Lunk

Nice haul for both Luckys…congrats!

I'll take the opportunity to segue here, Steve. So far in what I would call moderate to medium mineralized ground here in the southwestern desert region of Arizona, the 8-inch prototype DOD X-Coil for the Garrett Axiom does not ground balance in the Fine mode, but does in the Normal, Large and Salt modes. So I'll be putting the coil through its paces in those modes this winter and report my findings in a new thread, so stay tuned. I too am scratching my head at why X-Coil would bother making coils for the Axiom because of their premium prices, as well as at their choice of coil configuration; I personally would've rather chosen a concentric coil. At any rate, from what I'm seeing with the prototype so far, my guess is that a production coil on the market is still a long way off.

That is so thoughtful, Gerry, thank you! Here's a token of my gratitude for you:

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

That certainly is some nice crack, Allen…WTG!

That sounds like my old hunting partner, the legendary Smokey Baird; he told me the exact same thing when I first met him at Rye Patch nearly 24 years ago…has it been so long?!

Nice gold, Condor. Sorry you had to suffer the knee injury.

Great job on a hard won haul of nice nuggets, amigo!

2 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

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

Thanks, GC. The reason I chose the GPZ-19 coil over the NF-17 is simply that a good used GPZ-19 costs less than half the price of the NF, albeit being twice as heavy. I was using Extra Deep instead of General Gold Mode because it handles the alkali soil better, in addition to another reason, but that is another story for another time…

On 11/17/2023 at 7:05 AM, Gerry in Idaho said:

The plastic makes an annoying high scratchy sound when slid across the ground and the hollow echo drives me a little batty too.

That is caused by the air gap between the bottom of the coil and the coil cover. I used some gaffers tape to stick the inside of the coil cover to the bottom of the coil and voila! Way better now.

Looks like this version was the first to be released:

I have the white coil with red labels, and I purchased it new around nine months ago. 🤷‍♂️

On 11/9/2023 at 10:21 AM, Gerry in Idaho said:

Our good buddy Lunk has a gold nugget ring but he only shows it for special occasions. 

Lunk, give us the story of that hog and most certainly do not take it in the ocean.

Speaking of gold jewelry, the only piece I wear on a rare occasion is on a necklace. 

It was my 1st nugget over a 1/4 ozt.

Don’t worry Gerry, I’ll never take that ring into the ocean, as I'm a landlubber. That “hog” of a ring was originally a northern Nevada gold nugget weighing nearly an ounce, the finding of which was chronicled in an issue of the Mining Journal, in an article entitled “The Pothole Patch”. I always admired the unique color of NNV gold, and so decided to have the nugget melted down and forged into a solid band, the color of which is such a bright yellow that, if an 18 karat gold ring is placed alongside of it, that ring looks like copper in comparison; it definitely is a beauty. 

Nice detector training round-up, Gerry. It's always a pleasure to see students learning their machines, building confidence and scoring their first nugget.

13 hours ago, Sourdough Scott said:

Lunk, this is something I want to know more about from you and anyone else that uses the extra deep mode. It seems to be the most forgotten and least used mode. 

SS, I'll work up a topic about this in the future, so stay tuned.

6 hours ago, Prickly Prospector said:

Why would you run the Zed 19" in anything other than ultradeep? Defeats the purpose. I'm sure settings for max depth for coil size were being used on the modded 5000 (still great results) . 

 

PP, here is an article by Jonathan Porter that includes why you would run the Zed 19” in the other two Gold Modes as well as in Extra Deep. It is a very versatile coil that has different applications in each mode, but the key is having the room to swing it.  But as you suggested, most operators would use it to search for large, deep nuggets, myself included.

Another good GPZ-19 coil write-up with video.

Sorry Drellim, as I don’t mean to hijack your thread here; the video that you referenced shows a remarkable signal response from the modded GPX 5000…quite impressive!

It is strange how the Extra Deep Gold Mode of the GPZ 7000 isn’t given so much as a mention in this thread, given that it is the lowest frequency option and coupled with the 19-inch coil would be the Zed's weapon for large, deep nuggets. 🤷‍♂️

Guaranteed good times, as always!

Nice one, amigo!

22 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Could be. It was my really old iPad that I just replaced that had the problem. But even then a forced app reset fixed the issue.

I’ll have to try that on mine; thanks, Steve.

The iPad Mini 4 that I am using now has no problem, but my older iPad 3 has the issue, which I noticed a year or two ago, and I just figured that since the older iPad 3 can’t be updated to the latest IOS software anymore, then that’s why it has the issue…just a guess on my part.

1 hour ago, flakmagnet said:

an eyeopener for sure…(starts charging up all the detector equipment)...

Don’t forget your plane ticket and passport, Flak. 🤣

What an incredible find; I wonder what it ID'd on the EQX.

Neat rock. The mineral may be pyrrhotite, a magnetic iron sulfide. 

8 hours ago, Ethan in Adelaide said:

Lunk u mean ML harness and bungee  as minelab own stocks or aftermarket? I am very short.

The Minelab Pro-Swing 45 harness and bungee that is included with the GPZ 7000.

3 hours ago, cobill said:

Lunk, 

So when using your setup, you don't use the GPZ WM-12 module and your volume control is on the GPZ? I just happen to have a new Avantree Torus (unopened)....another thing that needs to be charged!

Bill

 Correct, Bill, except the Torus has it's own amplifier and adjustable volume, so It's just like using a booster/speaker combo; the advantage is that the detector volume can be set conservatively, which keeps threshold instability that increases by cranking up the detector volume when using the WM-12 to a minimum, which also negates the need to use the audio smoothing filter to combat the added instability, thus allowing you to hear the faintest targets that would otherwise be filtered out, or lost in the instability when audio smoothing is set to off. 
Also, I can get a full three days of detecting with the Torus before it needs to be charged.

27 minutes ago, bklein said:

Why the Torus vs other Avantree earbud models that don’t have the big neck thing?

The Torus just gives you the option of using its external speakers or the earbuds.