Gold Catcher

7 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Those same sites have really been "Golden" for me in so many ways.

Fully agree with that Gerry. This is exactly what I use the Manticore for. Love that machine (I only use it with the M8) and I can highly recommend it for gold hunting at mine sites (threshold on, goldfield, all metal, prospecting theme)! In fact, the only detector I have that produces there. Also, hot rocks can reasonably well be identified by their often unstable ID, when going over them from various angles (in particular with the M8). This is an added benefit provided by the advanced ID system and is great considering it is just a VLF, which usually struggle the most with hot rocks. IMO the Manticore beats the 6000 for shallow gold (<2 inch) in trashy (and hot rock infested) areas. I just get more gold at these sites and also keep my sanity (if any left).

GC

I don't want to kill any animals and would only do so as a very last resort in self-defense. Like in this short clip. Imagine he would not have had a self-defense tool. Lucky though that everyone lived, but man...

BTW, I don't think these were intended to be warning shots. Also, brave that he filmed with only one hand on the gun. I would have used both...

So how did we get here? Ah yes, definitely no headphones for me in the mountains 🙂

GC

Chet, I read your story on the other thread (6k stock coil). Thank God all went well. Here is an excellent tutorial about the different bear encounters and what to do, with some frightening clips. Good for all of us to bear in mind. I didn't want to reply on the 6k thread since it would be off topic:

GC

With the 6k I use difficult at manual 8-10 (if I can't use normal), and Normal at about 8 and below (if I have to go lower). You can lose depth in difficult with decreasing gain more so than in normal. In the video he had it at 7. I bet he would have heard it at 9 or 10. But regardless, there is no general rule, as Norvic is pointing out. The filtering does help at times to hear signals better at medium depth, depending on ground conditions. However, the differences are not nearly as significant as with the Z.

GC

4 hours ago, Norvic said:

Do you folks run your 6K in auto, manual, difficult, normal?

Manual Sens 8-10, difficult, are my to go settings. I don't like what Auto is doing, it gets erratic at times (at least for me). I use the Avantree Torus most of the times in the forest/mountains (want to hear what might be creeping up on me-i.e. bears, mountain lions, angry forest inhabitants, etc..), but mostly headset in the desert. The audio fix did improve the threshold stability for me, even when using just BT. I never use the internal speaker. Nothing wrong with the stock coil but haven't used it ever since I got the NF 12x7. Haven't changed it ever since I put it on. I prefer it over the coiltek 9. DD I have only used a few times (is not doing much for me-rather use the Z instead with adjusted settings if the 6k would require DD), and 17 is also just collecting dust.

GC

7 minutes ago, Aureous said:

publishing dozens of ounces being found

Then let's take it from there....😉

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Announcement May 2025 with likely availability by end of 2025

And first availability by end 2025 would mean that I would not buy a unit before end 2026, at the earliest. Given what happened to the 6000, it would appear prudent to wait for at least a year so they can figure out all the bugs (hopefully). For a 10k investment I wouldn't feel like packing it up and shipping it to the service center just 1-2 months after I bought it....

GC 

1 hour ago, Norvic said:

Many Skunk days even sometimes weeks of them..... the price of chasing virgin patches. I`ll wander back to old patches when it gets toooooo frustrating and confidence wains.

You nail it Norvic, that's exactly the same for me. I have about a handful areas where I practically always find some gold, I would say 9/10 times if I work hard. But to me that is not the kick, at least not mostly. Enjoying a beautiful day outdoors hiking and perhaps finding a virgin patch is what motivates me the most. And in these cases I get skunked most of the time, with some exceptions here and there. But this does not bother me a bit. It is the journey that matters, not the destination. 🤠

GC

Some people can handle a PI full bore at all times (not many though- and also not really advisable), but a VLF you can render essentially useless at very high gain, up to a point where you can't even hear anymore a quarter 1 inch deep.

GC

6 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

It's time to dust off the Fisher Gold Bug-2 with 6" coil.

The only noise that has ever been worse than my tinnitus is that God awful screechy threshold sound of the GB2 😃 But the detector is unmatched in mild soil and shallow gold.

GC    

11 hours ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

On the manual gain settings I am also surprised that you can go from 1 to 10 and really do not loose sensitivity to targets as you would expect from all the previous legacy models.

You don't loose that much sensitivity for shallow targets when you reduce gain, but the loss in depth is much more profound.

GC

3 hours ago, VicR said:

So is the 6000 "significantly" different (improved) to the SDC in terms of being able to detect small gold?

In certain situations the SDC is still the better choice and beats the 6k IMO, in particular in grounds with high hotrock burden and magnetized small particles. The MPF timings paired with the small mono coil can really make a difference, in particular because the 6k tends to be rather sensitive to hotrocks. But in every other situation the 6k is superior.

GC

Size and depth matters for me when comparing 6k and 7k. For shallow <=5 inch fast gold the 6k beats the 7k  when run hot, no doubt. For depth > 5 inch the 7k beats the 6k in HY/Normal, even when the gold remains very small. So, it is not just the coil size that matters, it is the ground processing ability that the Z has that is just unmatched and that favors small gold recovery at depth. So, there is no "general cleanup detector" IMO. It all depends on the conditions and for what type of gold size/depth the cleanup needs to be done. The NF!2 is the ideal coil for the Z IMO to balance depth/sensitivity and DOD configuration to support optimal ground processing. I have found gold with the 7/NF12 that did not register on a 3 digit scale. Pretty impressive sensitivity even for tiny gold. But important are also the settings used. With smoothing on and in difficult the fast gold is often too fast....

GC

Beautiful finds. The Z with the NF12 remains my preferred detector for a reason.

GC

For hunting gold it is all about these faint targets. Subtle treshold variations is what you have to listen for. Getting IDs comes way later for deep targets once you have begun digging and you are within about 3 inch or less. Most nuggets I recovered had no ID nor any other visual indicator at first. It's all about your ears.

GC

The real difference for me would be to be able to accurately discriminate at depth with PI or ZVT technology. If you can hunt at a trashy mine site and punch a foot deep and still ID a 0.2g nugget, this is where the real value would come in. So much gold is still locked up in 12-15 inch depth zone at mine sites that currently can only be explored with a VLF at 1-2 inch depth. I think AI technology could eventually get us there, but would need some really smart engineering. And even better, solve the lead/gold problem! But the latter might just remain a pipe dream forever.

GC 

That's right. Weight alone would not cut it for me neither. After a full day of detecting with the 7000 I need 4 Advil to feel almost good at night. That would give me 137 years of pain free detecting, assuming I spend 8k on advil ($0.04/pill) and detect every day, instead of spending 8k for a light weight (and otherwise nothing) gpz 8000. 😁

GC

2 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Still, the Target ID is incredibly good compared to the GM probability meter 😛  That thing is next to useless unless a big obvious target.

Could not agree more. The monster meter has probably fooled me in 90% of times, and I usually never paid attention.

M8 performance is excellent, close to the monster with small coil in ideal conditions. Things change though in hot ground compared to air, sensitivity maxes out at about 20-22 for me before getting too unstable. Also, higher gain will make the target ID performance less accurate. For small gold the depth remains moderate (as expected for VLF), and I would say in trashy ground the target ID is usable down to 1-2 inch depth.

GC

I wonder if they would make a Sadie for that one. Would get you the really small stuff. 😁

He is one of the most knowledgeable gold miners on YouTube, and one of the most educational one to watch for river prospecting. One of the key points: look for gold where gold was found before.

GC

Instructive video, and the SDC is actually pretty respectable in comparison. Again, not a machine made for depth (not its design purpose) and also different/smaller coil. The MPF timings shine somewhere else.

GC

1 hour ago, Nedkelly said:

The stable ground balance is the most impressive thing for me. I'm certainly not ground balancing as much as I would have expected in hot variable ground with a sensitive detector. 

Is this not reason for concern though if true? I would expect a high-performance detector to be very sensitive to changing mineralization conditions, hence the need for frequent GB when run in manual. This was the reason why auto track was introduced (for those who like it). Unless the detector is less sensitive and does not need frequent fine tuning, of course, despite variable ground. I don't think you can have it both ways, something has to give.

GC

Thank you Mitchel. A topic I am interested in too. In particular, how does the PI target ID compare to the Manticore ID for small nuggets in mineralized ground. And at what depth. I said before we should not compare too much detector performances. However, for this one I make an exception. Getting nuggets accurately IDd, or at least clearly separated from small iron/tin trash, is a topic of huge interest, with VLF meters not working very well, doesn't matter what tech.

GC

Unless there are technical issues to be resolved, they should just open the coil floodgates and let the customer deceid what coil would work best for them. Total compatibility. And If certain coils won't meet their high standard spec. requirenment for optimal detector perfomance, so be it. Worse comes to worse and the dector would then just not operate a peak performance, but the customer would still be in full control. If anything, this is what the huge interest in the Algo should teach them.

GC

PS: would love to see a big round spiral for the 6 (I think the 17 ML is semi spiral if I am not mistaken). As long as it can handle the ground. And with the Woody fix even better 😁