schoolofhardNox

White's Coinmaster V Supreme with G.E.B. (Ground Exclusion Balance) was the first detector for me that would ground balance hot rocks that previously read like coins. This changed everything for an amusement park we were the first to hunt circa 1969. The next detector is the Minelab GPX 5000. It allowed me to coin hunt and relic hunt like never before. I know gold guys had previous versions, so it may not be revolutionary for them, but that was the first GPX I had tried. An honorable mention (kinda revolutionary) was Minelab's E Trac for deep silver in parks. There are other great models, but not revolutionary in my experience.

Thank You. I'm going back for round II soon. It's not often you get to go back to the spot after a first hunt like that. 😄 He's a nice guy and isn't worried about what I find. He did excellent on the last hunt as well. If you can move VA up to CT or closer, I'll let you try the 5000. 😊

Thanks. It was very nice of him to share his spot with me. It's always fun when you figure out there is stuff deep that is missed. It usually leads to silver and hopefully gold. What got me the most was the number of rings (silver and junk) that impressed me. It's unusual for me to get that many rings in one hunt. Thanks. This spot gets hit by others when it's available, so the shallow finds are gone. Also, it's kind of rough on VLF/Multi Frequency machines. Hard to get any depth because of the rocks and sand composition. EMI is about normal, maybe a bit higher than usual.

Great hunt and done in record time too. Nice gold!

oops I thought the topic was the manticore just being a nox II. Sorry about that..... I need more turkey!!!

My main interest is to see if the 2 D screen separates iron better, since they have split it up above and below the 12 line. If it acknowledges bottle caps, rusty tin shards (from cans) large solid iron and stainless steel from non ferrous items and has fast recovery, it will be a winner at relic sites. If it's just a Nox II, addressing the known flaws, they will have a huge public outcry. So far Minelab has always delivered something different, but limited, so I'm expecting a bit better than the Nox and most or all of what the E Trac/ CTX had to offer. We'll find out shortly, I'm sure.

Maybe, but will it find small gold better than the 6000? Seems like Minelab keeps there machines separate enough for people to not sell them 😄 Maybe it will be designed for something the 6000 is not.

I finally got around to putting on a carbon fiber shaft that steveg designed for my GPX 5000. Sorry for the long delay Steve 😶. I put it on the backup GPX and finally tried it out. The shaft breaks down in the center for easier travel. The 3rd section is a short shaft around 8" that connects to the coil. I wanted to have short shafts on various coils so they would backpack easier when traveling deeper into the woods. We were worried about a clamp that would have to be located right next to the coil, and if that would interfere with the coil. It does not and it still pulled silver at 15+" at a beach site it was tried at. So no worries there. Design and weight of the shaft is top notch. Those of you considering this for a GPX, just remember the main 2 pieces have to be designed for your height, as there is no way to adjust them. The adjustment comes from the 8" coil shaft. So you will only have about 4-5" of usable adjustment. This is necessary to keep the shaft assembly strong. The stock Minelab handle moved slightly for me since, I'm chicken little with it due to breakage. I've cracked too many of them, and I was over cautious of tightening it fully. I will do so in the future. Even though I under tightened the handle it did not move much for the whole hunt. I'm pretty confident the handle fits on it when tightened. Thanks Steve for the great job!

It's not just silver, the same goes for large coppers. I have only encountered one problem in 53+ years of detecting. It involved the E Trac and a stacked pile of colonial coppers (5, I think). I hit a signal that was terrible, barely registering, but was rather shallow. At colonial sites, this happens a lot with falsing iron. I reluctantly did not dig it and moved on. My buddy comes along and digs that signal a while later, and get 5 colonial coppers including the rarest Fugio variety known. Stacked on top of each other, the coppers in the middle only has side corrosion and minor surface edge corrosion. I asked him where he found them and he leads me to that same spot on a small slope. My heart sank 😞 but congratulated him none the less. Even though that happened, it is extremely rare. If I worried about that, I would never have fun detecting again. Most spills move sideways and are not stacked, so you should hit on part of the spill, otherwise no one would find coin spills. It's not a concern for me and certainly would not discourage a purchase of the machine. If one tries hard enough, you can make any machine fail a test.

Beach hunt #13 is done and the number 13 is a lucky number. I had a great invite from one of our forum members to try one of his productive beaches. How can you turn down an offer like that? 😄 It was very nice of him to offer that up. I started with the Nox and stuck with it for about 2 ½ hours. This beach had a lot of gravel type rocks showing and that made the Equinox unhappy. I finally figured out a way to hunt it by decreasing the sensitivity quite a bit lower, just to quiet it down. Things there are deep, and the Nox is not the machine for the job. So, for the last part of the hunt I used the GPX 5000. Night and day! A really good hunt with a decent amount of silver and some gold in the mix too. Also, always nice to meet up with forum members to do some hunting. Happy Thanksgiving to all. I hope you get to enjoy the day!

I stopped watching other forums and stay here because of the people here. Way less drama. 😄 Even though we overly greatly focus on a new arrival, the threads do have some good value. Not much gets by the people here when it comes to new information. For that I am grateful. But the reality of how machines are released (or not released - as in the AQ debacle), I'm coming to grow weary of over sensitizing myself to the hype. I don't need anymore stress than I already have. 😆 As soon as I get mine I will post a little about it. As for what I can gather from the machine, I will probably be selling my Nox and CTX. The E Trac stays unless the Manticore scores deep silver better. Gotta love this forum for the knowledge that is available here.

Agreed. Hence why I decided to not post much about new products from Minelab, since everything is speculation. We know nothing about the Manticore even after watching some of the worst videos about it 😄 I rather just buy it and find out for myself. But that's just me. Kind of tired too with the hype, lack of information, and drawn out releases - from all companies.

I collect stakes 😄 Not really but I guess I should start. My income level dropped to zinc status. 🙄 This won't help the pulse hunting since the areas I did were the slopes which are very deep with sand. Nowhere near the clay layer. I usually leave the pulse in areas where the clay layer is about 15" deep or less. That is where the pulse shines best for me. Who knows where I'm going next week 🤔

Beach hunt #12 was a fun hunt with the Equinox 800. I really wasn’t in the mood to lug around the GPX, 🙄 so I opted to get reacquainted with the Nox. It was basically going to be a clad hunt with hopes of some silver or gold jewelry, but clad is all I got. 😌 Things are changing since the weather is getting colder and the hours of daylight diminish. I’m 2 hours away, so the time change hurts me more that the locals, which can get there at sunrise. All in all, it was a pleasure to swing that lightweight machine. Next week it will be back to the pulse machine for some deep iron. 😄

Can't beat that around here 😄 I'll just go back to admiring my crusty zinc cents now 😟