the detector while it scans. Normally I’d have the coil on the ground so it is picking up anything it would pick up in normal sweeping, but aiming the coil at a nearby EMI source like another detector can help eliminate that source, so it bears playing with if it still seems noisy on the first go. If you have an pinpointer, turn it on and set it it 2-3 feet away while doing a frequency scan - this will let most pinpointers play very nicely with the Axiom. And do remember that going to a lower sensitivity or DD coil vs mono also help reduce EMI. The interesting question here is that for areas with no EMI, is there any difference in the frequencies? There very well might be, though in my limited testing so far I’ve found no smoking gun. But if you want to try, here is the trick. If you want a frequency of 99, start the scan going, then wave a metal item over the coil while the machine scans 0 to about 90, then get the metal away, and let the scan finish. Very good chance you’ll end up at frequency 90 or higher, if not try again. To hit the other extreme, start the scan, and when it gets to about 10, now wave metal over the coil until it gets to 99, then stop and let it finish. You should end up at 10 or lower. With a little practice you can force almost anything, but I think the main interest is in the two extremes. Can anyone find a discernible difference on any target between the extremes? In theory there should be one, but again, my very limited tests so far have not found anything. So there you go. I do like the fact that the Axiom does not have too many controls, but on the other has enough to give me things to think about and experiment with. Early days still, new machine, people need to experiment and share notes. So that’s mine so far, hopefully a few of you will take up the challenge and add your own observations.

New member here. Stumbled on this site while looking through Google at advice and forums about getting into gold panning/prospecting. Saw this story and have read through its entirety over the past few days. Ghost Miner has a definitive way with words and the story of Jed, Will, John, Jacob and Co. is fascinating to say the least. Thanks Ghost Miner for sharing.

June 19 2002 Jim is feeling a bit better this morning and has decided to take watch duty on the mountain. He is far from being mobile however and we had to assist him all the way up to the watchpost. He will not be able to patrol the water line either. At noon we broke for lunch and took the gold weigh up to Jim to cheer him up. There were 3.8 ounces. We all ate lunch with Jim and decided to bring him back to camp and Jacob took over the watch. He makes me nervous with that Thompson and has an itchy trigger finger as well. We got some relief from the heat today and actually had some rain. There were no problems with hooligans as Jacob calls them and we put in a good day's work and sent 32 yards of pay gravel through the tom. Jacob was helping us shovel from time to time as well as testing the gravels we were working. He told us we were still on good ground. We are all hoping this rich material holds up for when we get out trommel up and running again. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

It all matters: angle of approach, coil, frequency, audio settings, discrimination, notch, TID accuracy, repeatability, and stability; sensitivity, variable soil conditions on the same patch of soil (moisture, added trash, etc.), etc. Also, different detector models process targets differently even with nearly identical settings, coils, frequencies, and recovery speeds. Finally, we rarely ever cover every square millimeter of ground even if we think we do, so declaring a site “hunted out” is almost always wrong. All of these factors and infinite variable combinations make claims that one detector is better than another because targets have been pulled out of a “hunted out” patch dubious at best and most likely meaningless. You kind of proved that with your Legend > Nox > Legend anecdote.

The river is extremely low near the house so I took the kayak out to a place where a bridge used to cross the river but was burnt during the Civil war. I turned up some Civil war bullets both Yankee and Confederate a homemade fishing sinker some iron relics and two handguns! You never know what's in the river I guess.

Had a couple hours to get out last Friday with manticore, was running beach deep sens 24 recovery speed 4. Ring is 8.6 grams of 20k tested on xrf gun id was 52-53. Bracelet was gold filled. Ring was about 10-12” deep on towel line and gave a great clear signal. Loving the manti. Thanks John

If so, I wouldn't guess there would be a large percentage of Deus II owners that would be interested...

If there's too much intereference in the apartment, and there probably will be specially if other people live in the building, you may want to consider getting a Snake Cam, also known as an Endoscope or Borescope. They are tiny cameras with lights on a long flexible wire that are relatively cheap which can be poked through a tiny hole to look around under the floor. Some even work on a cell phone. Even if you can get a metal detector to work in there, it could help you verify signals before you pull up flooring.

800 great machine...found lots of great stuff with it...I still have my wife's 800 to use if needed with the small coils. I have not picked it up since buying the M-Core but may have to if the small coil is needed. But people saying saying the M core is no better the the 800 is ridiculous..more features deeper machine way better audio options etc.. come on man give me a break...😀 strick

To me the Manticore learning curve reminds me of when I first used the explorer years ago, I feel you gotta put in the time understanding what the machine is doing. I almost gave up on the explorer back then but forced myself to learn its language and I’m glad I did. The manticore reminds me of that time and the more I run the manticore the more I’m learning it’s language. To me it’s like a super fast, deeper and more sensitive explorer in a way. Once it all clicks you can’t put it down you want to get out swinging. Can’t wait for the accessory coils to be available. Thanks John

It would be cool if it was a PI. Maybe a program added to the remote and an accessory coil would allow PI capabilities. Probably way off, but I can keep hoping.

I'm crazy. I would bet on Two Box setup. They write about EXTREMES. It should be something more, than smaller/larger coil... Or maybe they fixed the clock? That would be extreme!

I have never had a chance to see an Axiom in person, but it's an impressive machine from what I can tell. The SDC 2300, oth, I witnessed in action. It's an amazing little bugger! It was a machine I recommended to a mate starting out, and it served him very very well. He bought a coiltek 14 x 9 coil to go with it, and found some really nice gold with it, including a beautiful 2.7 ozt piece. It works really well in some of the hottest ground I have found. Will try and find some pics.

Hi All, I'm a new potential prospector in Northern California. I'd like to do some prospecting in streams in the El Dorado National Forest. The El Dorado County folks seem fairly reasonable in terms of encouraging recreational gold panning in the National Forest and in the County in general, but I'd rather sluice than pan. So, I'd appreciate an evaluation of my intended methods, and their legality under current California laws and regulations: 1) Recover sand and small gravel from creekbeds using a hand auger like the ones AMS makes (see below); 2) Run the sand and small gravel through a sluice placed in the creek, like the sluice below; 3) After sluicing in the creek, rinse the sluice mat contents into a bucket and take the bucket home. So, in your opinion, is there anything illegal about my process? Would my methods require a permit? Thank you for your time! I appreciate any and all answers. Jim_Alaska, I hope you will respond. -Cord

I got the 15 inch concentric X-coil onto a patch today and 6-7 hours later I had a new personal nugget record at 14 for a day. My previous high was 12. Those were a bit bigger found with the stock 7000 coil. The depths ranged up to 6 inches or so but most of the small ones were easy to hear at 3 inches. The sizes from left to right are .44 (far left), then 2 x .2+, 6 x .1+ and finally 5 nuggets less than .1 g with the small one at .03 grams. It was also a nice sunset.

Clay Diggings runs the website mylandmatters.org - that’s the best place to start for getting information about claims. But for getting maps of specific claim locations, you will have to go to your county recorders office, or ask BLM for them but you have to ask by giving them specific claim numbers. Be sure to throw Clay a bone if the site helps you out (it will), he’s running the best resource out there for us! http://www.mylandmatters.org/Maps/ClaimsCa/GetMap

Steve, Im so glad you posted these "Stupid Tricks". Iv only had the Axiom out about 10 days (maybe 40-50hrs), so im still getting to know it. Most locations have been challenging in one way or another. Either horrible EMI, wet red clay and fields of hot rocks ( or all three at once). Yesterday i got out with the intention to play around with settings a bit more and try out a few tricks. With regards to the minimum threshold: I found this to be an especially helpful and interesting part of the Axiom to explore. I guess i had not really dug into the nuances up to this point. One thing that stood out was turning down the threshold below 0 mellowed out the EMI significantly. What a nice surprise! I was able to comfortably up the gain a notch as well. Turning to the extremes of -9 threshold and full sensitivity and then backing off each incrementally i found a sweet spot for the day. Sensitivity 5 and threshold +8 (normal timing) This was great, very little EMI coming through, still picked up birdshot, ground mostly steady. Usually in this location and im running at 3-4, so great experiment. Im used to a steady gpx threshold thats tuned for quiet operation and I have had a difficult time achieving this on the Axiom. I wish i could better articulate (Steve maybe you could elaborate) how it is different, but ill just say something else is going on in the way mode/gain/threshold level effects the whole soundscape. I worry that Im not hearing the "faint" part of the whisper of a small/deep target like i most certainly do using SDC/GPX . Taking some getting used to for sure. Sensitivity I have experimented with low sensitivity and yeah, lowering it helps almost the entire spectrum, stability wise, while not loosing too much depth. Although at a point the tiny ones disappear when switching from fine to normal. Upping the gain can bring them back but i guess it depends on the ground/EMI of the day. So far I havent been able to make a faint target stand out that much more by simply turning up the gain. Yes and no I guess. Specific setting adjustments for that exact spot /target bring them out a bit more but I cant comfortably keep hunting in those settings. Seems like I lean towards the lower sensitivity and 3 being most preferable for the average day/conditions so far. Ground Balance Gold Neck Prospecting made some great observations that could easily be overlooked if not experimented with. One being the ground balance. I had the same thought about it feeling like i was using a VLF at times. Sometimes Ground balancing a few times or more in the same area around a target is necessary to get a proper balance. I mean yeah, of course, but its all too easy to balance out/in hot rocks, minerals, and faint targets. (and maybe not know it) Three different balances in the same spot can have dramatically different effects. I have been able to use this to good effect on ironstones and hot rocks sitting together in clay using Steves recommendations. However for me its taking some time to adjust my habits to make it work and feel confident. Im sure a whole thread could be dedicated to making the transition to using the Axiom coming from the Minelab machines..... Anyway, thanks again Steve for eliciting some extra curiosity, it was a fruitful day of experimentation. The big one (18.45g) I hit in the last 15 mins of daylight on the longest day of the year. It was in the middle of a strewn field of large bullets. I had been over the exact area twice before. Two people, me included, probably waved a coil over it and passed it up... It was a screamer/overload and only 2" deep. sounded just like all the other bullets i was tired of digging near the surface (hi-low btw). But since it was my last target of the day and only about 10ft from a previous good find i figured id just go ahead and get that piece of trash out of the way, unbelievable..

XP-----Forget the two box!----We want that 5X10" coil for the Deus 2 that we have been asking for!!!!!

Oh, the manticore is much better in so many ways such as build quality, the nice interface and screen, more features 2d target trace etc but finding the coins I'm after at the moment I can't see how in my situation I will find more using my Manticore than I would my Nox, maybe that will change with time as I find new areas and give it the "first run" rather than going over done ground but so far I'm not finding anything I've missed. At my local sports field where I got hundreds of silvers I haven't found one with the Manticore yet that I'd missed in about 17 hours of trying. That kinda surprised me as I found 31 in total with the CTX when I first went there after the Nox, perhaps they're the 31 the Manticore would have found the Nox missed 🙂 There is also the factor of the operator, maybe I need to learn the detector more too to get iffy targets. I wasn't on the forum when I first got my CTX so I didn't do a post about it at the time but the first day I took my CTX to the field I'd been using my Nox for a year the CTX came out with 12 silvers almost all the smallest 3 pence coins I'd previously missed mainly due to depth and I think possibly they were on edge and the CTX gave me a better dig me signal on them. The other possibility which is likely is because the 3 pence comes up on the pull tab ID I rejected them with the Nox thinking they were a pull tab and the CTX ID'd them away from the common Pull tab ID. My dig decision on coins vs pull tab is usually depth, if the target is deep its more often than not a coin, under 6" I write it off as a pull tab as I rarely find a silver coin under 6" deep, 6" to 10" seems the sweet spot for silvers here, probably more than 10" if I had a detector good enough to find them. My deepest have all been with the CTX and 17x13" coil. That was my first time using it! I was hoping the Manticore was going to give me a nice surprise like that. For the two things I do with it, prospecting (800 is currently better due to coils) and silver coins it's not so far been a detector that's surprised me or excited me with what it's finding. People in trashy areas or more difficult soil or something may notice a more dramatic change, in my very mild clean soils I guess the playing fields are more even which is probably realistic as I honestly believe 90% of the coins I found at that sports field my Ace 300 could have found. I've taken it there a number of times randomly and my results were similar as when I was using my Nox. Beach hunters have clearly shown the benefits over the Nox, you're obviously finding it a lot better than the Nox too strick so that's great, I hope I end up feeling the same eventually, I'm happy with the target ID improvements now as it has improved for me to a point it's more in line with what I'd expect with the larger range of numbers. I use the Manticore as my primary now, but if I had to go back to using my Nox I wouldn't feel like I'm missing much.

Here is the two-box Deus Coil rendering XP first mentioned over 7 years ago:

I don't think they have announced a date yet, but the last two years it has been August 18. That will change a bit depending on where it falls in the week and it has been as late as August 26 in recent years.

I'm hoping for an extremely small coil like the 10x5 we have been on about forever. 🤔 The new space is positioned between the coils and headphones.

Welcome to the forum. If you "mention" a member it's more likely they will see your question, type the @ symbol, then start typing their username,, a list of members will popup keep typing until you find the member and click on their name and they will be sent a notification and should see your post when they visit the forum, the notification will look like this if you did it correctly..... @Jim_Alaska Jim should now see this topic when he visits the forum since I mentioned him in this reply.

Nice finds and hope you find a lot more of them. Good luck and good hunting.

Ditto -- much sweeter swing with a full CF shaft and sturdy cuff. I was using the Legend for a few months exclusively until I picked up the 10x5 Coiltek coil for the Nox. That coil on the 800 is a little piece of magic! Next thing I knew, I was pulling quarters galore out of previously worked territory. And then I brought the Legend w/stock coil out to the same worked/re-worked area the other night and pulled out even more coins (all clad) and absolutely zero trash! I'm starting to wonder if angle of approach is a significant factor here, on top of machine + settings + coil combo?

Actually a bunch of pennies! You can bet that even though I was short on time I was digging every good tone regardless because this place is exclusive. The best thing I found that day was probably the two people who run this club and another one owned by the same group further down the beach. I was able to connect with them and the one manager said I should become the exclusive ringfinder for each club! I spent a half hour with the manager telling her stories of finds over the years and every person that came in she was telling them I found the ring from last night's wedding. I kept all the trash and junk from the search and showed her how I cleaned their beach of debris for them. I gave them my card and left with a couple of new friends.

I had a search yesterday in the sand out front of an exclusive Malibu beach club. I had a two-hour max window to find a ring lost the night before at the wedding. I brought my D2 and my 800, unsure of which I would use. As I arrived, I gave it a moment and took the 800 out and left the D2 in the car. My reasoning? The 800 is a turn-and-go hunt detector, and it has never let me down. It was like riding a bike, I felt like the 800 was the simple machine we all think we need to improve upon when the reality is it works and works really well. I'm not saying I've lost confidence in my D2, but I don't want to spend time tuning my detector as that's not what I want or need out of a detector. I found the ring and all's well that ends well but the point of this is you really don't need the latest and greatest machine to have fun and find things. The 800 is more than enough for 98% of all your hunts.

You got good information @Cord, no need for me to repeat it.

Not sure about the pump being 300 ft from the stream for non bank or non streambed material because we got a water license to use a pump at the creeks as long as the water was being pumped to an area more than 300 ft from the stream. Seems to all be case specific now which makes no sense.

At this point, I wouldn't rule anything out for the Deus II ecosystem. There is a lot of potential there. 😎

Make sure your not on someones claim.

Is there a non-facebook version?

Hi Jack have you gone to Tib yet? I am still waiting for my ute to come lol

Don't do it. You will not be happy.

I must conclude that we who use the beach programs are destined to see this masking issue continue until XP engineers solve it for us. No combination of settings on our end yet found will do it on buried targets. Several of us here on this thread have tried all we know how with no success. We can successfully unmask good targets using land based programs but not the beach programs. For those who do hunt the beach, the General program will work but only on the very dry sand....and I've also used a modified Deep HC program but again, only on the very dry sand. Once you get those programs into even minimally wet sand, they are not effective...nor can they be. Another small consolation is that, at least on the beaches I hunt, good targets are seldom laying very close to ferrous junk. So if you're an odds player, those odds are slightly in your favor. But in as much as this is a software problem, I'm confident that the software developers, and only they, can solve it. Those same engineers have created the best detector on the market today by far, so again, I'm highly confident this too can be overcome....but only with their help. I do hope this issue gets into the hands of XP engineers so they can work their magic. Thanks again to all who jumped into this and gave their time and effort in trying to resolve it and find a solution open to us...the Deus II user community. I salute and appreciate you all....👍 Soldier on.

Thanks Rick. I found some crumbs and I kept pulling them. I showed a couple of guys with 6000s where they were and what I was doing and they could only pull out 1! This area had some very old dry wash diggings before metal detectors and some very old dig holes that filled in over the years. I think this is why I didn't get any larger nuggets. There was bb trash and a few wires but all the obvious signs I wasn't the first one to detect this patch of desert. I did leave more for others but not much in that 100x100! Mitchel

Metal detecting and fishing, two Virginia favorites. 👍 They probably threw them in the river due to the crackdown on unserialized pistols. Thanks Lynyrd Skynyrd! 😵 Great photos DC, I think Jeff has you covered. They wouldn't have tossed it if it was a Colt. 😀 Here's a pic of the little guy:

Great place to hunt for sure, cool water, shade, nobody to bother you, and a well known place to dump a gun that may have been used in a crime. You may want to report those to the police as you never know who through them in the river or why. Good luck on your next hunt and may you stay safe out there.

My last 3 patches have all been below old reef mines. The old timer's surfaced the ground below the reef workings until the ground got to deep then sank holes. I found a few scattered pieces on the surfaced ground and the mullock heaps down further and thought I got most of the gold. Then I tried the left and right edges of the surfaced area. Standing on the bottom of the slope and looking up towards the reef mine at the top, the right hand sides on all 3 surfaced areas were barren of detectable gold but the left sides had a narrow strip of ground running down the slope that the old timer's didn't dig that was full of species. Makes me wonder why they didn't dig a bit further to the left. Were they all right handed diggers? LOL. Here are a few pics with some of the results.

It's funny, but one of our members found about 50 wheat pennies and only a couple of dimes! He might have been running a Penny Slayer program. 😏 BTW, I forgot to mention, the D2 gave me my first 1st Place spot in a club hunt for the most dimes found. So thank you XP!

The second nugget I found weighed .10grams, but has some caliche/mud atatched to it still. It was very very faint in "fine" timing and sensitivity 2. I tested the signal while still in the ground changing settings. At sensitivity 3, the target was much clearer and definite. I did switch to "salt" setting and did not get a response at sensitivity 2 or 3. After the testing, I set the Axiom to a sensitivity of 3 for most of the rest of the day. I did use sens. 4 briefly, but preferred the quieter 3 setting. I believe the ability to manually select different modes or timings on the Axiom are what set it apart from more automatic units like the ML 6k. Got salt? Switch to salt mode without need to swapping to a different DD coil. Too many tiny shards of iron from cans or wires wasting time? Switch to normal timing to knock out the tiny targets. And even low sensitivity settings find the gold, and quite tiny and coarse too. I have more sub .1gr nuggets with the Axiom so far than I ever got with the GPX 5000 and even my SDC!

JC - Dan relayed to me in some more detailed offline discussions, that it happens with all three base beach programs (i.e., dive, beach, as well as beach sensitive) regardless of the Max F setting used for each (i.e., he used all three Max F settings with each of the three base beach programs) and that he was able to unmask with General and other land based base programs regardless of the Max F settings. Agree that it’s more than just about Max F in the way SMF target signals are processed, but it appears that the Beach programs in general are doing something noticeably different than the “land” programs with respect to target signal processing even with otherwise identical user setting setups (other than the salt sensitivity setting which is only present on the beach base programs - and adjustment of which across its entire range had no effect on this masking behavior). Also, in another thread, he noted different target response behaviors (primarily associated with TID differences) between beach sensitive and beach with identical user settings (including Max F), so that is consistent with your assertion that the SMF profiles and signal processing algorithms are different between outwardly similar programs (e.g., beach and beach sensitive) that goes beyond the SMF Max F user setting.

The WS6 doesn't have backlight like the full remote does so that can't be changed, but you can change the contrast level in the settings menu and that may help. Also you can set the screen to Large Numbers display in the settings menu or by pushing the + and menu butttons (the 2 buttons on the right side) and hold them for 2 seconds as a shortcut to activate and deactivate Large Number display. Here's a link to the WS6 Master manual in case you need it: https://www.xpmetaldetectors.com/uploads/files/document/gb-ws6-deusii.pdf

I hope in the end you all get the detector you desire and Fisher releases the final product with all issues resolved along with them taking the advice of the AQ users about the various ways to improve it after all that's what beta testing is for and that's what AQ owners essentially are/were. I hope Fisher comes through with the goods and gives the AQ Limited owners a substantial discount on the final product, or ideally a free exchange program. When working properly it seems like a very good detector for it's purpose, so Fisher should press on and release a final improved product along with the Impact Gold. The VLF market seems so saturated now so the PI market is where there is room for these manufacturers to bring out products with a difference. The AQ and Gold can provide a difference that makes them desirable over existing detectors on the market.

Am I the only one who did a double-take when first seeing that image? Lawyers are already toasting their upcoming cases.

These are two very different detectors that are almost impossible to be compared. The SDC is a specialized machine designed for shallow gold in mineralized soil, and its timings (MPF) are specifically made for these applications. Think of it as a PI-GB2 that is super robust and also great for hiking (since foldable). Albeit outdated and clunky, it remains a workhorse for me in certain terrain types and it is hard to beat there. The Axiom is a much more modern and versatile machine (disclaimer: I don't own one). No question in my mind that the Axiom would be the better choice as an all-round PI if this would be your only detector. But the SDC remains very effective in certain circumstances, and I continue to be in love with it. I hope a next gen. one will come out soon! GC