Tortuga

Same experience for me. Took me about two years to find my first one but they rolled in after that. A lot of it was just a morale and confidence booster. Once I discovered I really could find gold I just worked that much harder. Maybe harder than the two years prior. I wanted to find the next one, then the next one etc.

iMac user here. Just upgraded mine today. Downloaded the file from the Minelab website and dragged it onto the GPZ drive from my desktop. Piece of cake.

Good idea! Like the SDC, I think the "vented" coil cover on the GPZ has something to do with it being a detector you can use in the water. The cover isn't sealed on there with tape like the old ones. I think Minelab designed it to let water drain out of it. I've since switched to the black coil cover cuz I wore my stock one out.

Interesting. I'll have to take a pic of what I've got but it looks pretty close to yours. Found it a few years back detecting for relics in a pasture.

That flat thing at the bottom of your pic with the round dimple in the center. I found one of those before. Wasn't sure what is was, maybe a blade for a wood plane?

There's an area I hunt that's nothing but bedrock and the "interlocked" rocks you're talking about. It's tough work but I've kind of gotten used to it. It's sorta fun now, like a jigsaw puzzle sometimes with gold nuggets in it. It's a lot different than swinging on hillsides and just digging up soil and clay.

What's the default gain setting on the GPZ? That's one thing I haven't touched since owning it.

Interesting story about sticking with the boot scrape. I know there's a lot of boot scrapes I've left behind that I just couldn't wrap my head around and dismissed as hot ground. I usually detect in Normal and Audio-Smoothing Off then if I hit something I can't tell is a metal target or hot ground I'll switch to Difficult. If the target disappears I'll usually move on. I've dug quite a few deep holes in some nasty thick clay that I think just had some bad hot rocks at the bottom of them because of the wide spectrum of the sound. After a little digging metal objects should eventually start putting off a pretty clean high-low or low-high tone. However, the real question is whither or not I should be Auto-Tracking or not with my GPZ once I find a signal that's giving me some trouble. Do you think after spending 5-10 minutes sweeping your coil over it and scraping a little dirt away here and there that eventually the GPZ will start tuning out the target, if it's faint and deep enough?

Makes sense to me. If the source (detector) isn't requiring high-end studio headphones like a $10k McIntosh amplifier might then we should be fine just using the regular detector headphones that are on the market.

I don't see a big difference between the dirt that gets in your scuff cover and the dirt you're swinging your coil over on the ground. It's all dirt... Unless you get a bunch of black sand in there maybe.

I've been curious about the actual audio output and speaker quality on metal detecting headphones as well. I think most of the emphasis manufacturers place on their headphones is ruggedness and just make vague claims about the "faintest whispers from nuggets can be heard". I'd like to know if anyone's done any research like you're asking about specific ohm ranges that are compatible with our metal detectors that output the best signal. I mean it's not like we're trying to listen to rock music coming out of our Minelab's. We're listening to electronic tones the machine is spitting out based on what the electronics inside are trying to tell us. I've had a pair of Sunray Pro Golds I've been using for a few years now that work fine and I've found some nice gold with. But I've been wondering if the $120 headphone "connection" I have with my $10k detector can be improved at all. By the way Jimmy I don't know where you're located but I'm selling a used SDC 2300 if you're interested. Drop me a message if you'd like.

I like that nice 5.2 grammer. Looks like a little foot.

I didn't get anything....

Nice work, I love Arizona gold. It's an hour away from where I live.

Holy crap that's funny! No kidding?? That's awesome. Pieter always has such nice gold at the show. Lots of nuggets he's found and ones he's acquired from collections. He has a beautiful 11 ounce(?) gold and quartz nugget from the Quijotoa Placers that's near and dear to my heart that I'd love to own one day. He usually has a big silver bar from the Atocha shipwreck for sale at the Gem Show too. I live about 10 minutes away from the hotels where they host the shows and I've been going every year since I caught gold, gem and meteorite fever (and even before that when I was a kid in elementary school and they'd drag us there for field trips).

Pretty neat stuff. The last issue of the GPAA Gold Prospectors magazine had a good article on jade.

That's the pick I've been using lately and that's the website I got mine from. The handle is plenty long, which I like. Good for digging deep GPZ holes. However not long after owning it I did tweak the metal pick head a little trying to pry a huge boulder in a wash. It just barely got twisted a little, no biggie. It's a little thinner steel than an Apex pick, like I was using before, so you can't be too rough on it but for 90% of the stuff I dig it's fine.

Wow that's a big one...

Scratch the little shiny parts with a nail. If they break up and turn black its pyrite or chalcopyrite.

Some people have all the luck...

I've been using one of the black covers for a few months now. Wore out my stock GPZ cover with a quickness here in Arizona banging around dry washes and sharp rocks. The stock one is made of soft, Tupperware-like plastic. The black replacement cover (got mine from Rob) is A LOT thicker. Sorta like that Kydex material they make gun holsters out of. It's a little heavier than the stock one but I use a bungee with my GPZ do it's not really a big deal. I probably won't ever wear the black one out. Didn't notice any loss in depth, sensitivity etc. Still bringing home lots of gold.

Looks like a damn good pick.

This is how I use my GPZ as well. Each setting for me is just another way to "dumb down" the detector in tough soil. In mild soil I use Audio Smoothing: Off, Normal Soil and High Yield. If the ground gets hotter I turn Audio Smoothing: Low. If it gets worse I switch to Difficult Soil and continue down the chain until things get quiet. Fortunately I don't have to switch settings much where I detect but maybe somewhere like Rich Hill with a little tougher ground mineralization might require me to "dumb down" my GPZ. I haven't even touched the Sensitivity or Threshold settings on my GPZ yet. The stock settings seem to work fine for me.

That's some really interesting info. Seems like Coiltec or NF could sell alternate coils for the SDC if they came with detailed instructions with pictures on how to install them and a little star head tool or whatever is needed to open the case. Naturally big bold letters would have to be printed on the first page of the instructions saying installing a new coil voids your warranty.

When I first got mine I didn't think the "shaft twist" was that bad either, just chalked it up to the overall "floppy" design of the coil the GPZ has now that Minelab got away from using plastic wing nuts you can tighten down. However like you said I think mine's gotten worse too. I've logged a lot of hours on mine since I got it and I'm frequently adjusting the length of the shaft for when I'm hiking in/out and detecting up/down slopes and stuff. I do like that you can adjust the shaft fast and easy like the SDC. Is there a way to disassemble the shaft and wrap some tape around it to increase the diameter a little so the clamp can "grab" it better?