Gold Catcher

We are dealing with the same type of hot rocks (mostly volcanic). Here is a flavor of what I am talking about. Literally every rock screams like a beer can. There is alot of gold in this ground. But good luck getting it. These rocks go all the way deep. If the old gpx with the Xcoils can work here and outperform the gpz in general/difficult, I am in! BTW, despite all that I have recovered small nuggets that were stuck to these hot rocks with the GPZ. Just to show the power of the GPZ timings. The 6000 is totally useless here, doesn't matter the configuration.

The gpz/Zsearch in general/difficult is the only remedy for me when it comes to hot rocks. It is not perfect, but better than all I have tried. The difficult timings of the 6000 don't do anything for the hot rocks that I encounter. Difficult only seems to help somewhat for mineralization, but not anywhere close to the difficult timings of the gpz. Curious to know if the cc xcoils would make an improvement with the older gpx series. I would be willing to buy any detector with any coil configuration if it would outperform the gpz on hotrocks, without loosing much sensitivity. GC

The only "discrimination" I do with a PI (or ZVT) is the boot scratch method. If the target is gone after a boot scrape (or a quick surface scrape with my Hermit pick) I won't go after it. Have I missed a sunbaker or super shallow gold that way, perhaps. But I have saved myself recovering a ton of trash for sure. Other than that, I dig it all (unless I use a VLF). GC

Yes, at 7 or 8 I see that as the Auto wants to dial up. But what I was meaning was that switching from manual 9 or 10 to Auto would not make things better, and the threshold would even get more erratic at times. GC

Thanks, JP. I usually use max/manual but don't shy back reducing gain and enjoy the smoother threshold if I know the gold is shallow. I have tried Auto as my first line of defense when manual/max get's too unstable, but found that reducing gain is often the better option. Good to know that in auto the gain can be increased, even though the gain was already at max or close to max in manual. I wonder though why the Auto algorithm would not notice that the gain is already too high (probably the main reason for instability if everything else is optimized as good as possible) and reduce, rather than dialing up. But for sure, a lot is going on under the hood and thanks for your detailed explanation. Love my NF 12x7, hardly ever change it. Same for my Zsearch 12. 😁 GC

I mostly use manual (threshold always on). Auto appears less stable for me most of the times. Re manual, don't be afraid of reducing gain if needed. It will remain very sensitive with only a marginal loss at depth. I like 7 or 8 in Normal. It then will get nice and smooth, so nice for a change. And I never had a single case where I heard a signal at 10 but not at 7 or 8. 🙂 GC

Thanks for the insights JP, and welcome back. Please don't make it another year....😁 GC

I got my HipSticks from Rob 3 years ago. The designer is Chris Porter. Mine came from "detectoraid" in NV (I believe). I don't think they distribute them anymore. Rob would know. Yes, the HipStick can be a bit in your way, but boy does it work well (I wear suspenders with belt). Finally, no need for a harness anymore in 100 deg heat. Use it religiously with GPZ and SDC. GC

Fantastic finds, Gerry. Congrats! People always say RP is (mostly) dead. You prove it wrong every time. If you put your heart and soul into it, RP always rewards you. Also good to see the good old 7000 producing. Still my favorite machine and without a doubt the best detector ever made, when performance is the metric. GC

I don't own the NF17 but read/heard owners praising it for its depth. I would imagine that size is not the only thing that matters when it comes to depth performance, but would love to hear from someone who is actually using both coils. GC

Awesome job ,Lunk! Any reason why you chose the 19 ML beast over the 17 NF? I would think the NF would be at least as good as the 19 depth wise despite slightly smaller size. I only hunted a few times in extra deep, mostly becasue I use the 12 NF as my default coil. For that size General covers most of the depth I need. GC

I enjoy the swinging and hiking. Also, this sort of heavy machinery would only work in open terrain and with large coarse gold deposits. Not many places in the Sierras, nor in any mountain terrain for that matter, that I can think of where this would be of any use, not even for the "professionals"...Australia perhaps. But even if this would work one day, if I then just had to press a button to find gold I might loose interest in prosepcting 🤠

The reason why they dropped the Zsearch could just be lack of capacity. The Xceeds are in huge demand and they might just focus on those to ramp up production. They are after all not a mass producer. GC

Weired though that they removed it from their website. This has been a very popular coil and most of the other gpz owners I know have one too. GC

I also have the white coil with the red label, the one you show in the first pic Gerry. But I have seen the black one way before I got mine in youtube videos, so I don't think the black version is the latest. But i believe these are just the optics, the winding and coil material should be the same. Love the coil, best one I ever had. GC

I probably have found as much gold on ridges as I have in gullies. Yet the area where I hunt the gold was there before the mountains.... 🙂 GC

Great opportunity for someone to buy a bunch of them and sell them on eBay for double the price with shipping to other countries. It really is a bad business practice to release coils and then don't sell any covers for long time.

I really need a new M11 skid plate. None available in the US, and AUS does not ship (they almost never do, why is that actually?). This sucks. GC

It all depends on multiple factors and there is no one fits all setting for any detector, in particular not for the 7000. It's a beginner's mistake to always run everything the same way. At the detecting edge normal/difficult has an edge in hot soil at depth. I have observed this many times over where I hunt, with normal cranked up giving no repeatable signal at all. I recall JP made a video on this, quite convincing actually in his particular situation as well. (Wish he would come back. No idea what happened to him. IMO he was one of the most experienced and insightful detectorist on DP. So many have learnded so much from him, me included). GC

I would be glad to just have a new M11 skid plate for Christmas.....A tall order for Santa! GC

I just wonder how low the price can go. A $500 retail price probably means the detector will cost $100-150 to make at the most, including everything. At some point, the quality/performance is just not there any more. GC

Agreed on that Phrunt. As much as I like the GM, the Manticore even with the 11 inch coil comes pretty close to the gold sensitivity of the GM (when run hot). I suspect with the M8 coil the difference will even be smaller, but yet with all the features the Manticore is offering, also wrt to relic hunting. I don't think it makes much sense to develop pure gold VLFs anymore, which stands in contrast to PI/ZVT technology where the differences still appear to matter. GC

I would be very interested to compare the discrimination ability of the Axiom and the Manticore on small gold. Old school teaches that PI discrimination is just not as good as VLF, and depth kills any discrimination for both anyhow, so no advantage for PI. But that might be a topic for another thread 😁 GC

The Manticore is no wonder machine. However, I dig about 50% less iron trash with it when looking for gold. That is a game changer for me in trashy areas and worth the investment (have not paid it of yet though, about 60% to go...) GC

Thanks for the report, Jeff. Good to have another report about the versatility of thr Axiom. To be fair though the gpx 6000 was never designed for relic or coin hunting. Gold is it's sole design purpose. However, another reason to consider the Axiom if a more broader application beyond gold is being desired. GC