Andyy

Gerry, that is some beautiful gold. I couldn't imagine the miles walked and the holes dug to find those babies. Like you, I do not agree with the dig it all attitude. When you are new to detecting, I would say, yes, dig it all … because you are learning the detector and you are establishing your "best" method of detecting the different situations. Thank you for sharing! Andy

Dang Lunk, very nice work. I nugget shoot here in Arizona and would like to see how well you do with that on your known patches, as well. Very good luck to you!

Nice work, Rob. Glad you are still out there kill'n it. 👍

Interesting about depth on small gold. I have been able to get non measurable sub grainers with the GPZ. (when you learn how to listen) My difficulty for a while was learning how to get it out of the scoop. You really need to use a different technique to do this correctly. I think the weakness, for sure, is not being able to get into the tight areas. Other than that, I don't really need smaller gold. I think this was the main lure of the 10" xcoil for me. I really loved getting in to those small rocky areas. So I think the 6000 will definitely get a lot of the small pieces that the GPZ is just too big for. Sensitivity-wise, this is why I got rid of my 5000. My unit, specifically, was bad at getting anything less than .2g. It was frustrating. So kudos to Minelab on fixing this. And, yes, I know there are plenty of people who could get smaller gold with thier 5000k units. For some reason, my unit, nor by buddies unit, never could ... even with the gold touching the coil.

Well dang, Jason. I guess I left a few behind. Good to hear from you. I'm with you on it not really being too worth it for the little stuff. But every once in a while, it is good to break a troublesome skunk. The only problem I have with my Xcoil is the un-winding. I still have to pull my coil wire through the shaft with a shoe lace. But I can get it to work, if I need it. So I am used to it now. Anyways, I am glad you are getting out there and still hunting gold! Take care. Andyy

Nice gold, Rob. But your buddy scares me with that pick. LOL. I'm always afraid I will put my pick through it. That's a nice Christmas present for sure.

Well let's see. Minelab was supposed to produce 3 coils for the gpz. They obviously can't count. So, no I wouldn't put a lick of salt in their numbers and charts. I love and hate Minelab equally for the games they play with their products.

Damn, that thing is HUGE!! I hope you don't have any silver fillings or you're going to be spinning in circles trying to pinpoint a target. Forget wearing a metal belt, sunglasses or anything. Heck, you better just go naked. And weight-wise … that thing should come with wheels or a hot air balloon attached. But yeah … still looks kinda cool 😝

Just catching up on posts. And then I see you made it to the Q! HA!! I could tell you were going to be heading out there soon. I'm glad you pegged some of those you missed with other machines. It is funny how spoiled we can get with the GPZ. It really finds a lot of gold with crystal clear sounds. !!BAM!! not doubt … garbage or gold. !!BAM!! garbage or gold. And then every once in a while only with the tiniest of gold tid bit patches, do you really have to listen. ….gold or ground noise … And then you get grain and sub grainers. But I have to admit, I spend most of my time as a spoiled little prospector, listening for the !!BAM!! noisy signals. Gotta love the machine no matter the coil.

Now that's gorgeous. Great job!!

All I know is that all those little dinks that I have found, and get laughed at for going after in the first place ...... are GROWING in my gold box. 🙂

I got mine in the mail, today, and about fell over in surprise. I'm always curious to see if I pick up a point or two from books such as these.

So far, even in mineralized ground, the 10" coil *does* get the missed smaller gold. Lots of little bits. But as I have mentioned, I have found one rare area that gives the coil grief. Thankfully, that is the only area I have found so far (knock on wood) Also, nice gold, JP. Thank you for sharing.

I am with you Gold Catcher. I have to drive and then hike so much farther to find fresh patches. I would not want to be a newbie trying to learn, today. It gets harder and harder each year and there are fewer signs to learn by. Jason has put this into good perspective in one of his past videos, and it is true. Technology isn't opening up that many more areas in the US. But don't give up Mitchel... I'm still rooting that you find some big ones missed!!

Yes. In the US, for me, it is mostly whether I think I can: 1) fit the coil into areas I could not with the 14x13 2) Cover more ground area (depth is not as much an issue) 3) And of course getting smaller gold a little deeper REALLY applies in the AZ deserts (but is not going to make me rich) For example, for me to go 17x15 Xcoil, may not benefit me much more when I can get a 19" coil for a 40% discount price, unless we are talking really tight rocky gullies (in which case I'm moving rocks, anyways). We all have different terrain, different types of patches. Now we have an option that makes our detector like a man's Barbie doll. Dress her as you see fit!! (and no, I don't play with Barbie doll's … I have a daughter... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

Look at the bright side, Klunker, you could have been stuck with the Polaski .. LOL Yep. The McLeod brings back my glory days. The smart ones on the fire line chose the McLeod because they were usually at the end of the fire line (after 10 people cleared the line ahead). Aside from using in the forest service, I never saw it anywhere else. Then while clearing the overburden from a wash with my pick (for prospecting), I thought to myself, "there has got to be a better way". And then I remembered the glorious McLeod. Now if I am clearing overburden not far from my truck, I will bring this before any rake in my garage. $7 is a damn good price. I'm sure I paid way more....

Good info, Norvic. Thank you for sharing. You reminded me that JP also mentioned that manual GB can give more depth. I tend to just leave my GPZ alone but should experiment more as you have done. I think the GPX machine, itself, had a lot of variations. Some 5000 machines can hear really small gold while others, with the same settings-using the same coil, cannot hear a damn thing. I don't see that on the GPZ machines. They all seem to run fairly similarly from what I have seen. Well until Xcoils came along that is.

If I did incorrectly plug it in, it would have been the first time ever. When I switched out the coils it was not noticeable, but it was the only thing I did differently. From my previous coil testing I had been swapping out the coils all of the time. For now I will keep an eye on it but it is running 100% for now (knock on wood). Gold Catcher, I agree, I have seen the SDC on bedrock and it is excellent at this. The main reason I got the 10" coil to try was so that I didn't have to buy a $2K SDC. Because in my mind the best combination out there is the GPZ and the SDC. But aside from having a 2" bigger coil, I believe the 10" coil is as sensitive and probably better signal processing. It would take someone like JW to do this test. I have yet to find anyone willing to do this test. My previous testing results putting the SDC against the 10" coil was only comparing depths of small size nuggets given from a friend who I meet up with on rare occasion that owns an SDC (and who is very successful with it) Now under the powerlines ... I'd be curious of that too. I can't tell you how many patches I have under or very near power lines.

Very nice haul there, JW. I have not tried the 10" under the electrical lines, but the 14" handles it if you turn down the threshold. I think the greatest benefit in my mind is really being able to get into depressions a little more. And I still think it is comparable to the SDC, though I have no definite proof of that. My 1 grainer had to be chipped out of the bedrock and I almost thought it was ground noise until I got the dirt spread out. It had to be stuck up and down in the vertical schist. Same with another 0.1 grammer that I actually pulled out of the ground and it was stuck in the mud on the foliated rock slab. Originally I had trouble with this coil ringing on everything it touched, but now I believe this was just me maybe not having the coil on tight. I have used it in two other locations, now, and have not had the coil ringing/touch sensitivity that I had the first time. Live and learn I guess. Andyy

Well, I tried a new way to get out to this new gold area I found. The gold seemed fairly small, but I had to hike in at least 3 miles to get there. So I tried to drive in another way in hopes of only having to hike in a mile. Of course Google Earth made things seem better than they were (almost like I could drive right there), but in the end I only cut about a mile off the hike (one way). So now I had a decision to make … take my GPZ 14" coil, the GM1000, or what I call my Midget Coil (10" Xcoil). GPZ 14" about killed me getting out there last time so that was out. I love the GM1000 on bedrock, but some of the bedrock here was very hot. Usually in those cases, I will go to my GPZ 10" Xcoil, which I venture to say is at least on par with the SDC 2300 (with the exception of being a little bigger). And the Xcoil is still a pleasure to hike with. So off I went. I started out hitting the areas I had been to before and got some good signals. First piece was only about .1g. Then I started finding slightly bigger .2g pieces. Most of these seemed to be what I call runners. Those are the ones in washes that I find on the sides of the wash, trying to run away when they see me coming. The larger coils tend to lose a bit of depth when checking the sides and depressions. The 10" Xcoil, however, does very well getting in there. Overall, 5 pieces were found (total .75g). Not a lot, but at least half of these finds were detected very carefully with the 14" coil and were missed. The Xcoil was very clear on all but a 1 grainer piece that was about 2" deep on it's side. All in all, it was just a fun day crumb chasing.

That's exactly what I use. I learned how well this worked when digging line in the Forest. Turns out, it is really good for removing overburden. It's just hell getting it to my gullies. If I can't drive nearby, I'm not going to hike it in.

I will guarantee we all leave gold behind. We'd rather just not know. I once left a screaming signal that i knew was trash. Then a week later i drove back 2hrs and hiked in again to check it .. because it just bothered me not knowing. It ended up being a well preserved pepsi can that time. I hope your piece is gold and not mother nature playing color tricks on you.

The main reasons i carry a pack is so that i have water, spare batteries and a clip for my hiopstick. CamelBak has always worked for me on this.

I have a plastic d-ring that i hook onto a tie wrap that goes around my handle. I honestly haven't used it since my last testing with the 10 inch xcoil. But it looks cool, like some talisman or warped dream catcher, so i leave it there. 🙂

Dang, Gold Catcher ... i love the action shot. Thing is, i usually get too excited to stop and slow down when digging. My luck i will spend 5 minutes just to get a nice frame of an old dry washer nail or piece of tin, caught in time.