goldbrick

Paul you are going to have to do better than this cockamamie reasoning if you want to convince people. Gee, just maybe you swung over twice as many nuggets that day. LOL What's next? An all points bulletin on Kreskin so he can provide testimony?

Thanks for the info. I did not know that.

Congratulations on your retirement. Try to research locations in the higher elevations. Above 5000' elevation in the summer are my favorite areas. It is much cooler allowing old guys to work longer. I would avoid the desert. Detecting in 90 degree heat with some shade around is way different than detecting in the same heat and there isn't even sage brush tall enough to crawl under for relief. I hope you have loads of fun.

Quick, run and hide before the "I dig every target and I am damn proud of it" crowd see your post. Blasphemy they will cry! They will be looking to verbally kick the sch1tt outa ya for daring to suggest such a thing. LMAO My opinion? You are on the right track.

Don, It depends on whether you are mainly a relic hunter or a coin shooter. If you are a relic hunter buy one. Study the manual. Read Andy's book. As many times as it takes until you understand the interaction of the settings(it's not that hard). Put some hours on it and you will have the Aha moment. Then you will be the commander of arguably one of the very best relic detectors ever made. If you are a coin shooter and have some extra loot to spend I would still buy one. You can configure this machine to pluck coins from trash. JMHO Maybe Strick will jump in here. He has had both machines for a while now.

Steve, I do hope they heed customer input. That would make a really good detector company great. They should have lunch with Nok-mak on occasion. 95% of the time I love my Minelabs. This morning was the other 5%. I was still having battery trouble on my SDC 2300 even though I had stretched the springs and put 1 row of tape around the batteries. I got the great idea if 1 row of tape is good 3 would be better and my problems would be solved. Long story short my batteries got stuck down in the battery compartment. Dumb, dumb, dumb Their must be a joke their somewhere. You know your a redneck if.......

Klunker, it is a good thing for you that dang bee attacked me because I was just preparing to kick my detecting into high gear. If I had my finds would have easily surpassed your paltry collection. LMAO

Very astute analysis Chris, you hit the nail on the head. I like it.

Isn't it fun to beat up on Minelab? I think so. I do it occasionally. Like when I bought my GPX 4500. It had the bug, was one of the low serial number units. Or when I recently purchased a SDC 2300 I was pretty disgusted with the battery problem. Just this last week I got my new CTX3030. Thankfully no issues so far, just love that machine. In the following scenario allow your imagination to run amok.....Close your eyes, imagine it is 2020. NEWS FLASH! Today Minelab announced it was closing its doors forever. Bad management by Codan. African gold rush over. Go Find 120 debacle, millions in cost over runs. Australia outlaws metal detectors just as they did gold dredges. All combined to spell doom to the worlds foremost manufacturer of metal detectors. It is not really so far fetched, any company can fail. The question is if Minelab fails what are the worlds electronic prospectors going to do? CRAP THEIR PANTS is my guess. Switch to an ATX? No thanks, I already have repetitive motion injury. Switch to a TDI? Be like trading in your Porsche for a Miata. Maybe a new company like Makro would try to jump into the chasm created by Minelabs' absence. But we always hear how Minelab has all the juiciest patents locked up. Maybe Makro just can't create an equal to the worlds best nugget machine in a short time period. Instantly all the used Minelabs will triple in price. People will start hoarding. Thefts of Minelabs will skyrocket. Other unforeseen events may occur. LOL I have three Minelabs. If you are talking gold nugget hunting machines nothing matches Minelab. Are they perfect? Hell no. If we could not beat up on Minelab occasionally where would our forum be? Wouldn't be as fun or interesting. But I don't want to contemplate a world without Minelab. Feel free to speculate. Let rumor and innuendo run rampart. Bash, mash, dissect, trisect, and out right lie. Then stitch it all back together into your very own opinion of Minelab. But the next morning when you leave to go find some nuggets I venture the worlds best will be slung over your shoulder.

Here's one for you Chuck- I looked around for a dry place to sit down but there was nary one in sight. I knew if I got the seat of my pants damp it would be very uncomfortable because it wasn’t that warm outside. I had awoke to two inches of snow on the ground the morning before and while it had melted during the previous day the ground was still cold and muddy. This was my fourth day of nugget hunting on a pounded claim. The day dawned bright, clear and cold. I was determined to add some more gold to my poke which up to then only held one gram and a half nugget I found in a well used area my first day on the claims. "What do you do when you really need a gold fix?" I said to myself. The answer came back loud and clear. You work harder than most people are willing to. Whether it means digging the trashiest area or crawling under the brush on your hands and knees a person can usually get gold out of a pounded patch by going the “extra mile”. That was why I started the day with a NF 12” elliptical mono coil mounted to the lower shaft of my trusty Minelab 4500. I had marched to the area I planned to hunt for the day and proceeded to poke that little coil into every nook and cranny in the brush that blanketed a large part of the patch. So far I had found two nuggets. After an hour and a half of fruitless hunting I had scored my first gold, it was a 2.9 grammer that wasn’t in the brush but was hiding near the edge of it. That renewed my energy that had been flagging due to the physical demands of “extreme brush detecting”. I slowly and carefully started detecting in a widening circle around the location of my first find and received for my efforts a faint but obvious sweet signal about ten feet away from my first find. Digging down I unearthed a small golden treasure weighing 0.7 grams. Happy,happy,happy! Now it was after the lunch hour and I had spent fruitless hours and expended a lot of energy looking for nugget #3. Sitting there contemplating another nugget was not going to get me one, only a soggy butt. So I stood, then picked myself up by the boot straps and went right back to work. I had made my way out of the brush and was detecting open ground when I received a strong signal. Thinking it was trash I sunk my pick into the soft soil and scooped out about four inches worth. Right off the target was in the spoils pile so I am thinking 22 bullet or a bit of square nail but lo and behold it turned out to be a nice 3.9 gram nugget. That nugget came out of the hole, survived the obligatory spit bath in my mouth, and the initial weigh-in as one nugget. It wasn’t until the next morning as I was fondling my previous days finds so as to psyche myself up for the coming hunt that whatever had bonded them together failed during my handling and they fell apart and I discovered it was actually two nuggets! I love it when I get multiple nuggets out of one hole.

What Steve said x2 but even lighter(3-3.5 lbs)if possible. And as Art has suggested, packaged like the Deus.

Fred, I had the exact opposite experience as you. I had one on my 3500 and it worked great. Never ate a battery, totally reliable. I loved that unit like my own mother. LOL Sold it to my brother-in-law and it is still going strong years later. The one I had on my 4500 was a different story however.

Don't get me going on the screamer. Went back to the stock battery after spending untold dollars on batteries and chargers and I ain't the only one who feels this way.

I can't wait for the new coil. The Deus is maybe my all time favorite metal detector. It just speaks to me in a language I can understand. The ability to adjust settings to cover many scenarios is awesome. Bring on the update XP, this fan boy anxiously awaits. LOL

OK Strick, you really should post your latest find. Post that baby so the fellas that cant get out have something to dream about.

Paul, I have a lot of research I did on that area but never made it there yet for prospecting. I have travelled through that country and it is beautiful. I will trade research for donuts.

I too use a Hodan as my favorite pick. If I am swinging a big coil or in hard material then I take my Apex pick.

Steve, I just have not used my GR enough to say too much about it. I have some initial impressions of its performance and they are very positive. The reliability issue may not be an issue at all. Two machines breaking does not constitute a recall issue. All manufacturers have some problems and Makro is not an exception yet I have been very pleased with the design of the machines they make. I hunted in the heavy iron at a railway siding for only a couple hours and I was very impressed with the speed and discrimination. Of course we both know Makro's menu tree/display is one of the best available. I can make no determination about depth on relics/coins as I was in machine gun iron at the RR siding. Next I took it to a hard rock tailing pile that has a fair amount of the tiniest of detectable gold. The type of gold where it's so small if one guy has a GBII he gets 40 pieces and the dude with a GMT ends up with 6 pieces. Not bashing the GMT, just seen the scenario play out before. Ran the GR and GBII side by side comparing targets. I usually won't do this as I am not into testing but detect to have fun. But I needed to satisfy myself as to the performance of this new machine versus the GBII so I could hunt with confidence in the future. The GR did not disappoint. I could not discern a clear winner. This was only one snapshot of what occurred on one tailing pile with tiny gold at a certain level of mineralization. But if the GR performance I saw that day is equaled at other locales in different detecting scenarios Makro has a big winner on their hands. Just when I was really having fun with the GR it broke. The fitting the coil wire screws onto came loose in the housing causing noise problems. I happened to be in the area so I took it to my dealer, Chris Porter @ Detectoraid.com and he confirmed my diagnosis of the problem so I then called Moe at Detector Electronics. He gave me an RA number and off it went. Before it was returned to me I had to leave for work where I have been the past month. My problem was dealt with in a timely manner and I was very happy with their service. The comment about their return shipping being on a slow boat may be accurate though I did not pay close attention as I was away. Detector electronics sent me a new control head so I am hopeful I have no more problems with the GR because I think I am really going to like this machine. I hope to have some time with the GR soon to put her through the paces. I may have to disagree with you on this later. We all need much more time under a variety of detecting situations before any advantages become clear but the ease which the GR can be GB'ed and the improved iron discrimination are two very large advantages in my book. I always thought the 3x6 coil on the GBII was what made the machine. I would usually disdain use of the 10" coil as I felt it degraded the performance. I tried the 14" coil on the end of the stick once and won't bother with a comment. I am sure both those coils have their place and some people will love them, that just wasn't me. On the GR I used the 5x10 relic hunting and the 5R on the tailings. My initial impressions of both coils were they are really good on this machine. Since then I have purchased the 5x10 concentric and the 4x7 DD and am anxious to see how they perform when I get the chance. On the strength of your review I plan on buying VANURSE PAUL's 13x15 (cheaply too, LOL). I guess I am trying to say the GR initially looks to be a good performer with a variety of coils where as the GBII wasn't in my opinion. This wider coil selection to me means increased performance in a multitude of detecting scenarios where the tiny 3x6 on the GBII sucked. I look forward to trading notes and tips with you and others on this machine as we get some swing time on it. Merton

Hi Steve, I am just going under the Golden Gate Bridge on my way to sea. I will be in port on the 25th and will have time to relate my tale of woe then.

New coil likely. My Red racer stock coil is doing the same thing. I will send a video(on a text message) to Detector Electronics when I get a chance so I can avoid shipping charges returning the bad coil. This is a known problem, at least on the Red Racer. Call Moe or Bill, they will sort it out.

Chris has a good suggestion with the 2300 unless your sites are very trashy. Give the DEUS a look see. I like it better as an all-arounder over the GBP.

Thanks for the wonderful story Johnny.

Virgin Valley opal mines are a kick. I think they are open at this time of year.

Wow, there is a lot of info packed into that post. I will have to read it a couple more times when I get the chance. I am jealous you have been playing with your Racers. My Gold Racer control box developed a problem right off and I had to send it in. Detector Electronics was great to deal with. Sent a new control box pronto but I have been away at work for some time. I look forward to detecting some tailing piles in SW OR pocket country soon. Have you had a chance to run the large coil on the Gold Racer in placer tailings? It seems counter-intuitive to me to use such a large coil in cobbles. Is the depth gained that much more and is that the advantage you seek rather than sweep coverage? Thanks for the most excellent post.

I purchased a CTX today. I decided to go with the 6" coil instead of the Coiltek. Still interested in hearing a review on it though, Steve.