Tortuga

The GPZ just is what it is.

It's the most high tech and expensive detector there is.

You have a choice to either buy one or get "the next best thing" which costs thousands of dollars less (GPX, SDC, ATX etc.)

If there were three or four other machines out there that were competing closely with the GPZ from other manufacturers we'd see A LOT more refinement and "value". I'm not impressed with the build quality of my GPZ. Minelab says it's tough but it looks and feels like a $500 machine, not a $10k one.

I like Minelab and I like my GPZ, but without strong competition Minelab could basically polish a turd, call it the GPZ 9000, sell it for $20k and there would still be buyers.

Tortuga -

I recently lost the pin in my SDC armrest and the top flap also. Didn't notice until the end of the day and was unable to locate either after back tracking awhile. Will get a hold of minelab this week when i find the time. Hopefully we can work something out.

Good luck

AjR

I called up Minelab today and they're going to send me a whole 'upper armrest assembly' for free that includes the pins, flaps and strap. That should be everything you're looking for too.

When I get the new armrest I plan on putting a few drops of glue in the pin holes to help keep them from falling out again.

We are really starting to get comfortable with our Zed's

Here is a photo taken on day 8 of our last 2 week trip. IMG_20150613_130639.jpg

We will be adding a vid of our last mission to our youtube channel soon.

This gold from the USA or Australia?

I took some kydex (plastic used to make form fitting holsters and sheaths) and formed it around the standoff foot on the 7000. Easy to do with a heat gun.

I was watching a Youtube video of an Aussie with a CTX 303 and he had a big beefy metal stand on his. Thought maybe it was a replacement part someone was selling but I haven't been able to find them for sale. Must have been custom made.

Now I just need to find a new cotter pin for the armrest on my SDC that I lost.... If anyone has a lead on those lemme know.

Wow I can't believe guys used to use those things to find gold!

One of the very first things that happened to me when I got my nice, new GPZ 7000 is I leaned it up against my truck. It slid sideways and down onto the ground hard. And broke the footrest on one side.

minelab-gpz-7000-broken-footrest.jpg

Luckily this part is replaceable but I have no idea at what cost. I guess I may as well find out and try and get one but for now it can stay broken.

If I had put my protective cover on BEFORE using the detector this would not have happened.

Mine broke too. Kellyco sells a parts kit for the CTX 3030 that comes with replacement feet and an armrest for $10. Exact same part as the one on our GPZ.

I'll add the chinsy plastic to my ever growing list of disappointing design flaws in the 7000. My coil is now starting to flop around. I guess I'll have to barrow some plastic washers from VA Paul and hope I don't break something trying to re engineer the coil mounting.

Have you tried turning the knobs on it? Tightened mine up a little.

I don't have all day to spend down in the gulches picking through trash inch by inch. There's gold there but I'll leave those areas for 20 years in the future when we have xray detectors that can see through all that crap. I hunt higher up on the banks and hillsides, the places the gold down in the gulches shed down from. The nuggets are a lot more spotty up there but there's a lot less trash.

I LOVE specimen gold. Especially if it's river worn like that. So cool. Gotta get up to Alaska one of these days and detect.

Key statements in the following video. High Yield is best on one ounce and smaller nuggets. General is better on nuggets weighing several ounces or more. Quite a gray area in the middle! Bottom line is I hunt in High Yield and I will let the multi ounce nuggets take care of themselves. I am pretty confidant I will hit them anyway. But if I was targeting a more mineralized area specifically looking for deeper, larger nuggets, I would run in general.

That's what I gathered from when I watched those Minelab videos. I think General and Deep just turn the sensitivity down a little so in hot ground signals from metallic targets will still be audible and not disappear in ground chatter. With the sensitivity down you'll miss out on those small targets but you may still find something. Especially a large target which should be pretty unmissable with the GPZ. And if you're hunting in mild soil conditions I'm pretty sure those large targets would be screaming in High Yield.

Has anyone actually had better luck finding "larger, deeper targets" running in General or Deep?

I seem to lose sensitivity in either mode compared to High Yield so I don't bother with them but now I'm questioning myself because I hunt in an area that's yielded some large, deep targets. General and Deep just seem like different sensitivity settings to battle ground mineralization. Are the two different timings actually worth using for deep stuff or are they just to be used in places like Australia where the mineralization is bad enough to make you give up with other detectors?

Nice video. I've been running the audio smoothing on "Low" here in southern Arizona but I think this weekend I'll try "Off" and see how smooth the GPZ still is after that.

Yes, I was referring to the LED threshold settings not the sensitivity (gain) settings. On 1 or 2 the threshold is only audible intermittently no matter what the gain is on. On threshold 3 she is very stable (in the proper gain setting) and the threshold is a nice constant hum.

I ask because I read posts where guys are hunting on 1 or 2 which would not be possible IMO with the way my machine sounds. Perhaps it's my hearing? I'm def in my right ear because that's the side of the car my wife sits on. Seriously, though, I didn't know if something was wrong with my machine. I guess if I'm finding fly spec gold at the #3 setting it's all good? Although, I hope a higher threshold setting wouldn't "mask" or over power a deep faint target? Thanks for your answers!

Dean

I purchased mine from Rob Allison and at the field instructions he gave me he told me to run the threshold on 2 so you just get that faint "mosquito buzz". Before that I was treating it more like a volume control and had it turned up way too high (noob mistake).

I'm sure I missed a few faint whispers by having it set too high.

Then from there I adjust the gain as high as it will allow while still being stable and not giving me false signals. Super easy machine to use.

I've always ran my threshold at the #2 spot here in Arizona and my gain/sensitivity at the #2 or 3 spot depending on how mineralized the soil was.

Can any authorized Minelab dealers verify they have these ferrite donuts in-stock?

The first nugget I ever found was with an SDC this year and even though I recently purchased a GPZ that I mostly use now, I still take my SDC out occasionally and still find gold with it.

I think the compact design is brilliant, I've been thinking for years how nice it'd be to have a metal detector that folded down that you could put in a backpack.

Damn that was some hole. Beautiful nugget!!

I just figured with the extra power that came from this detector, there'd be extra noise. I don't mind it too much, although I do have to dig a little sometimes in hot ground just to make sure it's not a target.

I started using the plastic harness that came with my GPZ and I have it clipped onto the front of my Camelbak. Then I hook the bungee onto that. Just started using it last weekend and I was amazed how easy it made swinging the GPZ. I've never used a bungee before with my other detectors, shoulda started awhile ago. I was atleast able to get another hour or two out of detecting and now the tough part for me is just the digging, not the swinging.

Those look really nice, just about perfect length and weight. I really like picks with those big shovel ends like that.

I have a little collection of picks going right now, I'm having a hard time finding one that's just right.

The head on my Apex Talon is a good size but it's got too many magnets on it making it a little heavy, and the handle is a little too long at 30".

I bought a Hogan ProPick and the head design is pretty good but it's a little on the light side and the handle is way too short at 22". I wish the shovel end was flat too, that'd make it better for scraping.

I also have a Burro Pick which is one funky design but it was cheap. Handle is a good length at 24" but the head is super lightweight and hardly gives it any swinging power. The digging spike is way too puny also.

I ended up ordering a Walco No. 1 Standard pick from Australia that cost me a pretty penny and has been sitting in Customs for a week and a half now. Got a big super magnet I'm going to stick on it when I get it, hope that one works for me. Seems to be a good combination of length, pick size and weight.

I run everything stock on mine here in southern Arizona.

High yield, normal ground, low audio smoothing.

If I bring my sensitivity up from default it's a little too unstable.

I get fooled by hot rocks and ground mineralization a lot, sometimes I have to go beyond a boot scrape to see what it's beeping on. However because of this I know it's running hot and sensitive. Been working pretty good for me so far.

Oh yeah I pretty much just ground balance once on the start up sequence and leave it too, like described by Steve H. and others.

I have to agree with Steve H. the Z will make you think your over something real good, especially in a deep bedrock crevice, and it turns out to be a couple of dollars worth. I'm not a large nugget snob (well- maybe a little bit) but I'm beginning to think the Z's amazing ability with tiny gold is costing me time that would be better spent covering more acreage. Leave it to me to complain about finding gold.

Nvc. I have that recipe except mine requires a goodly quantity of alcohol- the crow AND the rock are discarded.

It's like the two coils inside the Super D are the small 8" coil off an SDC then a big 14" coil off a GPX. You dig little stuff with this machine and big, deep stuff.

I use the B&Z Booster with my SDC.

It's really advertised to just be used with external speakers because of the feedback you get using it with headphones. It can be used with headphones tho, that's how I use it, and you do get some feedback from it. However if you play with it enough, getting the volume just right on the booster and the volume just right on your headphones it isn't too bad. Usually takes me almost an hour of detecting before things get "just right". I think the benefit of having the threshold run louder on the SDC slightly outweighs the annoyance of the feedback because the stock headphone volume on the SDC is ridiculously low. I'm a little hard of hearing so I like the threshold quite loud on my detectors so I can "get in the zone" and focus on any little changes or wavers.

You do end up with a lot of cords tho after you run a cable to the booster down to your detector and have your headphones plugged into the booster as well.

Just makes the wireless feature of the GPZ seem that much more pleasant. I've got no problems with the stock volume on that machine.

Ah gotcha, that's why you had a black coil in your other pic.

Thought it was some kind of special prototype 

I got one of these covers, only $110 for complete kit, includes a armrest cover.

http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t20867-detrackozi-gpz7000-covers

Can they be purchased outside of Australia?