abenson

Nice write up Jeff. Lots of good info in that report.

In the worst EMI locations I drop the sensitivity down to 70 and the audio response to 2. That usually takes care of it but the trade off is lost depth.

Thanks Chuck. The cutoffs I gave could be different depending on depth and mineralization. But from what I've noticed thus far. The pennies you mentioned are right at that cutoff area as to whether the tone goes high or low. I'm fairly confident they will come in as low tones because the bullets and IHP give similar ID on a VLF. From the video you can see the sharps bullets gave a low tone.

Thanks Gerry for your comments. I really like the ergonomics of the 6000 and yea not being tethered to it is a big plus. I may just have to pick up one of those new coils when they come out and a few people have reviewed them.

I've been using the Minelab GPX 6000 the last few months for gold nugget hunting. Also been doing some experimenting with it for relic hunting. Left early Friday morning and got out to Northern Nevada and meet up with Chuck (GB_Amateur) for all day Friday and half of Saturday until the 30 mph winds drove us off. I had planned to stay until Sunday morning. But decided to just drive back to Utah a day early and get out of the wind. Below is the gold I found. On the way home one of my hunting buddies in Utah called and wanted to know if I wanted to get out Sunday to an old fort site. So I decided why change detectors, I'll just use the 6000 and see how it does on relics. So for about 4 hours I tested my theory about what targets would be found using settings I came up with specifically for relic hunting. My relic hunting settings/coil on the GPX 6000 are: 11" mono, difficult timing, threshold ON, sensitivity 1 (lowest setting), dig only low tones. In theory, digging low tones only you will dig on the low end of the scale small pewter buttons and $1 gold coins. You will avoid, most .22 brass and lead, percussion caps, small foil and small bits of iron. The cutoff on the high end is about silver dimes. So IHP, all gold coins except the $20, 3 cents silver, half dimes, all bullets and round balls, cuff and coat buttons will be a low tone. Silver dimes and up will be a high tone. I would still dig the right sounding high tone based on sound, shape and size if I came across one. So the real test for this hunt is would my buddy Mike dig less iron that I would with him using the GPX 5000 with iron reject or me using the GPX 6000 using my settings. The picture right below is Mike's finds and just below his are my finds. You be the judge. Also did a video if anyone is interested in seeing the GPX 6000 in action relic hunting.

Nice bunch of silver. Congratulations on the half!

Doesn't appear to be gold. Looks more like a meteorite or a rock with high iron content. Did you put it up to a magnet?

I've actually gotten to the point that I only use Park 1 for all my hunting except beaches and gold nuggets. Works for me both park hunting and relic hunting and I don't feel like I'm missing much. Used to use Field 2 relic hunting until I started comparing signals in the field between Field 2 and Park 1. Park 1 almost always gave a better tone and tighter target ID so now that's what I use most of the time.

Is the Deus 2 that much better than the Equinox for $600 more? The Deus 2 is a great machine and for beach hunting I really like it a lot. From what I'm experiencing it's inches deeper than the Equinox and very stable. If I only beach hunted I would probably sell my Equinox. Gold hunting it seems weak especially on small and porous gold. Being stuck with an 11" coil right now doesn't help. I much prefer the Equinox for golf hunting for multiple reasons. Relic hunting I still prefer the Equinox. But the Deus 2 is just as or even more capable of the job. My preference for the Equinox is mainly the audio. Most of the sites I hunt have been worked for decades so Most everything left is 6 plus inches deep. The Equinox audio IMO is very strong and easy to hear on the deeper targets. They really stand out. Yes the Deus 2 can hear the same targets but audio IMO is just weaker even when the machine is tweeked. The other thing I've noticed is with the Deus 2 is that targets at a certain depth just drops out and the audio goes to iron grunt. The Equinox starts up averaging those deep targets. But with as many hours as I have on it I'm pretty good at telling good targets from iron. Both great detectors. If you have both your basis are definitely covered for everything from diving to park hunting.

Thanks for doing those tests Jeff. Looked like once you buried those nuggets they where virtually invisible to the Deus 2. Maybe with headphones you would dig it but didn't sound like anything I would stop for. Both the Equinox and the Legend were giving ID'S in the ground number ranges, so looks like a dig it all scenario with a VLF. I'm surprised the 6000 doesn't do that well in that dirt. I would think it would. How does your 5000 handle it?

You can do what I did for my last trip to AZ. Buy a good fuel mileage car. You can pick up a VW diesel that will get anywhere between 40 and 50 mpg depending on the year. Through a 3" lift kit on it and you're good for dirt roads. 1000 miles round trip, cost me a 1/3 what it would have in my truck. I know some people want to take everything including the kitchen sink. Truck, 5th wheel, side by side ,etc. But hey if you really want to go and gas prices are the issue sometimes you have to give up a few conveniences to make things work. Never killed anybody to sleep in the car or a tent. In fact I almost prefer that way now unless the whole family is coming. I don't have to spend the day before loading everything and the day after I get back cleaning up. Haven't found a desert road yet to the spots I hunt that the VW wouldn't handle.

I'll second what Steve said. I've found nuggets with both the Equinox and Deus 2 and IMO the Equinox is a better gold nugget detector. The Equinox is more sensitive to small gold and has a better coil selection.

If you are in an area with lots of EMI it will amplify the EMI. I've had places I've had to turn the Deus 2 down to audio response 2 (in conjunction with lowering the sensitivity) just to get it run stable.

Nice right up and nice bunch of gold. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences with both machines.

You can also turn the threshold off on any of the manual sensitivity settings by long holding the ground type button. So you can run with or without threshold in manual as well as auto sensitivity settings. But it sure would be nice to have threshold volume adjustment.