abenson

I'm still on the first update before the large number option came out. Sounds like I might want to just stay on that one for now. If it's affecting gold rings with higher bottle cap reject, not sure I want deal with that. I'll wait and see if XP figures that might be an issue and changes things up again. I'm perfectly happy with the way the Deus 2 is performing on the older version.

Steve and I talked about this while we were at the site. But I thought I would post this on the forum. I hunted part of the trashy area with the Legend running Gold multi with ID's 1 and 2 knocked out (which is the ground numbers) for about an hour and recovered one small nugget that ID'd 11-12 just out of the ferrous range. That nugget was probably on top of the ground. I passed on at least 5 others signals that read between 3 and 10. Then I went back to using the 6000 a short distance away. After a while I got to thinking that maybe some of those targets I passed on could have been gold. So I marked 3 targets in the area I was hunting that I found with the 6000. One I was sure was ferrous junk because it was so loud, the other 2 I figured could be gold. Target 1 (the loud one) Legend ID'd at solid 6 and yes it was part of a can the size of a quarter. Target 2 was jumping between 3 and 4 so I didn't even dig it. Target 3 gave no signal or ID on the Legend and I thought that was strange because it sounded the best out of the 3 on the 6000. So I grabbed the 6000 again and yes there was definitely a target there. Grabbed the Legend again and opened up the horse shoe to accept everything, now I was getting a 1-2 ID. OK, hot rock I thought. Scrapped a little dirt off this hump next to some grass and the target is now in the pile. Took no more than 2 inches off the surface. Turns out it's a small nugget. So I go back to target 2 that I skipped and dig it, that one was wire. So the Legend got it right. But now I'm thinking how many targets did I skip over earlier that ID'd too low or didn't ID at all on the Legend. That proved to me the 6000 is the way to go for all the sizes of gold I'm interested in. I do have some of the above on video. Day 2 of our hunt that I will try and finish up later this week.

I'm only counting iron as trash because any piece of lead or brass could have just as easily been a piece of gold. If you want to count all the lead I dug as trash then on that particular trip it was more like 1 out of every 5 targets were gold. That area is pretty clean as far as lead goes. Thankfully the hunters and target shooters didn't use that area much. I dug 3 #8 bird shot, about 4 pieces of copper jackets bullets, 2 .22 lead, 1 piece of copper wire, 1 .22 brass, and 5 or 6 slivers of lead probably from bullets. The rest of the trash was flat tin, wire, nails and few bolts. Now compare that to some of the AZ trips I've been on and the trash to good target ratio is like 1/100. That's of course counting everything because those areas are closer to populated cities. Digging 30 #8 bird shot in a day is common, then you have .22 brass and lead, rifle cartridges, bullet fragments, pull tabs and the grader blade shades are everywhere as well. So in that scenario only counting iron as trash it's still like 50/50 iron to lead/brass ratio. So I guess the things I count as trash are different than most peoples. Another relic hunting attribute I guess, and even some iron I dig relic hunting is considered good to me.

Those are some nice looking nuggets Steve. I especially like that one with the white quartz attached. I ran a few different VLF's while there, including the Deus 2, Equinox and Legend. From what I could tell non of them did all that well in that soil. It is both mineralized and alkaline which presents two issues you need to deal with. All the detectors running their gold modes experienced coil knock issues which was the result of the alkaline soil not allowing the VLF's to ground balance correctly. I would say the Legend was the most stable but it also had the smallest coil on it, 6" The Dues 2 with the 9" and Equinox with the 5 x 10 were worse. Small nuggets at just an inch deep were IDing in the iron range so you really need to dig everything with a VLF. Now Condor ran the Deus 2 in Sensitive I believe, and it was able to handle the soil much better in that mode. Not sure how sensitive it would be to the really small stuff. But that may be the ticket when using a VLF, trying different high weighted frequency modes may produce better results.

When I say trash I'm referring to iron trash. If it's bird shot, small lead and brass I'm digging those targets anyway. This place we were hunting had lots of nails, wire, flat tin and cans. The flat tin and wire were troublesome, most of the nails and cans I could tell for the most part. Still dangerous not digging it all but when time is limited you have to past some of the obvious stuff up.

Steve it was good time for sure. Yea the winds were strong at times. I guess my relic hunting with a GPX has made me patient when it comes to trash. I'm used to digging lots of it. my trash to good target ratio was about 50/50 and that's doable for me.

Thanks Yes unfortunately or fortunately, depends on how you look at it, I now want a 6000. Yea the ground there is fairly flat and vegetation is sparse. Yea I was calling them Steve 1 and Steve 2. LOL

Thanks Steve! Your welcome, enjoy the hoodie.

Had a great time metal detecting for gold nuggets with Steve Herschbach and Steve Freeman (Condor) over the weekend of April 8-10th. We camped out for 2 nights and for the most part the weather was great. Sunday morning was in the teens. But we packed up and got out early due to some mechanical issues with Steve (Condor)'s truck. I can't thank them enough for the great time and conversations. They are both a wealth of knowledge and experience. I had a truck load of metal detectors packed with me which included the the GPX 5000, Equinox, Deus 1, Deus 2 and Legend. But got a surprise when Steve Herschbach insisted I use his GPX 6000 to ensure I would find gold. So he used the 7000 and Steve Freeman and I used 6000's most of the time. We all found gold and that made the trip even more enjoyable. But honestly I could have found nothing and been perfectly content just getting out with them. Over the course of the 2 days I found 13 nuggets ranging from 1 gram down to pinhead sized nuggets, total of 3.2 grams. Some of you are going to laugh, but that's the most gold I've ever found in a weekend. I did some gold hunting 15 years ago in Lost Basin AZ when we had property down there and I could walk across the street and pick up a nugget here and there. And more recently using the Deus 1 with the HF coils to snag a small nugget here and there in Gold and Lost Basin. So most of my experience has been with AZ. I would assume the success I saw this weekend can be attributed the detector used, location and expert advice. So I thank you again Steve and Steve. Below are some pictures of the gold I found and a video (Day 1) if your interested in watching, I'll post day 2 video later. Hopefully Steve and Steve will chime in with some thoughts and pictures of their nuggets.

Nice report and good looking drum stick nugget. Hope your foot gets healed up so you can get out more.

Nice write up Gerry. I was hunting not too far from you that same weekend. Good to see most people in your class was able to pull gold.

Always nice funding big silver. Gets harder and harder to come by these days. Congrats

Unfortunately I won't be able to do that. The Legend was Borrowed and the place I was hunting is 7 hours from my house. Its too bad 1.06 was buggy, as the results may have been different. Regardless, I think all the VLF'S are matginal performers in that area.

Really no EMI in the area. I just think the Legend has issues with version 1.06. The audio gets choppy and unstable, sometimes would just cut out over targets. So who knows. I agree I think the Nox was the best overall performer of the bunch. Legend might do better with the recent 1.07 update. Soil is not all that mineralized, but the salt content is high. Really difficult to GB VLF machines and get them stable. Even trying to manual GB the Equinox I could not get it to not sound off when approaching the ground. All the VLF's were like that, the Deus was the worst. So you're fighting 2 problems in that area.

Took a trip to Nevada last week and met up with Steve and Steve. While I waited for them to show up at our meeting place I got out a few VLF metal detectors to try on some gold nuggets. Nothing conclusive here just though people would like to see how they perform. One difference between the Nevada soil and what I'm used to hunting is all the salt. All the detectors were subject to coil knock and really took some fine tuning to get them to run stable. Steve F later found that on the Deus 2 sensitive would probably be the best mode to run as it eliminates coil knock issues and is still pretty sensitive to small targets.

Looks like in .7 they have added some things we have been asking for. Haven't had a chance to update yet, I'll have to give it a try this weekend.

Nice bunch of finds. CW relics are some of my favorite finds. A lot of people can't get excited about digging bullets, I could dig them all day as long as there is some variety to be found. You found a nice variety of bullets. Congratulations! The carbine bullet you are referring to is a Smith carbine if I'm not mistaken.

Nice finds Congratulations!

Wow that's cool!

Watch winder is cool. Love finding those.

Some land owner insist on keeping everything you find. I usually don't go back to those places. Others may keep a few of your finds or none at all and are very respectful of your time spent looking. For those people I usually surprise them with a display case full of finds they can display in there home. In either case it's their property and you have to respect their decision.

No I didn't do the update. I'm still on the first .6 version and I think I'll keep it there until all the potential bugs are worked out of the other versions.

1) IS GPS NECESSARY/BENEFICIAL ON A PI UNIT? No 2) IS COLOR SCREEN MORE PREFERRED? ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES-Color screen isn't necessary 3) ARE YOU OK WITH AN EXTERNAL CABLE AROUND THE SHAFT? Yes 4) COILS - SIZES AND SHAPES (3 PLEASE) 10X5, 11" 14" 5) IS 10 FT WATERPROOF GOOD ENOUGH? Yes

Nice report Reese. It was good meeting you down in Gold Basin. Hope to see you again. Enjoyed reading your book too.

Yes we have found coins at that site. trimes, seated and cap bust half dimes, seated half dollar, seated dimes and Spanish silver. Yea dug more nails and large iron I didn't show. But I have also been surprised digging those kind of signals. Last year I dug a 2 Reales I swore was going to be iron as it was only giving a good signal one way. 17-18 one way total negative numbers at 90 degrees,