Dana-SierraBlaster

Pic of the gold bottles are attached, Nearest fine fines, medium fines , plastic tube with 2 pieces of gold, left side so small can not see in photo, coarse fines, then pickups at top. All of them detect, right side of tube at maybe 2", Left side maybe .3" The medium fines detect almost the same distance as the pickups, that surprised me, about 3" Note the fine fines ID at about 18, further evidence that its picking up conductivity piece to piece. Medium fines and others at 40ish if recall right. So those are the things have been testing with. Cheers . \

SlGuin, Thanks for tip, On Medium fine quite like pic above, but with some pieces about 20% bigger than pic above, took an empty envelop put bottle in it so finger tips 8" from coil and same results, about 3" away it detects. With finest bottle it seemed to reduce detect to 1", so fingers on that one may have effect, but not mediums.

Johndoe, thanks for pic, those are like my finest bottle but maybe 20% bigger pieces on average than mine. That is a mini shampoo bottle, no gasket at all. The others are std gold bottles, just like one in pic, but see white cardboard gasket when remove cap. Also these same bottles would not register with other detectors. Think the touching pieces are conducting enough to mimic a larger piece. If there is foil between cap and gasket, that is possible but not going to ruin bottle to find out, as all plastic bottle is seen too. EDIT: TAKING OFF CAP DOES NOT WRECK THE CAP,, GOOD IDEA, JUST DID IT, NO DIFFERENCE, MY MEDIUM FINES ALMOST IDENTICAL TO YOUR PIC IN SIZE AND AMOUNT WAS DETECTED 2.5" WITH ID, MAYBE 3" WITHOUT. SETTLED, ITS PICKING IT UP. Cheers

As in 200-300 pieces within the .5 pennyweight, very fine. Maybe more, just looked.

Steve, noticed the same thing. It does not pick up my fingers but does pickup my palm. I test in such a way to make sure palm is not near enough to factor in by doing same exact test with no bottle.

The finest fines bottle (former hotel shampoo plastic bottle) has no gasket, the other two have cardboard gaskets, Good point but not on these bottles.

I bought a gold racer with both std coil and smaller 7"DD. Did some air testing and well this is opposed to conventional wisdom, but it easily sees fine gold in a bottle with water. In fact do not have a bottle of fines it can not see! Settings very much affect the depth. In all metal the finest gold in a bottle is seen at 2.5" IDs at 1.5" and IDs at 16-18. In Discrim it varies but generally less. Discrim #2 is better of both. Medium fines 3.5" at some Discrim settings and IDs at 38. It works about the same with Std and small coil. Have not tried in field yet, that is tomorrow. There is one good thing about this, people lose gold bottles, if its 3" or less would expect to be able to find one. So this was pleasant surprise. On downside the better pieces in air tests are not as deep as would expect, The small coil with "all metal" sees medium fines bottle at 4" yet can only see a pickup with thickness that is 3/16"x1/8" at 3.5" even though it is much bigger than anything in bottle. And a small piece at 1/16"x 1/12" can be seen at 2.5", so only increases depth 1" for a piece that weighs likley 6-7 times more. BTW the bottles do not have a lot of gold, bigger fines maybe 1 pennyweight, finest fines about 1/2 pennyweight. Thought this info on bottle fines may be of interest, next step see how gold racer works in the field. Love the adjustability of this detector. Cheers

I will post separately, but in the issue of fine gold. I did get a Makro gold racer. And totally opposed to conventional wisdom and my past experience with other detectors it will detect a bottle of fine gold, in fact do not have a bottle of fine gold that it does not detect, to my surprise. Medium fines about 4" and it does ID it at 41. My finest fines, 1.5" and does not ID till 1/2" at 21. Maybe connecting electrically piece to piece.

Good point, economically. If you are following a float trail to a pocket then it can be quite profitable to find the little specks, but the $s per hour of gold is not going to be impressive. I gotta try one of these out Thanks for info..

Thanks Steve. Did know that the largest piece determines whether seen or not. Have tested other detectors and they would not see a piece as small as one in video, even if waved next to the coil. The gold racer seems intriguing. Going to try and borrow one and test it for real, see just how small it goes and how accurate it can ID things.

Hi Scott (I presume), Impressive video. How much smaller than that piece can your gold racer see? BTW I did find my jacket after WMA meeting, still serviceable, but a raccoon or something chewed on it a bit. Have read the manual, the pinpoint thing sounds interesting. Have you used it? Is it accurate? Regards, Dana

Hi LipCa, In terms of finding the pay streak iron is a good indicator too, so guess for doing that casting a wide net makes sense. There is a fair amount of gold pieces the size that Chiara found in video, right up on top, top 2-3" and in grass, and 10' away sideways to stream nada, not even a color. So guessing the gold racer can actually find the pay streak based on gold alone. The average detector would not see them. Have waved a sample bottle of fine gold past detector coils and no signal. Thanks for your comments, I am not an expert at all on detectors.

Steve, Wonderful. And your post alone really helps. If I am trying to map the pay streak on a bar, 35-50 can do the mapping of the pay steak, without digging, and the comparative richness of the streak. Then if see something 50-70 or 80, dig it as may be a quartzie. We used to do a grid sampling by panning, 10' grid. It really worked and found some hot spots, but mapping even 50x100 zone takes some time with a pan. With the gold racer finding small flakes with full size coil, think could do it much faster and with many more samples as its continuous, not 10' jumps. And maybe get lucky and hit one of those quartzies in the process. Look forward to your results, Dana

Hi Steve, Thanks for answer!. In Nevada I hit a lot of copper bullets and brass casings, in Yuba area more lead and occasional aluminum (outside of the plentiful iron). The area has seen few humans since jacketed bullets came along (remote), but lots of lead in river and not fishing weights, maybe bullets but shaped like nuggets, been beaten by river. Ah some copper wire (blasting wire from mines) and Levi copper rivets, took me a while to figure what those were. Guess need to test it out to know for sure. Scott says he thinks gold racer has best discrimination he has ever seen. When you mention the non-gold stuff above, is that digging things outside of 50-70 range? If you only dug 50-70 do you find a lot of non-gold? Thanks again, great site, Dana

Have been lurking here for about a year. Just signed up. Heard of gold racer from Rick Solinski who is the cameraman above with Scott Chiara finding a tiny piece of gold. Steve, thanks for you superb reviews! We met at the Reno GPAA show 3 years ago when we announced the SierraBlaster, you enjoyed the video of the 13 foot boulder blast. The above video convinces me that gold racer can find the small sizes. The next question does the gold racer have the ability to eliminate most non-gold digs if the user is willing to walkover lets say 1/3 of the gold targets? I prospect in Yuba/Feather area on gravel bars, canyon walls and hydraulic pits. In all metal its going to be maybe 98% non-gold targets. On gravel bars primary purpose would be to find the pay streak and mark it, as 2 flakes and 5-15 colors is fairly typical on the top in a pan, and hope for a quartzie. Have seen a 1.5 oz quartzie with 1/3rd oz gold go right thru a sluice, many are left behind. And want to check sluice tailing every few hours too. 1. If am willing to bypass 1/3 of the gold do you, or anyone else here, think one can dig over 50% gold with the gold racer in a 98% non-gold target area? 2. When you get 50-70 readings what percent end up being gold in your experiences? 3. Crevice verification: Why scrape em or blast them (the plan with SierraBlaster) if there is no gold in them? Are bedrock crevices any different in terms of depth/discrimination than dirt/gravel? Thanks in advance, Dana