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Pyriteboy

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Posts posted by Pyriteboy

    Garrett Axiom Dd-fc Focused Core Coils

    in Garrett Metal Detectors

    Posted

    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

    Downieville Gold Rush Days

    in Detector Prospector Forum

    Posted

    3 hours ago, matt said:

    Great report!

    I planned on attending but other life things got in the way. The Mountain Messenger (Downieville Newspaper) reported that the event will be on again next year. Sure wish I could have made it this year so hopefully they are correct and it will be again next year. Apparently it used to be a yearly event, but I don't ever recall the event in prior years. They used to block off upper Main Street for events which was a lot of fun. The Messenger did say that by Sunday afternoon the restaurants were basically out of food.

    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.

    Downieville Gold Rush Days

    in Detector Prospector Forum

    Posted

    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

     

     

    Axiom At The Beach Part 3

    in Garrett Metal Detectors

    Posted

    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

    Field Test: Garrett Axiom - The Last W & E Treasure Review

    in Garrett Metal Detectors

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

    Thank you, Jerry.  I basically just ran SALT and Slow, tracking off, ground balancing randomly.  This is in the wet sand mind you.  On the dry I ran FINE.  I could run the sensitivity up to 6 in the wet before things got noisy.

    Easiest PI I have ever used.  I am still curious after more hours on it if I can beat the multi's at the beach where they rule right now.  Outside of an old White's you never see PI's at the beach anymore.  

    By the way, I highly recommend the DD coil.   Being a VLF guy by trade it really made locating targets easy for me.

    Bill 

    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

    Axiom At The Beach Part 2

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    On 1/17/2023 at 3:36 PM, Bill (S. CA) said:

      Running the detector silent allowed me to crank up the sensitivity beyond 4 to 6/7 most of the time and even 8.  Perhaps if I had a better PI ear I could have had an audible threshold but I tested several deep targets and they all rang out solid regardless of the threshold setting. 

    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?

     

    On 1/17/2023 at 3:36 PM, Bill (S. CA) said:

    I have yet to try the Axiom on the dry for microgold and will post those results after a few hunts.  I have high hope for it given it's terrific sensitivity to small gold.

    I am guessing this detector will do well in that role....

    -Jerry

    Axiom At The Beach Part 2

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    9 hours ago, mn90403 said:

    I know a beach that fits those conditions of planes and the worst black sand of any beach I've ever been on.  There are places on it where I can't detect with my 800/15.  It has defeated other detectors also.

    Yes is has...I have seen people walk off the beach talking to themselves......

    1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

    Interesting results, thanks. I have had to use Normal instead of Fine in heavy black sand, but have not had to deal with salt at the same time. Interesting that Salt is not working better for you than Normal under those conditions. Part of the issue here is the Garrett DD is hotter than a normal DD coil so does not give the results one might expect when comparing to other DD coils. I would actually like a standard DD coil for the machine for just that reason, but it also opens the possibility of the smaller mono possibly working better than you might expect. Or not, but worth a try. I love trying to figure out new detectors! Every data point helps, so thanks for sharing. :smile:

    Reminder to everyone that the default sensitivity setting of 4 would be the top end setting on many detectors, so settings of 2-3 on the Axiom are to be expected in tough situations, and are still quite powerful.

    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.....

    Axiom At The Beach Part 2

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    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

    IMG_4755.JPG

    IMG_4756.JPG

    Axiom At The Beach

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    On 1/7/2023 at 8:21 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

    The higher the speed setting the noisier the Axiom is. EMI or no EMI, that's just the way the circuit works. Set slow and go low and slow, unless wanting to just cover ground fast - but at a cost.

    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

    Axiom Killed The Monkey.....

    in Garrett Metal Detectors

    Posted

    5 hours ago, dig4gold said:

    He was probably not in a drunk state 😂 when he found it but may have been after celebrating that awesome find.

      Well done. Sure got the monkey off your back with a vengeance. 

    D4G

    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.

    Axiom At The Beach

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    58 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

    Was this a fresh water beach? If not, then why are you not running salt mode? Looks like saltwater finds to me, and if you are using Normal - well, no, it's not going to run right.

    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.

    Axiom At The Beach

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    1 hour ago, All_Metal_Mode said:

    I am surprised to hear the DD still had issues with EMI in pinpoint….what were you experiencing, a warble or something?

    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.

    2 hours ago, All_Metal_Mode said:

    hat would you say you are seeing as far as accuracy of where the detector is saying the target is located? Are you getting slower/faster recovery between targets from previous PI machines? If it’s screaming on a target at depth that’s both awesome and also a little disconcerting

    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.

    Axiom At The Beach

    in Metal Detecting For Jewelry

    Posted

    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

     

    DSCN1227.JPG

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