Reno Chris

Went out again today with the SDC 2300 to the same place where I got the 21 nuggets recently and today I got another 6 nuggets with a total weight of 3.2 grams or a bit over 2 pennyweight. it brings me to 4 pennyweight with the SDC here. I am finding nuggets in groups at this location, so I also brought in my dry washer for a test. By seeing all the small nuggets in an area, the SDC 23000 is doing a great job of identifying the range and shape of patches that can then be worked by various means - scrape, dig, sluice or dry wash. Because this place is dry, I brought out my dry washer. The dry washer showed that yep, there is tiny gold here that is too small even for the SDC, which I can collect. I spent the bulk of the day detecting, the dry washer was only for a test, but I was happy with the results for the limited time invested, I got roughly an additional half gram with the dry washer. Still loads of places to hit with the SDC and the 2300 is identifying places to dry wash in the future as I go. Sorry for the low quality pic, I have laptop computer problems which are limiting my photo options.

goldenoldie - this was never intended as some sort of head to head field test of the GPX vs the SDC. I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea. I know I have prospected at that spot with the GP Extreme, but cant remember if the last time I was there I had my 5000, as I said, its been some years since I detected this spot. That said, I am sure at least one of those pieces should have been found with the Extreme, but because I found a number of small nuggets with the SDC, I was digging every target. Consider this: If I pass over an area and dig a number of trash targets and no gold, I am likely to move on - its what most guys would do, and that is what happened at this spot before. On the other hand, if I dig several pieces of gold and some trash too, I am going to investigate much more carefully and most likely dig every target, good and bad. At this spot with the extreme, I got nothing but trash. With the SDC, I got a whole bunch of little nuggets, and was carefully digging everything, and the ratio with the SDC was nearly equal, trash iron and gold - about the same numbers of each, so at that point, I am happily digging everything. Jim - I dont know why it does down-up at so small a size, but it is consistent. I got a solid nugget in Alaska that ran close to a gram and it was a down up signal too. On the other hand, I got a specimen piece that was high in gold - mostly gold by weight and volume, and it weighs just under 12 grams, but it was a high low - it is not so solid as the two little pieces that did lo-high, even though the specimen has loads more gold.

So I took my SDC 2300 to a location in California which I hadn't visited in a couple years because the last few times I'd been there it was a skunk. I get started and I hadn't been detecting even 5 minutes when I dug the first target was a little nugget. The second target was a nugget as well. I've only been able to re-work a small part of this area as I keep digging more little nuggets and I don't want to walk away when there are still golden targets. I was shocked to see how much gold was just sitting there in a spot I know I have gone over before at least a couple times. So in about 7 hours detecting, I have 21 nuggets with a total weight of 3 dwt, just over a tenth of an ounce. Yah, they are small, but lots of fun to dig. The largest of these, a 0.8 gram piece, gave a strong down-up tone. Its just surprising to see how small a nugget gives a down-up tone. You can see these nuggets are very rough and have not traveled far. This spot is a lot more interesting now that its yielding a bunch of little gold.

Wasn't there a line in one of the early announcements of the SDC 2300 that said it was good to 10 Meters? - we all assumed it to be a typo which was meant to be 10 feet. I was out with my SDC yesterday in the dry - no water - and got 13 little nuggets for a total of 1.6 grams, just a hair over a pennyweight.

Yeah, its a Coleman. If you click on the photo, you can see the Coleman logo at the back of the vehicle. Ken, I would agree with you in general as far as off brand Chinese vehicles. However this is a bit different. It is branded by Coleman, and sold and guaranteed by Cabelas. As Shelton says, it is a Chinese copy of a Yamaha model. Cabelas has a contract with a local ATV repair shop here in Reno and I actually talked to the guy who does the repairs and he says he has no problem getting parts and has no unusual level of problems in seeing them break down. Both Cabelas and Coleman have a brand name to maintain and so I figure they would be hesitant to sell stuff that was really junk - and they have sold these for years. However I agree you can buy cheap no-name Chinese stuff that is junk, especially direct off the internet. I test drove one here at the local Cabelas, and it seemed fine at least for the test drive - No glaringly obvious problems anyway. I think Steve is right as far as the actual maker.

Here is what you need to get way back in on those mountain or desert roads before you begin your hike so you can really get into remote areas. Pretty sure I will be getting one soon.

The SDC 2300 does great on small gold and specimens. It certainly will hit bigger stuff, but if you are looking for maximum depth on big nuggets, you want the 5000 with a larger coil.

Looks like the fireweed in some of those shots is just about at the end of its run.

Amazon is an option, but its the $199 price.

Bedrock bench areas with the SDC - Hmmmm. Seems like a good strategy to me. Headed up to Sierra City tomorrow.

What you say makes no sense. You ask if its "worth it" but then say budget is not a concern. Which is it? No concern or important to determine if its worth it? In the end as I said quite clearly in my first response, its your call. That also makes no sense.

I've never hunted the Clippers, so I have no idea about their conditions. I can take you to places where you just could not use the XTerra - too mineralized. You'd be glad you had the SDC. The XTerra would be a waste of time. I could take you to places with low mineralization where the XTerra would work fine and have shallow gold. You'd say why did I ever sell my XTerra 70?, glad I didn't buy that SDC. For me, I'd rather have the SDC, but you dont know my finances and other situations. I'd much rather have the SDC just because its way more flexible.

Mike - this is the kind of thing only you can answer. "worth it" depends on so many factors: How often you hunt? How much money you have? How mineralized are the soils where you hunt? The size of the gold where you hunt? How brushy it is where you hunt (is a desert, is it grassy, is it a forest, is it a thicket of bushes?) Would you ever use it underwater? Does the compact transportability matter to you? You see it does not matter if its "worth it" to Steve or me or someone else - what matters is if it is "worth it" to you. Only you can make that call. The thing that the SDC 2300 does better than a VLF is find small gold in strongly mineralized ground. It very mild, low mineralization spots, a VLF would be sufficient. Did you have problems with hot rocks and ground noise on your Xterra?

You might give the two benches I hit the last day a try especially the one I worked that morning. I got close to 0.15 ounces that day.

Well, best of luck to you in your return to Chicken - I hope you do as well as you did in the last few days after I left. Having been there so many times, I am sure you have a few places in your head that you would like to try before leaving. Please say hello to Bernie and Chris for me.

Congrats on the nice nugget. Too bad Jack Wade is not closer. Still lots of opportunities await in the Sierra Nevada, plus elsewhere in CA, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, etc. Opportunities in Gold, but also tourmaline, sapphires, beach jewelry, ghost towns, etc. See you in a couple weeks more or less.

Any news of how you and Tom are doing, the gold and the weather? I figure tomorrow you take off for Anchorage.

Gary - I put the SDC in my checked in baggage, I did not carry on because of expected or at least potential problems with the TSA. I packed clothes around it so it was well insulated and both it and the Tecnetics T2 I took with me went through the travel just fine. Steve - great work on the gold. I know why Tom is ready to go - It's warm and sunny here, 84 degrees at 11 am as I write this. Slept like a baby in a real bed last night.It was a fantastic trip, but there are some advantages of home and civilization too.

Hi Dick - Hey it was great to see your operation, looks like you run a good operation and do very well. I agree with Steve that those high channels are really fascinating. Hard to believe that long ago the rivers flowed up there. Meeting and chatting with you was one of the highlights of the whole trip. Its always great to talk gold with an experienced miner. Hi Steve - back in Reno safe and sound with no problems - just a long layover in Seattle. Tell Tom good luck in getting some rest there - the airport staff vehicles all beep loudly and they are running up and down the corridors all night long..... Hope you guys hit it big today and that the weather holds dry. Did you have a chance to get my tent taken down? Here is a shot of all my SDC gold - the Alaskan stuff on the right and the rough, angular Californian stuff on the left.

I am in the Fairbanks airport now with bags checked through to Reno. It was a great trip and very interesting to see the American side of the Yukon / 40 mile gold region. Always fun to see some different gold geology. I got to meet new folks, see moose and a bear and get some good gold. Thanks for the hospitality, Steve. I am hoping that I left some luck behind for you in Chicken. I will be posting photos and some more comments when I get home and have a better internet connection.

It was only a few inches deep.

They have a lot of iron oxides, but the metal itself is not an unusual color - it may just be the lighting of the photo I took as I shot it indoors with an incandescent light.

If they operate the whole season, will they get more than an ounce of gold in total?

I got out and did a little more prospecting with the SDC, and got 3 more nuggets, total weight 2.5 grams. The more I use this detector the happier I am with it. I took my brother in law out with me and with the external speaker gave him a few lessons in nugget detecting. there were a bunch of 22 brass shells at this one place, and I told him we needed to get these out of the way because they would block the detector from seeing smaller targets. Sure enough, we got them out of the way, and right in the middle of where they were was a fainter target. I told him that while larger nuggets would sound like those shells near the surface, most gold would sound like this fainter target. We dug it and it was the smallest of the three nuggets.

The joint seems pretty strong to me in my operation of the SDC. The only odd thing about it is that the detector coil rotates in a side to side direction that you are not used to. The C size batteries are not a problem. The SDC comes NiMH rechargeable batteries and a charging system.If it would have been built with AA Batteries, you would need to change them every couple hours, to about 4 times a day. AA size hold a lot less juice per charge than C size. The C size last about 7 or 8 hours per charge. To make sure my batteries last as long as I might need, I bought 2 extra sets of rechargeable C cells (8) off Amazon. I like my SDC and plan on using it quite a bit this summer.