Pyriteboy

Nice group of finds George, and congrats on staying with it long enough to sniff out the 14K ring. It was good to see you again.... -Jerry

In the wet, the DD is noisy too.....I run the threshold at -6 which seems to work out well. -Jerry

Welcome aboard, I have posted a few times about the Axiom at the beach as well as in the desert goldfields. The 11x7 DD is the coil to use at the beach, although if you just had to, the 13x11 DD will work. The mono is a no-go (in S. California). The Axiom works very well in the wet and even better in the dry, if that is your thing. I have used the 11x7 mono a few times in the desert and am happy with the performance so far. This last week I tested the 11x7 DD in "new ground" near Randsburg, CA (a 1 hour spin) and was impressed with the sensitivity. -Jerry

300 or so targets for 2 silvers and an 18k bomb sounds like a good day to me. Beats the beach when we're in the doldrums.... -Jerry

Nice results George.....was the lake down any from the last time you were there?...how did your partner do? -Jerry

Nice pull George.....you can't win if you don't play.......have you had much luck in the past at the beach where you found the ring?.....it's stories like this that keep me swinging on un-productive beaches until I am off the sand, even when I don't want to... -Jerry

Correcto on all points Matt. The restaurants ran out of food by 4 p.m. The wife and I made do with chips, sardines, salsa, and whiskey. 2 hours later some rag-tag survivors from the event re-formed down at the BBQ area where we stayed and cooked some burgers for those who had not eaten. We went down and socialized with the folks for a few hours, donating a few good bottles of wine. Among those present were Josh and his family, Mike Pung, some folks from Washington, Nevada, as well as some local prospectors. Quite a melting pot of people and a great way to cap off the long weekend.

One of my wife's favorite places on earth is Downieville. Before the kids showed up, we made a few 8.5 hour trips to the town that were unforgettable. We always talked about going back, so when she heard the Downieville Gold Rush Days Celebration was going to be held on her birthday weekend, done was the deal. The show was respectable in size for a first-time event, with some of the familiar faces you have seen at other shows. I spent most of my time attending the speaker classes- PLP's Clark Pearson (reclamation dredging), Ray Mills (all things detecting), host Josh Reinke (PLSS), and Reno Chris, who I missed because of a scheduling bo-bo on my part. The wife and I got an extra special one-on-one power talk on metal detecting from Mr. Mills, as we had adjoining rooms and conversed across our balconies overlooking the Downie River, drinks. One of the nice things about Gold Rush Days is that anyone attending the show had permission to prospect in the Downie River and the North Fork Yuba, east and west of town. We enjoyed watching families walking through town on their way to a spot on the river to try their luck. The weather was pretty decent as well until Sunday, when it started to get a little warm. Hopefully, the Downieville business community saw a financial bump from the long weekend and will support a follow-on next year. We spent a good chunk of our free time doing recon on some claims in the area, taking pictures and notes. It was a treat to get a pan in some clear water again, as I am a desert guy. Of the 2 claims we tested, one was a bust but the other made for some fun as we found a flood layer pay streak. We decided to set up a small sluice to make things easier on our bodies, which was the right call. For someone who has not set up a sluice in 20 years, I think 20 minutes for a proper setup was reasonable. 2.5 hours later, it was time to get out of the sun and back to the show. It was quite the good time working in the water once again. I have not worked the cons yet, but it was a joy to see all the gold in the pan, even though there were no outstanding pieces. Good people, good times, looking at new ground, and finding a little gold. I'm already going through my notes and pictures, planning and plotting for a return in the fall. Things could be a lot worse....... -Jerry

Hey George, nice recoveries there....did they come out of the sand squeaky clean like in the photo? -Jerry

Sounds like a fun little project, Steve.....Mono coils are unruly at my beaches, and that is why I got the 7x11 DD.....It works very well, but as we all know, it is a bit on the small side for overall beach work...... -Jerry

Some of you may have noticed that the Detech USA website has been unavailable for quite some time due to supply chain issues. This does not bode well for those of us who are waiting on after-market coils for the Axiom. I went ahead and purchased the Garrett 7x11 DD, which I can use in the gold fields. I took it out for 3 test runs at my local beaches recently, and now can say that the Axiom is well-suited for beach work- wet or dry sand. I ran NORMAL, MEDIUM, FIXED GROUND, THRESHOLD @ -4, SENSITIVITY=2. No problems with moving water, no problems with EMI, which was acute in all 3 test areas. At sensitivity 2, the weak, small junk targets were not "lit up" and registered as high-low signals. Most twist tops were high-low, with only a few types sounding off as low-high. Other high-low targets were foil, wire ties, and other small junk that falls through your scoop. Low-high targets found were lead, tent stakes, all coins, aluminum pull tabs, aluminum screw caps, junk rings, junk jewelry, a few twist tops, gold ring (test), silver ring (test), and the bane of all PI's- deep iron. I will be playing for keeps next time out and only digging low-high signals. Plenty of power at sensitivity 2, and more than enough to draw upon if you need to search for those faint signals in a hunted out patch. -Jerry

Thanks Bill.....the settings that worked for you are different from those that worked for me. I tested mine in highly mineralized ground after one of our storms. When the current rain lets up, I'll take the Axiom out for another test with sanded-in conditions to see if it can be run with higher gain. Glad you liked the detector and the DD coil. -Jerry

Hi Bill, very nice write-up for sure. Interesting that you found SALT to work the best for you at the beach. Can you please tell me what other settings you used? -Jerry

A 12" Ultimate Spiral DD or 11" open DD.....

Hi Bill, curious if you tested the same targets at sensitivity 4 and then at 7-8. If so, was the target response louder at the higher sensitivity? I am guessing this detector will do well in that role.... -Jerry

Yes, great news all around. You were missed.......

Outstanding results ......you worked long and hard for what you found. -Jerry

Yes is has...I have seen people walk off the beach talking to themselves...... Yea Steve, I forget that the Garrett DD is more sensitive/hotter than the traditional DD's we see on the Minelab GP/GPX series detectors. Again, a 12 x 10, 11 x 11, or 8 x 12 DD would do the trick here where I am at. To be continued.....

Oh, just coinage VL....

Took the Axiom out for another quick spin before the rains this afternoon. I ran through all the combinations of speed and modes on sensitivity 2 to re-check my findings from the other day. The beach I went to is on the extreme end condition-wise; that is to say the sand is heavily mineralized and there is lots of airplane traffic. The first photo is near the bottom of the slope, and the second photo was taken mid- slope. Again, I ran the machine in a silent search-type mode to eliminate some of the ground noises. As before, Mode= NORMAL & Speed= Medium was slightly more workable than Mode= SALT & Speed= SLOW. SENSITIVITY.................2 MODE............................Normal SPEED...........................Medium THRESHOLD................-8 The bottom of the slope was workable with the 13 x 11 DD but going up the more mineralized slope rendered the Axiom too unstable. Most beaches are not this mineralized, so this is the worst-case scenario. The Axiom, fitted with a smaller DD coil, would be able to handle this ground. I use an Eric Foster designed Goldquest Aquasearch v.2 and have to dumb the machine down at times here. Even then, the threshold is still a bit ratty and you have to work slow. To be fair to the Axiom, I will next go to a beach that is not so extremely mineralized and see how it performs. So far, I am not disappointed with how the Axiom has fared with the 13 x 11 DD coil. -Jerry

Bingo, Steve, I am trying to dial in the beach settings for the Axiom for max speed; that is to say, the maximum speed I would want to swing the coil to cover ground and still hear a reasonable target. I call it breezing; suppose you could call it patch hunting speed. For sure this speed would be a little faster than when in the gold fields- but how much faster seems to be a black art. -Jerry

Found in California, where you have to stay in a drunk state to deal with the madness. The cool part- this was no gimme- it was actually some good, solid detecting to finally score. I did drink more than a little single malt that evening.

Hi Steve, saltwater beach. I tried salt mode but was not successful in quieting the machine down. It is possible that I ran salt mode in sens 3 and not 2, so when I go back for another test run, I will have a cheat sheet with all the possible combinations of timings/settings with sensitivity level 2. The settings I listed did work fairly well but another test run will determine if there are any that are better.

With the bottom of the coil partially facing up at the sky when pinpointing, the EMI wobble sound was substantial, with the root cause being large holes needed to be dug for deep targets. Trying to force the large DD coil in the hole sideways to pinpoint is not the way I will be doing it going forward. It is a habit of mine from nugget hunting. This is in Hermosa Beach, tons of airplanes, cellphones, lifeguards chatting over their radios. Accuracy seemed fine, it was me who had to adjust to the DD's center + estimate depth and then figure where to put the scoop. The 13 x 11 DD is a little big to be ripping through a patch of targets, but with a smaller coil I believe the recovery would be faster. Screaming on a target at depth is plain awesome; I believe this detector is more than capable to hear the subtle response of low-conductor gold at depth.

I took the Axiom to my local beach for a 2.5 hour test spin to see what would happen. Staying in one spot, I just gridded the area to see how the detector behaved to different targets. The ground was moderately mineralized from some weather we are experiencing; no sugar-hip white flow sand here.... These are my observations: The 11 x 7 mono is too hot and will not work at my beaches The 13 x 11 DD can be used but it picks up too much EMI when turned to pinpoint. While using the 13 x 11 DD, most targets scream, even at depth. While using the 13 x 11 DD, you will detect high-conductor targets that are so deep you might pass on digging them (clad coins). The Axiom is a beast run amok at the beach and has to be de-tuned to operate effectively. After-market open coil designs will only help the Axiom's performance at the beach. My wish-list beach coil would be a 12 x 10 DD open design. It's a bitch keeping a beach scoop and the 13 x 11 DD coil apart when digging a target. The Axiom out-performs the White's Big Box TDI on the wet sand. Here are the settings I came up with: SENSITIVITY.................2 MODE............................Normal SPEED...........................Medium THRESHOLD................5 GROUND BALANCE....Manual These settings put the Axiom in a poor man's "silent search mode". There is more work to be done with adjustments, but I think it was effective in eliminating some of the chatter whilst not giving up detection to subtle tones. Will have to bring a slew of high and low conductor targets with me the next time I put the machine to the test. The photo is the result of 2.5 hours of testing. Sorry, no gold, but let's play for keeps the next few days and see what happens.... Questions welcome! -Jerry