Gold Catcher

As much as I enjoy the 6000 for all the reasons stated, I still very much like the versatility the 7000 has to offer. GB-modes, gold-modes, filtering, threshold volume/volume, etc, all of it is missing on the 6000. Of course, the easiness of use comes in handy in particular for detecting beginners. However, I at times prefer to choose the settings for a given location and not let the machine pick for me. This reminds me a bit of cameras. They have fantastic point and shoot cameras nowadays, but does it really make the advanced high end Nikon (or Canon...) models obsolete? "GPX-6000 NEWEST TECHNOLOGY – Who wants to use a 7 yr old cell phone (GPZ-7000)." Gerry, as for ZVT, do you really think this is old stuff from yesterday and obsolete? As smart as geosense is, I still think ZVT has a lot to offer and should not be completed dismissed. After all, the 7000 is still ML's flagship detector. IMHO, I don't think it makes much sense to compare the 6000 with the 7000. Both are different machines with different underlying technologies, each having their strengths and weaknesses. I can see why advanced users still continue to value the 7000, me included. Assuming the 7000 would be as ergonomically advanced and as light as the 6000, and would have the desired coil versatility, would that alone not make the 7000 a much better match, even though using the "7 year old technology"? All this being said, if I today had to award a king trophy it would for sure go to the 6000. This detector is an absolute delight and would absolutely earn this title, all things considered. GC

Completely agree. Actually, I would have preferred a 12 inch DD in the box, not a 14 one. But for sure a smaller DD would be the best selling after market 6k coil. I am actually surprised that neither NF nor Coiltek seem to have it on top of their list (unless I am mistaken). Some technical issues perhaps? GC

I have tried several different models and none of the plastic tactical boots were up for the rough terrain where I hunt. Practically all of them, including those that I bought on respected prospecting websites and that were advertised as robust, disintegrated after a few weeks in rocky mountain terrain (cracked plastic, glue comes off the soles, etc...) My friend Bill Southern recommended these ones to me and indeed they are the only ones that are up for the task from at least a half dozen models I tried. (at least IMO). They are 99% metal free including zipper, the only metal part is the little zipper pull tab (for whatever reason). But this has no impact on the 6000 nor the 7000 even when run super hot. They are comfy and provide excellent ankle support. I can highly recommend them. Sourdough Scott, what Reebok boot model did you have? Mine are absolutely fine and I have not the problems that you are describing. GC https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BFAC3O0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&th=1&psc=1

RP is a world on its own. Either you hate it or you love it. It is a very impressive and intense landscape but can be unforgiving. I have done the best there with the 7000. It's a vast open land, so unless you know exactly where to look a very small coil might not be something I would personally recommend. GC

Great post, Randy, and congrats to your beautiful collection. 100-105 deg F is my limit too. I still try to do some detecting under these conditions but I will remain very close to my truck with frequent breaks. Let me know when you come up here and I will take you to the high Sierra's. Looking forward to catch up my friend! Best, GC

Bill is a good friend of mine. He and Tammy are genuinely honest and good people and their channels are the real deal. Bill is not only a very fine detectorist with decades of experience and mentored by then man himself (Jim Straight), but he also loves the desert just as much as I do. Always fun to hang out with him and whenever he brings me to his secret spots the gold goddess is smiling. GC

And don't forget the most important thing: start your prospecting day with a good espresso 😍 GC

Thanks, GotAu. The 14 inch is pretty big for small washes, I even had a struggle with the 12 NF. But as you say, let's hope smaller DDs will be on the upcomimg coil list. I will definitly try it out however. Good to know that it works for you. GC

Hi Lunk, no unfortunately i did not have the 14DD with me. But for sure I will try next time, good advice. I vaguely remember that you suggested that before. My bad that I haven't tried it yet 😁. GC

Ty Norvic. I have been in the 6k/scraps business for quite some time now, so that little bigger one I found with the 6k was a welcomed distraction (trend I hope....). GC

So, I went on a little afternoon hunt in the Mojave Desert. I did not have much time but thought to check out a wash where I found gold before with the SDC. The ground conditions there are extremely mineralized and the wash is littered with hot rocks, mostly volcanic in nature. The 6000 did not work at all, even at the lowest sensitivity and in difficult (threshold on/off made no difference). The saturation signal was just way to high and virtually every other rock, even tiny ones, gave a target signal (both high/low or low/high responses). I hence decided to try the 7000 to see if detecting would be at all possible in these challenging ground conditions, by using the settings that the 7000 has to its disposal. My initial to go settings (HY/Normal/Gain 15/smoothing off/semi auto GB) miserably failed (as expected) with saturation/hot rock responses similar to that of the 6000. I then dialed down the settings and used HY/Difficult/Gain 9/smoothing low/auto GB/threshold volume 22, volume 6. These tamed-down conditions had a huge impact with the detector now running fairly smoothly with much reduced hot rock responses. The auto-GB/ferrite worked better (IMO) than the semi-auto GB/ferrite, something that I contribute to my believe that the auto-GB is better in adjusting to extremely hot rock littered grounds, as opposed to having a fixed X-lock. I checked after a while and I did not have a significant ferrite drift. I usually always run semi-auto but in this case the auto-GB performed slightly better and gave a more stable threshold. However, I am of course aware that semi-auto GB is generally the better choice for most cases to not have any X-drifts. Despite running the 7000 with these tamed-down conditions (or probably because of them!), I managed to pick up a clear target signal amongst all the hot rocks that turned out to be a 0.7 g picker. I was over the same spot with the 6000 before and heard absolutely nothing, due to all the saturation signals around me. To me, this is where the 7000 shines. You can either run it insanely hot (which I often do), or you can significantly alter the detector’s profile to adjust to various ground conditions, including the extreme conditions I have been in, and still find gold. This is something the 6000 clearly lacks and which is a significant advantage of the 7000. The 6000 is still my to-go detector, but if I did not have the 7000 this wash would have been nothing else than frustrating. This is a good example that more power isn’t always better and that the 7000 finds gold in all kind of different conditions, if settings are being adjusted accordingly. The last picture shows the incredible breath-taking scenery. Also, you can see that there is a lot of sand mixed in as well where detecting does not make any sense. In addition, there are also much milder patches of ground and the day before I found a similar weight nugget there with the 6000 run in auto+. This wider general area has produced very large nuggets (up to 156 oz). Oh well, perhaps next weekend. 😁 GC

Mine was first US batch (first 10 to arrive). Only had the error message once thus far. No big deal. GC

Thanks, Norvic. Good advice. And I am not worried at all. Every tech has some minor issues every now and then and needs some wiping/cleaning (unless Mars rover I guess......). But right after the restart I found a little 0.7g picker. I guess the machine wanted to say sorry and made up for it. I might like these faults...😁 GC

I got my first 6k error today. The warning sign was lit and there was a constant tone. Power button did not respond, so I had to pull the battery out, that fixed it. Thus far, it happened only once. GC

I have to admit though that I have only used it a couple of times. So the problem might not have manifested itself yet, but I will keep an eye on it and let you know in case the problem appears. GC

21H1. I bought it around 3 weeks ago from amz. GC

I am sorry to hear. Mine works just fine. Thanks also for the customer care info. Interesting. GC

The 6k will miss targets when swinging to fast. Put the treadmill on low and you will pick up gold that you would otherwise have missed.😁For ground coverage, use the 17 but still swing slowly. GC

For tick/bug protection I use permethrin pre-treated clothing, wear long sleeve shirt and long pants with pants tucked into my socks and covered in hiking boots. I wear a very thin hat that has ear/neck covering and that is also pretreated with permethrin. Then, before I start detecting I spray 40% DEET all over my clothes and exposed skin (holding breath and not into eyes), and when it gets really bad I also wear a mosquito face net. This sounds extreme but I guarantee you nothing else will help where I hunt at times. Come and join me into the hot and humid North Yuba canyons, especially this time of the year. You will give up your natural lavender/lemon sprays quickly 😁 GC

Looks pretty promising. Will be a three shot vaccination. https://valneva.com/press-release/valneva-announces-positive-initial-results-for-phase-2-study-of-lyme-disease-vaccine-candidate/

The first effective vaccine for Lyme disease is coming soon GC https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/valneva-and-pfizer-report-further-positive-phase-2-data

Nick: jasong's comments are absolutely spot on. To some of your questions: I recommend the 6000 for you since IMHO it makes the best sense in your circumstances. The 7000/stock coil is best used in open flat terrains, like the desert. You can go to smaller coil sizes but this would require either the purchase of the NF-Zsearch 12 inch coil (the only ML approved coil for the 7000), or some more invasive after-market modifications to use X-coils. Please read the extensive discussions that we had about X-coils on this forum (if you have the stomach and a few weeks uninterrupted reading time.......) and form your own opinion about it. The GPZ 14 inch stock coil is heavy and will not be of great use in uneven terrain. I say this because it is really important to match the right detector (and coil size) to the right terrain. If you mismatch detector and grounds you will miss gold! I am in the fortunate position of having three out of four major ML detectors in my fleet (SDC-yes I still Iike it Phrunt, 6000, 7000) and I can tell you that the 6000 will produce the most gold in many areas that I am hunting in. There also seems to be a misconception that the 6000 is somehow inferior in it's technology to the 7000. This is absolutely not true. Both detectors are fantastic choices but have somewhat different scope and utilize different technologies for their particular design. Please note that many experienced detectorists (including myself) have switched their to-go detector from the 7000 to the 6000 and there are many reasons why we are doing it. So, it's not that the 6000 is some sort of a "beginner's machine" that is only recommended for learning. The 6000 has much broader all-round capabilities than the 7000/stock coil and will produce more gold in many circumstances. But aside that, don't also underestimate how important it will be for you to learn using a PI detector coming from VLF. You need to master your detector and detecting techniques in all aspects to be productive, and the 6000 will be a much better choice for that. Regarding depth, the 6000 has significant depth capabilities that will be more than enough for most situations (see also post from jrbeatty above). Thus far, I mostly use the 11 inch coil and the 17 inch only for covering more ground (i.e. shallow gold in the desert). But the 17 inch coil is not adding a significant depth advantage over the 11 inch coil IMO. So, I hope this is helping you a bit. One option for you to consider would be to buy the 6000 now, use/learn the machine and the proper detecting techniques, and then if you like trade it in for the new GPZ release. But by that time I can almost guarantee you will love the 6000 and never wanting it to give away. GC

IMO the 6000 is designed for shallow/medium depth gold. The 17 inch is great for ground coverage but it's focus is still shallow/medium depth gold, despite it's size. Hence, I am not sure if an even bigger coil would make that much of a difference. For outright depth the 7000 is the only good choice. GC

Coming from the GM, go for the 6000, no question (IMO). Start by using the detector with the lowest sensitivity setting (still amazing) and get slowly used to it. Then, over time gradually dial up the sensitivity but bare in mind that it will take some practice and experience to run the machine efficiently at higher gain or auto. Use threshold-on right away and learn to listed to threshold variations. Also, get the 10x5 Coiltek coil (or NF equivalent)-once available, this will be better for your terrain. I do not recommend the 7000 for you! GC

Hi Mark, I only do metal detecting. I will PM you then we can continue our chat offline. GC