Condor

I made a quick overnight trip to Rye Patch to do some more testing with the GPZ and 17" Concentric Coil. My main goal is to familiarize myself with the Z combination for an upcoming trip to Australia. This testing was merely for my own edification, not to prove any point about this Machine/Coil vs that Machine/Coil. I dug the first 2 nuggets last night and it was getting dark so I didn't have time to do any cross checking. This morning I marked 3 undug targets with the GPZ and 17" XCoil Concentric. I then went over them with the GPZ XCoil 17x12 Spiral Wound. That combination picked up 2 of the 3 targets. I then went over all three with the GPX 6000, 14x9 Coiltek combination. The 6000 heard 1 of the 3, but while detecting back to the truck it picked up 2 more targets. I started over with the Z 17"CC and it picked up the 2 new targets no problem. I then ran the Z 17x12 over the new targets. It picked them up no problem, but on the way back to the truck the 17x12 picked up a faint noise in an old drywash hole. I dug down to bedrock and found bits of charcoal and just general noise so I gave up on it. The 17" CC relocated the 1 missed target and I dug down a few inches thinking to use the 6000 as a pinpointer. It still couldn't pick up the target. I finally dug it out, a tiny piece of steel down about 6 inches. I then dug up the 4 targets which included the 2 remaining targets the 17"CC found and the 2 the 6000 found. 2 were bits of steel and 2 were small round nuggets. Coincidently, the 2 gold targets were the ones found by the 6000, but verified by both coils on the Z. By then it was approaching 10:00 AM, and the NV desert still gets hot this time of year. But, before I left I went back to the 17" CC combination and went over the drywash hole. A clear tone somewhere in the bottom of that hole. The unfortunate thing about the Concentric coil is the receive winding is about 8" round dead center. You're waving 17" of coil with the equivalent of an 8" round receiver. Nearly impossible to pinpoint in a foot deep hole. I dug the hole out some more and tried the 6000 over it. Very noisy, but a faint low tone in the sidewall of the hole. I dug it out some more and finally got a booming target in the spoils. Heartbreak, 1.5 inch piece of rusted steel. My random thoughts on this little experiment are this: 1. The XCoil 17" Concentric will not miss much, "IF" you have fairly flat ground and can consistently overlap your swings to insure you get that 8" receive winding over the targets. 2. The XCoil 17x12 Spiral Wound coil is nearly as good and will ultimately cover more ground with a whole lot less effort. 3. The 6000 with 14x9 Coiltek is no slouch and could save the day if you're old and tired like me. I would be hard pressed to swing the 17"CC all day. The deepest nugget the 6000 found was down about 5 inches, very respectable for a sub/sub gram nugget. All this is very unscientific. I'm at mercy of time and weather in the NV desert this time of year. I did what I could with the equipment I had with me. Rye Patch is a tough hunt in the best of circumstances, so finding 4 nuggets in about 6 hours of detecting is beating the odds. I've had more than a few skunk days out there.

GC, I experimented with all the settings including General/Difficult over this very salty ground. It ran OK, but the "Patch Find" helped considerably. Unfortunately, I couldn't get over another target to really test the response. N NV deserts are still in the mid 90's, so my testing tolerance was sapped. I don't leave for OZ until mid Sept, so I'll get out for another couple runs if the weather cooperates. If you're free, come on out for some testing.

Teaser: Further Testing We reburied the 4.6 gram nugget and every detector coil combination disappointed. I don't want to fuel the old "nugget halo" theory, but things changed for the worse for a reburied nugget. I would have bet money that the 6k could easily find a 4.6 gram nugget at 10 inches. Again, your results may vary, but I was quite surprised.

Hey Jason, We later detected the same area you had joined us for the 6k launch. We had a short hard rain last night and that ground really got extreme in places. I tried the Z in the Salt setting plus Difficult for the first time ever. It quieted the ground, but struggled with a .3 gram test nugget. Andy ran the new Coiltek 10x5 on the 6k and had no trouble with the salt. It's always a toss-up, depth, sensitivity, or stability.

Let me reiterate something about this "test". We never set out to test anything. We did this because the opportunity came upon us with an undug target in ground that had been thoroughly hunted. We did this to satisfy our own curiosity and not to prove one detector or coil is better than any other. We didn't have a stock Z coil, we didn't have a NF aftermarket coil, we had what we brought for an overnight hunt. We should've or could've is simply not in this equation. It is what it is your results may vary.

I bought the GPZ XCoil Concentric for my upcoming trip to Australia coming in mid September. I wanted to put some run time on it so when Steve H suggested we take a short trip to Sawtooth to meet with forum member ABenson I jumped at the chance. Steve H has an old patch that he has detected for over 10 years, I've detected it for over 6 years. We generally find a few pickers but it really has been hunted to death. The benefit of a hunted to death patch is there is no more trash, so any target stands a good chance of being the good yellow stuff. I ran the 17" Concentric as hot as the ground would bear, Normal, High Yield, Sens 17. The ground has a lot of alkali salt, and the upper couple inches was damp from a recent rain so I added in the "Patch Find" setting to quiet the ground a little. After a couple hours with no targets other than a few boot scrapes in hot ground, I got a good repeatable tone on the slope of an old push. Since I'm new to the Concentric I had no idea what that signal was telling me. If I had to guess from the tone, I would say under a gram nugget, 4 to 6 inches down. So I marked the target and walked back to the truck to get my GPX 6000 and the new Coiltek 14x9 coil. Steve H was nearby so we decided to check the target with the new Axiom. We got there and neither the 6k nor the Axiom could hear the target. I had to go back to the truck and get the Z to verify the target was where I had marked. A clear and repeatable tone in both Normal and Difficult for the Z. We pulled a couple inches off the top and started the whole process over. The 6k gave a faint low tone over the target, but not something that would ordinarily stop me in prospecting mode. In fact, I dig very few low tones in this ground because of the hot ground and hot rocks. I'll defer to Steve H for his assessment of how the Axiom was doing over the same target. We did a lot more testing, and found a seam of hot red clay on the target, but to skip to the chase, we recovered a 4.6 gram nugget (4.7 on Steve's scale) at a minimum of 13 inches and probably closer to 14 inches. We reached a few preliminary conclusions on ground handling, raw detecting power and pricing of the 3 detectors, based on this one unscientific, ad hoc test with the detectors and coils we had available. Our ideas on detector performance were severely challenged in some later completely unscientific tests. More to come, Steve H is probably better suited to explain how things changed.

Hey Paul, I just watched the latest Chrissy video with the Task Master running the backhoe. Thought I might hear a Tennessee accent somewhere in the background. Maybe as a true TN Vol, you can volunteer to hold the camera while they do all the work.

Hey Paul, Maybe they fixed the lift mechanism so you won't pinch the end off a finger trying to get it to lock in the upright position. Great camper though, can't give up on equipment just because its got a little age. How's the quad and yellow truck, are they still functioning?

Hey Gerry, I forgot to mention that I did a quick experiment with the hotrocks. These rocks range in size from a basketball to a baseball. After I notched them out, I put the .8 gram nugget right on top of one of the medium sized rocks. Deus 2 hit the nugget no problem. Regrettably, it could not do the same on the smaller nuggets, but the D2 can give you options.

Downright chilly in the mornings, but those pits heat up quick if there's no cloud cover. The guy I was with dug over 100 nails but was rewarded for his effort with a sweet 1/4 oz nugget.

I did a little nugget hunting in a California Gold Country hydraulic pit using the D2 with the latest update .7 and the 9" coil. As most nugget hunters know, hydraulic pits are a bugger to hunt, square nails and ferrous trash enough to drive you insane. I found a decent little spot of packed soil on top of the old cobbles. Probably a sluice cleanout spot or maybe the old timers were shoveling out a sluice raceway. Still littered with pieces of wire from steel cables and miscellaneous ferrous trash, but workable. The D2 update added a notch feature to the Goldfield and Relic programs. That feature allows you to notch out the ground which vastly improved the coil bump sensitivity. I notched 00 to 10 which also took out a majority of hotrocks. The hotrocks played havoc with my GPX6000, so I opted to stay with the D2. The smallest of nuggets I found had a TID in the high 20's, the bigger ones 30 to 40 range. 22 bullets TID in 50s. I had occasion to test swing over someone else's .26 oz nugget found that same day. That TID came in the US nickel range, mid 60's. I would have liked a 2nd notch to handle another type of hotrock that had a TID of 79. Well beyond gold nugget range yet still registering non-ferrous. Not sure what they were, but they were numerous and added a distracting high tone. I have used the NOX 800 with the Coiltek 5x9 coil for similar kind of nugget hunting. I think the NOX would still have an edge in these conditions, but I was impressed with how well behaved the D2 was with the new update. I recovered nuggets so small they will not register on my cheapo scale. If Deus builds their elliptical coil for the D2, it will be a very competitive VLF nugget detector. Even though I have the NOX, I prefer the D2 maybe because its new to me and has a lot of features I can fiddle with. Photos to follow.

Hey Paul, You're not detecting behind Krissy, Outback Gold Fever, are you? That backhoe she's working with looks vaguely familiar.

1 full detecting season.

When I was detecting winters in AZ I was going through 2 pairs of Keene mid top boots every season. I'll turn 68 on Fri, so I can probably make 1 pair last a full season these days, but the Keene's were very susceptible to Cholla cactus through the soles. Last year I picked up a pair of Salewa Approach boots in the mid top style. They're not completely metal free, the top 2 lacing posts are metal. These have been the best and most comfortable boots I've owned. Not cheap by any means, but they have served me well. They have a pretty stiff mid sole and take a little breaking in, but I'll be sticking to this brand from here on out. For light detecting I still use the Keene's, but when I need to cover some rough ground the Salewa's are my go to boot. I put them through full season with a lot of boot scrapes down in Baja and no sign of coming apart.

I was back out there in the same spot last week. There are several spots with really bad ground noise, the 6k was moaning and groaning through them especially an old push down to red clay. I fired up the dinosaur 7000 with 15x10 Xcoil and ran it in Difficult to see if I could scare up something beyond detection depth of the 6k. Going through the red clay I got a pretty good target signal. I wasn't convinced it wasn't just hot ground as I dug up wet red clay. Down about 8 inches the target popped out of the ground. In retrospect I wish I had checked it with the 6k, but I was almost sure I was chasing hot ground. I'm pretty sure we all had detected that push the week before since it was about 20ft from where we parked. The 7k running in Difficult quieted the ground considerably and proved it can hold its own, if it wasn't so darn heavy. I'm spoiled by the 6k weight and maneuverability.

A good time for all despite the ever present Nevada desert winds. Andy has the patience to hunt the trash zones and squeeze out the golden stuff. I lose my enthusiasm after a couple dozen pieces of wire and steel shards so I tend to hunt the more virgin spots. The difference shows, Andy pulled 13 nuggets and I pulled 3. Still a satisfying weekend, fresh air, lots of walking and good company.

We met up with Andy and detected a place with lots of alkali salts. Pockets where standing water had been were particularly noisy even to the GPX 6000. I played with Andy's loaner Deus II with 9" coil for about an hour. The Goldfield program really suffered under those conditions becoming very bump sensitive to even grass stubble. The salt pockets were showing a TID in the 20's, 23 being the most common. I switched over to the pre-set Sensitive program which I think has a notch that covered the constant tones from the salts. I experimented with my .3 gram test nugget and it worked fine, no bump sensitivity and very little noise from the salts. I doubt depth would be beyond a couple inches, but it would be workable in a pinch. The closest I came to finding gold was a small sliver of lead that showed a TID of 31. I really didn't do the machine justice without experimenting with other programs and settings, perhaps even the Beach Sensitive program might have tamed the N NV salts. Andy was kicking my butt finding gold nuggets in the worst of trash, so I went back to the 6000 to try and catch up. I frankly like the D2 and will look forward to more testing once I can get a 9" coil to replace the stock 11" on my machine.

Jasong, Thanks for the legal info, I will delve into that myself. I am a retired federal prison sentence salesman (federal investigator) so I am accustomed to the intricacies of law and legal precedent.

I have debated writing this but some things need to be aired. I don't intend to trespass on our forum rules of ad hominem attacks, so I'll be vague (barely). Last week I did a solo run to Rye Patch, intending to stay 3 days. For 2 days I hadn't seen a soul except far off dust trails. On the 3rd morning I saw a dark colored truck due west of section 19 so I thought I would go and visit and see if it was anyone I know. I found 2 guys with bright colored LSU shirts and a truck bearing Louisiana plates. The were struggling to assemble a brand new XP Deus I with a High Frequency coil. We got to talking while I took over the assembly of the Deus, and they told me they had purchased 2 gold claims in the area. After I got the detector up and running we chatted awhile longer and it was clear they were out of their element. Very amiable fellows and we continued talking about detecting and the likelihood of finding gold. I told them while the Deus 1 is a capable detector, it would not be a first choice for detecting Rye Patch. It seems that in their haste they had gone to their local detector dealer in LA and told him they needed a gold detector. He had 1 detector left in his shop, that being a Deus 1. He demonstrated the detector in his front yard over a man's gold ring. The detector clearly detected a gold ring and they bought it full retail with a High Frequency round coil and a pinpointer. In all fairness, the dealer in a southern state knows little to nothing about detecting gold nuggets in the west. Plus, that's the only detector he had available and they were in a hurry. So, we talked awhile longer and after a little private consultation they offered me the opportunity to detect their claim with them. We agreed to a 50/50 split and off we went following GPS coordinates due west and straight uphill. After a time I asked them if this claim had produced any gold, not having seen any evidence of workings, dig holes or old timers camps. They told me that according to the seller they could expect to find an ounce a week and that it was not uncommon to find an oz a day. I shook my head an told them I don't think so, since this was way outside the known gold producing zone. Nevertheless, I detected about a mile in a horseshoe loop back to our starting point. Not one single target, no trash, no bullets and no evidence of workings. I had a pretty good idea that they had been sold on a dream but they were such nice and decent guys I wanted to help. I called home in Fernley NV and had my girlfriend gather up my GPZ 7000 and Equinox 800 and meet me in Lovelock. The next day I met with my new Cajun friends and they still had not met with their seller so I told me let's go detect using my true gold detectors. I gave them some quick lessons and followed along while they detected and dug trash targets. I detected a few promising signals with the 6000 and had them come and listen with the other detectors. Unfortunately, none of my promising targets were gold, but they had a chance to learn about the whisper targets, and try understand the loud booming targets were likely trash. They offered to pay me for my time and use of detectors and I countered they could pay for my girlfriend's gas for delivering the detectors, but that I was happy to spend time with them detecting. Mind you, I'm no Albert Sweitzer, but I just felt bad that these guys had been abused trying to join and learn my favorite hobby. By day 6 of my 3 day trip I needed to get home for some appointments. They had finally met with their seller and learned that the area we explored was not in fact their claim. He showed them the claim (from the description worse) although he didn't show them where the gold was, but they enjoyed some sightseeing of Majuba. I remained dubious, but they had renewed faith and I had to leave. They detected their new claim (with my detectors) the next morning and found a bullet, and some aluminum targets. Nothing promising. I called Lucky Lundy and explained this dilemma of some nice guys getting some bad information. He was otherwise committed and couldn't help, but made some calls and found another fellow prospector who needed a good excuse to get out for a day of prospecting and agreed to meet my Cajun friends. He helped them as much as he could, no one found any gold. All I can say is we gave it a game effort, or an honest effort as it were. They are on their way back to Louisiana having learned the promise of riches in gold claims out west can be alluring but success is fleeting. $12k may not be a lot to most folks, but it sure is to me. I understand that in the business of selling used cars and gold claims a little puffery is to be tolerated. I think this went way beyond puffery, I saw the text exchanges. To add insult to injury, the seller offered to sell them a 3rd claim with a deposit due immediately. I am personally embarrassed and pissed that this still goes on. These guys were really nice people and honest to a fault. I know, they should have done more research and been more skeptical of the claims made. They never heard of this forum, but had they inquired here, our people could have cautioned them. All I can say is thank god they hadn't heard of Long Range Locators, or whatever they're called these days. Perhaps the seller came in and tell his version of events. Unlikely.

As always, Rye Patch is tough sledding. I eked out enough with the 6000 to buy about half tank of diesel. Today's price at Rye Patch $5.19. I don't know why the photos are always inverted here and I'm not savy enough to fix them. Oh well turn your head sideways, enjoy.

I took about a half hour with the D2 on visible schist bedrock that was loaded with trash and steel bits from the original blade that pushed this gully. I tested the D2 with a .3 gram nugget. It hit 33 to 36 TID in the Goldfield program. The machine ran quiet and separated the trash from nonferrous quite well with the 11" coil. It locked on 2 small lead fragments that ID'd at 40. Close enough that that I was pretty confident if any half grammars were present it would have sniffed them out. Naturally, it would not be my go to gold detector, especially in this configuration with the 11" coil. But, I was impressed with its ability to run in heavy ferrous trash and convincingly hit on the nonferrous lead.

I know the area, find Bill Southern out there, he can help you with anything you need.

If you are in the US, I wouldn't worry about it. I haven't used mine in years.