The 6000 does what the 5000 can do depth wise on larger gold even slightly better, but what’s the point of providing it that way to the market when there is already something much better out there for that purpose in the form of the 7000? Hence the 17” elliptical coil rather than say an 18” round monoloop.
A 17” elliptical will be a very good coverage coil for prospecting purposes with pretty good depth on larger pieces, but it is not about outright depth, you have ZVT for that. The GPX 6000 with the largest coil you care too put on can never attain the depth of the 7000 with its standard coil!! Having a lightweight coil with 17 inches of coverage with the sensitivity to snag a 0.01 gm piece is nigh on diabolical, this concept will take shape once operators get their hands on them.
Ergonomically the 6000 is brilliant with the supplied standard 11” mono coil, that coil size is perfect for one handed operation with nil support devices unless you are unused to detecting. The standard 11” coil has the ability, if you care to invest the energy, to find tiny pieces right down to the ‘wet your finger to pick it up’ GM 1000 level!!
So this then begs the question, what is the GPX 6000 good for? I very quickly learned to target a specific type of environment to maximise the 6000 benefits. The first and key approach was to target old areas were I’d previously found multiple targets within 100mm of the surface, in almost all cases I tend to stick to ground where bedrock is visible and work out from there but mainly sticking to ground up to or around the 12” mark as the targets the 6000 is VERY good at reside at less than those depths (inverse square law).
Hot ground is not a problem (usually the shallow gravels are more mineralised as the top layer has been washed or blown away), If the ground becomes problematic due to conductive signals or salt signals or EMI then I revert to the DD coil and use that option (truly amazing sensitivity to tiny surface targets using the DD), I will however tend to stick to ground less than 10 inches as the depth is less with the DD relative to target size. The bulk of the gold I find with the 6000 is in the sub gram range but I have hit on some pretty decent stuff whilst out and about thanks to the good outright depth of the tech, this is reassuring as often decent targets are found due to time spent and the ground covered during that time, so its nice to know if you get your coil over a decent nugget or speci at depth then your in with a chance.
The 6000 is not a tiny gold only detector, but operators can only swing one detector at a time, there will be a cross over on some target sizes between the various techs (SDC and GPZ), however what it does do it does exceptionally well as such there will be a pretty decent range of targets that it outperforms everything on. It is nice to know while your taking advantage of the tech behind the GPX it can still compete with its predecessors and also the modern big guns.
JP
Thanks for the valuable insight. Since the 6000 does so well on small gold, does it improve the performance on porous or prickly gold that often gave the 5000 difficulties?
Official Minelab GPX 6000 Page
in Detector Prospector Forum
Posted
Thanks for the valuable insight. Since the 6000 does so well on small gold, does it improve the performance on porous or prickly gold that often gave the 5000 difficulties?