Search the Community

Gm1000 - Internal speaker failed - replaced under warranty Gm1000 - Coil cracked - replaced under warranty Equinox - Wobbly shaft - replaced under warranty GPX 4500 - Ribbon cable for PCB hairline cracks in wire (outside of warranty, replaced myself with aftermarket cable) Old GPX is built tough. Very happy with my older GPX 4500 and 5000 build quality so can't complain at all about them, tanks! Go-Find 40 - Fold up hinge fell apart - Didn't bother claiming warranty as it's never going to be used, glued it. Hinge seems improved on newer Go-Find 44 model. Pro Find 35 - Unstable / DOA GPZ 7000 - WM12 rubber cover for USB broke in half within weeks - replaced under warranty GPZ 7000 - Lower shaft clip broke replaced under warranty CTX 3030 - Coil ear cracked on 17" coil, fixed myself as what's the point getting it replaced for it to happen again and didn't want the hassles of sending it away and then I'd be doing the fix to the new one straight away anyway to prevent it. Pro Sonic - First one arrived decal upside down so buttons didn't line up, replaced. Pro Sonic - Second one arrived and charged once then never worked again, refunded. GPX 6000 - ! error on startup (DOA), Twisting shaft I think I've remembered all of my problems, I've had so many I probably can't remember them all. I'll update the post if anymore come to mind. I have no problems with Minelab's warranty, they're perfectly normal, just as good as any other company really, the time away and the cost of shipping the products back to them is the big problems with the number of faulty products they sell.

Can you put up a video of your threshold at some point? It's not that I don't believe you it's more that I want to know what is considered a super quiet threshold on the GPX. I can't get its threshold anywhere near as stable as my GPX 4500, 5000 or GPZ 7000, not even close even if I dumb it right down to minimum sensitivity it's still a noisy beast. The videos I've seen on Youtube seem to be similar to mine and JW's one seemed just as bad as mine to me when I borrowed it to compare to mine. It could just be that we all have a different definition of a stable threshold I guess. I see a lot of people say the SDC 2300 is a ratty noisy detector yet others say it purrs like a kitten so I think some of it is how much noise a person tolerates. Mine maybe noisy as all hell but you can still hear the small shallow dinks over it as they scream out.

Has it gone unnoticed that X-coils also only made small coils for the 6000? Is it just assumed they didn't try make big coils? They were not restricted in any way with their coils. They are fully aware the bigger coils are their best sellers for the GPZ with I'd say the 17" round being the most popular size. Out of interest how do people think large coils would go on the SDC 2300? Like a 17" round or even a 22" or something like that? Just wondering...... I think Coiltek is making the coils they think will benefit the 6000 the most, so is NF while just making different sizes to Coiltek so they're not directly competing, that 10x5" Coiltek will likely be their best seller of their range I think. I do wish they'd consider making DD coils though, the GPX needs more DD's, 14" isn't ideal for many people. Their same range again in DD would be excellent. Yes, they may not suit the hardcore Aussie prospector looking for big deep gold in Australia, lucky they still have their GPZ for that I guess but I think the expectations some have for the 6000 are more realistic for the GPZ 8000. I don't think Minelab has said Hey Buddy, you're not making big coils for the GPX. I do however think they said Hey Buddy you're not making small coils for the GPZ. It would be convenient not needing a GPX 4500/5000 or a 7000 and being able to just throw a big coil on the 6000, I certainly understand the desire I just wonder if the benefits of the big coil would be there as much as would be expected and Coiltek certainly wouldn't want to release a coil they know people are going to rename to the Dog 2. I just think of the extra EMI and my brain hurts, not everyone has to deal with that though.

I think it doesn't matter which one you buy, you'll always wonder if the other one would have been better. That's at least how my brain works 🙂 I had to get them all then I decided which I prefer based upon my needs and what I like about a detector. Actually I didn't bother with the SDC as I had enough evidence I'd be wasting my money on that one. Getting something like a 4500 or 5000 along with the 6000 makes some sense as you can throw a decent size coil on it if you want too for the extra depth and that maybe your best move and possibly what I'd do in your situation, but if you were to believe Minelab's marketing and their star chart you'd see the older GPX series is not near as deep as the 7000 or even the 6000. Sorry to throw a spanner in the works, but don't read too much into that chart. One thing I will add, weight is subjective, some people seem to care a lot more than others that's for sure and the 6000 weighs 2.1 kg (4.6 lb) with the 11" coil, the GPZ weighs 3.32 kg (7.32 lb) including GPZ 14 coil, is that a big difference to you? To some it clearly is as they focus a lot on the weight, to others it's not. I don't think weights the problem so much as RSI, repetitive strain is going to happen with either detector so if you're concerned about weight so much you'd want to use a bungee with both detectors if you're using them a lot and then when rigged up like that weight isn't really an issue anymore with either as it takes the weight away. If you're on hilly rough ground where you have to do the heavy lifting the lighter weight of the 6000 makes more of a difference than smooth ground and in that case it is the better choice. I think standard packages out of the box the 6000 might be your best bet for what you want to use it for, is there a service agent nearby? Might come in handy if there is. The 19" GPZ coil is one of Minelab's biggest mistakes, the only people that seem to use or approve of it are those selling it. I really don't think you'd want to use that coil. I rarely hear of anyone using it and many people have it, I've never used mine but I'm not in an area suitable for it, even if I was I would never use it. The 7000 is no harder to use than the 6000, in fact I find it much easier as it's better behaved and it doesn't take a genius to work out the settings. You're not making a mistake which ever you choose, it's not like there are other brands to choose from anyway. You could just pick up a working used GPX 4500 and start with that and see if you think your mission is even going to work out before spending more money, it's not all that far behind the others for what you're wanting to use it for.

Hi Everyone, My name is Mark and I've been prospecting for gold for a few years. I primarily do metal detecting but I also like dry washing. The learning curve for detecting has been a long one for me but I've eventually managed to find enough gold to pay for my first gold detector (a ML GPX 4500). As I live in Bagdad Arizona, I wonder if other members have had much success detecting in the Eureka District here. I detected my first gold nugget in a small feeder wash off of Cowboy Wash a few miles southeast of the Cowboy mine but other than that, I've not had much success in the district. I would be interested in hearing what others think about the area? I enjoy prospecting in areas like the Bradshaws and Gold Basin here in AZ and also like to do occasional trips over to the Dale District in Southern Cal. The Cargo Muchachos are a favorite as well. So good prospecting to everyone and try to stay safe out there.

Thanks Jason, I always appreciated your detailed honest responses, and as someone with the same coils as me you're the best person for advice on this sort of thing. Incidentally my GPZ is in low smoothing in the video, I always use low smoothing as I do like a smooth threshold. I really want to like the 6000, and I do like it, It's just going to take some getting used to, it's a joy to swing, it really is. The usability is where its letting me down with the EMI, JW is better at putting up with that than me, although he owns an SDC and has been detecting a hell of a lot longer than me, I can't say I'm overly impressed with it's performance I find is less than my GPZ on the small gold but compared to other detectors like the GPX 4500/5000 it's brilliant for small gold, which is most of the gold around here, I also know the little 8" is pretty damn good on bigger targets too like the 4 grammer I got the other day in our soils here so I'm pretty comfortable using it, I was quite happy with that depth for the 8" but of course no match for the concentric coils for depth and I've found smaller nuggets than that far deeper with the 15" CC, they're pretty good on the smalls too but not quite 8" performance though. My dealers still not back from his trip, I'll talk to him when he gets back whats the best course of action, in the meantime I'm trying my butt off to decide what to do. At this point sending it in to the repair center and not bothering to get him to swap it seems the best option, I want it checked not replaced with another one that could have a different fault or be no different anyway, it might need to go back to Australia for a proper check, I don't think our service agent does board level repair, they'd just swap the PCB where as the guy I posted the service form above they repaired a solder joint at the Aussie service center. Gold Catcher, this video I show it on various sensitivity levels so if you could tell me if you think my threshold is OK and at which sensitivity level seems best? You'll also see in the video why I think the noise cancel doesn't scan channels for a clean signal, it just does a channel shift each time you press it, it's up to you to decide when it's clean, it doesn't search for a clean signal, this certainly explains why it's so fast, and with the detector going a bit funky with EMI often they couldn't possibly release it with the slow EMI scan of the GPZ that takes a minute or whatever to do as people would get sick of that every time they had to do a noise cancel so the quicker random channel shift makes more sense. Again this is an unlisted Youtube video, only available to see on this thread so it's not taken out of context.

So it had it's maiden voyage today, it's still working fine, whatever giving it a good old fashioned beating did, it did it well. The detector has stayed working, it didn't do the error at all today, I could give the service center good tips about GPX repair.. I'm going to contact my dealer and tell him I'll just keep it and keep an eye on it as I'd have to drop it back to him tomorrow before he leaves the area if I'm going to get it replaced, if it screws up again I'll just send it in to be swapped/repaired, it's not the end of the world if its away at detector hospital as I'd rather use my GPZ anyway. It's odd as when you read the manual about the error I was getting, the explanation mark error, its a critical error and if you see it the detector needs to be sent to Minelab for repair so it's so strange it works after some man handling. Now, as far as detectors build quality goes (not the electronics) it's not too bad, I had absolutely no shaft twisting and I was detecting in long grass and being quite forceful with it, perhaps this is something Minelab have resolved on the later builds. I'm confident my shaft is better than earlier ones, I was quite rough with it, well the same as I am with my GPZ and it was fine. While it can't force grass down near as well as the GPZ it did manage to do it without any twisting of the shaft. The stability of it is a bit of an eye opener, I thought my old GPX 4500 ran unstable, I was wrong, it ran a dream compared to the 6000, I'm going to wear a hole right though the noise cancel button, I must have pressed it 50+ times today. I don't believe it's a noise cancel, I don't think it scans for a clean channel, I just think it shifts each time you press it between a set number of channels, more often than not I had to press it multiple times, and when I pressed it usually it was worse than before pressing it so I had to do it a few times to get it good enough. That doesn't sound like an intelligent channel scan, and might go some way to explaining why it's so quick. The GPZ channel scan although a lot slower is much more effective, as was my old 4500 channel scan. There was 3 times during the day no matter how many times I tried to noise cancel I couldn't get it to quieten down, in these instances I did a factory reset and that worked well linking to my theory about it not being EMI but Geosense going crazy. If it were EMI noise cancels would fix it, I tried 10 or more times to no avail and a factory reset fixes it instantly. It's frustrating having to pair the headphones again after doing that but expected of course. It also caught me out once because it reverts to difficult after doing that and I run in normal but forgot to fix it. Who picked up on that? I wore headphones, yes the first time EVER! I spent the morning without them and the afternoon with them, I wanted to see the stability difference and yes, there was a significant difference, it's much more (EMI/Geosense) problematic on speaker than headphones. The weight is great, at the end of the day my arm felt no different to the morning before I started, not tired at all, I can't say the same for my legs and sore foot 😛 We walked quite a bit today. Aside from the EMI issues which I don't even think are EMI, I think it's something to do with Geosense going wacky it performed quite well. I couldn't tilt my coil on the side to take advantage of the mono coils hot edges like I tend to do a lot with the GPZ and 8" Coil to pinpoint small targets in my dig pile or hole, if I did this the detector went EMI (Geosense) mad. I was able to detect quite close to JW, we were able to detect at our usual distances from each other fine. I only managed one piece of gold, and found it right near the end of the day, that was a bit of a disappointment, but better than a skunk. JW found three little pieces and I think his were bigger than mine too. The small target sensitivity certainly outperforms a standard GPZ, so users of the GPZ with the 14x13" coil would find a significant small gold improvement, it seems to really amplify small target signals very close to the coil, but that amplification drops off quickly with any depth, it loves shallow pellets with a very strong signal response, abnormally I didn't really find any deeper old lead ones like I usually do in this area, all pellets were just within a few pick scrapes, it very much favours the steel pellets over lead with its target response when any depth is involved. It's beneficial using headphones on it, the gold I did find I highly doubt I would have found using it's speaker trying to hear it through the noise, it was a very soft target noise, Does anyone else notice a constant hiss in their headphones? It's only there once the detector is connected, kind of a high pitched hissing sound, it was quite annoying. I also get electronic interference buzzing and crackling in the headphones when I'm down on my knees running targets over the coil, I recall this similar noise when my speaker went near my GPX 4500. This was my golds dig hole, I was mostly using Auto and Auto + with the threshold on, When I was in manual I wasn't too happy in the highest manual setting, nothing to do with my soil causing issues obviously, more to do with the EMI, dropping a few notches doesn't appear to affect performance much if at all anyway. I preferred keeping it stable over running high sensitivity, a different approach as with my GPZ I'm always maxed out. It was quite deep, the video shows the depth better than the photo, I was happy with the depth, similar to what I'd expect with my GPZ on this nugget. Funny looking thing, looks like a mini walnut or a butt crack. So for the size of it I would say the depth was reasonable, I don't think the GPX has a fault causing performance issues, just the power on explanation mark problem and the headphones never completely charging. My junk, a fair bit less than usual. I was digging everything, only rejecting surface pellets. So do I like it so far? it's OK. If I didn't have the GPZ and was using my 4500 still, I'd love it, even with it's EMI (Geosense) quirks. I think it will grow on me over time, I can't see it replacing my GPZ though, that I'm certain of.

Warm greetings to all members Can you help me what is the cause of the buzzing sound or the buzzing OR wheezing? The continuous overtime is similar to the smuggling of electricity in Minelab Detector This resulted in distortion Or the lack of clarity of the signal threshold Target signals are not strong Tried another battery and the headphone connections are fine and the noise is still going on I would like to thank everyone in this wonderful forum, which has become a source of valuable information and we do not dispense with your advice and experiences

Yesterday JW and I went for another gold hunt to the same place we'd been going on all the previous missions I've posted about in the past couple of weeks, I've always liked this spot, it's been my favourite. You do deal with a lot of junk here though, mostly shutgun pellets but I guess it's good practice for me sorting the junk from the gold. I felt like I was up to a bigger walk this time, JW invited me up to the spot he did last time we were at this place, If you recall I stayed right at the start and spent the day in a very small area last time while JW went for a stroll far further into the area and he managed to find 8 nuggets. This a photo of the 8 nuggets JW found in the area on the previous day when I stayed at the entrance to the area. It seemed a worthwhile spot for me to take on a big walk to get to, my broken foot seems to never feel better, it's been a long time now and it feels no better than it did at the start, although it has its good days and bad days and it felt like it was going to be a good day. We walked up to this area and JW showed me around and told me where he'd found some nuggets in the past, I hadn't been here for a couple of years back when I was using my GPX 4500 and I found nothing with it in this spot from memory. So we fired up our weapons and off we went. I headed up higher and JW went off to the right and down from where we stored our packs, the higher ground looked alright to me although my detector was nutting off constantly on pellets straight away, big pellets like someone had been hunting elephants in the area, only NZ doesn't have elephants, but the really large size rusty magnetic pellets, I don't normally encounter these sort often, usually it's the tiny little lead ones. They were absolutely everywhere and driving me mad. I kept going in the area anyway and then I encountered a target noise that was not like the others, a softer quieter sweeter sound, a few scrapes to remove the chances of it being a small lead near surface pellet and the signal improved, I kept digging and digging and the signal was better and better, this was getting exciting although I'd dug so much junk since getting here I had it in my head it's 90% chance some sort of junk, maybe a boot tack or something so I wasn't overly concerned about doing any video. Once I was fairly deep I decided it might be time to flick on the phones camera just in case and I'm glad I did, now I have some memories of my second biggest ever nugget find! Over a gram nuggets or even gram size nuggets are an extreme rarity here, so it's a happy day when you score a gram size nugget, this one however was a lot bigger than a gram. This is it's hole, and if you'll see the video you'll see it wasn't a fisherman's story about the size of his fish catch, exaggerating the depth on the hole, this is precisely the depth of the nugget. A beauty, and very odd for a NZ nugget based off what I've found before, mine are generally always pretty smooth, this one was a chunky rough looking nugget, more like the nuggets found in Australia. And here is the video, I'm so annoyed I didn't film the entire thing from the start as I like having videos for my future watching of my nugget finds, especially when it's a nugget out of the ordinary for me. Oh well, at least I got some of it on video. Pretty happy with this one, my second biggest nugget so far and only just behind my biggest by .1 of a gram. I ran down to show JW, we were both pretty shocked a nugget this size was found here. I now had a dilemma, the likelihood of me finding a nugget now was low, usually if I find a nugget right at the start of the day I find no more 😛 Hours passed and exactly that, plenty of junk and no more nuggets, I had some lunch and figured I'd move out of the bigger nugget area and see if I can find something down lower on the hillside. I didn't really want to walk too much on steep ground with my foot but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. At this point JW had found one nugget also from memory so I didn't think my hopes would be too high down lower on the slope where he was but that's gold for you, you never know. It wasn't even 20 minute and there it was, my second nugget. A nice easy signal, the 8" loves small gold, even a bit of gold weighing 0.03 of a gram is a booming signal compared to a very small lead pellet. This piece wasn't exactly small though, well for me 🙂 within a few steps of that nugget I found another one almost straight away, another easy target signal. Here is what the ground looks like we were hunting, from a cut out the old timers had done. Things dried up again for a while now and JW appeared crossing over a ridge into sight, he was heading back to his bag for lunch so I decided I'd go sit with him and have a break, we had a look at the nugget again after the initial shock had passed and at this point he had 3 little nuggets with his GPX 6000, so we were sitting on 3 each at this point. his were similar size to my smaller two. Back at it, this time we both just hung around near our bags for a bit where I'd just found the two nuggets, and after an hour or so of nothing we gradually moved on, I decided I'd go back a fair bit in the direction of the car so I took our bags to save us having to go back for them as JW was slowly heading in that direction too. I went for a walk to some thyme bushes on the downward slope hoping the little 8" would give me an advantage over anyone else who had detected there as the spaces between the bushes are so small it takes a small coil to get between them and the 8" had done extremely well doing this in the past, it slides between the bushes no problems. I don't know why I didn't take a photo of them. I was only in the bushes for 20 minutes and digging plenty of pellets and junk and then I had a signal that seemed different to the others, I scraped away the grass and could clearly see I was on some bedrock. The signal was pretty good, unmistakable, although tiny it was a nice little bit of gold. It was my smallest bit of the day so I wanted to see how it responded on JW's GPX 6000 to compare it in my head to how it responded with my GPZ and 8" X-coil. I was very satisfied with how good the target response was on my GPZ so it would have been good to compare, I walked over to where JW was to find him fiddling with his GPX unplugging the coil and removing the battery and so on, he said it was doing its usual EMI thing where he just turns it off and does a factory reset and it seems to clear up the EMI, however this time when he switched it off and on again it came up with an error so he was unplugging everything and making sure it was all secure in an attempt to revive it. After many attempts it was clear the thing had died. Either the coil or the detector. We took a video of it which you can see here. This put a bit of a downer on what was otherwise an excellent day. Minelab have really outdone themselves with the build quality of the GPX 6000, for the price things are not too great I think, it's pretty disappointing. I told JW we should just leave now, I didn't want to continue with him having to sit around and wait for me to finish, it was sad enough his detector died without having to sit around watching me have all the fun so we left to go get some Chinese food on the way home, we got there right as the place opened for dinner so the buffet had all the good stuff! We got ourselves an excellent meal. Once we got back to JW's house we tried another coil on the detector and it worked, so it was the 11" coil that failed. My theory is the security chip in the coil has failed, my reason for this is the detector was working fine until it was turned off, so a fault with the windings or cable connection or anything like that is HIGHLY unlikely to be the problem, the EMI he was getting that prompted him to turn it off and on was nothing out of the ordinary, he does this many times during a detecting session to fix the EMI when a noise cancel doesn't seem to do it. When the detector was turned off and on it uses that chip to verify the coil, if the chips dead the detector will error exactly like what's happened. A bit of a downer on what was a good day. JW ended up with his 3 little nuggets, I can't remember his weights but his total was about .3 of a gram from memory, I'll put up his total photo if he sends it through on email, he normally sends me his photo of gold weights. We also weighed my gold at JW's house, I wanted to know if my big one was my biggest ever, it was close. The little one I wanted to check and compare with the 6000 came up as 0.03 on JW's scales, when I arrived home checked the weights on my scales as they're more accurate and it came up slightly heavier than on his. It's not my smallest GPZ nugget which is 0.023 of a gram on my scales but it's getting down there. It's heavier than it looked. Here is my junk for the day lots of tiny little metal shards, they were so annoying as they're a great signal. I think I lost a fair few pellets out of my pocket, it happens pulling my scoop in and out all day. And my days total My best day in about a year I'd guess, pretty sad about JW's GPX though, now he's got the hassles of dealing with the warranty.

I was in no rush to buy a 6000 once people started pointing out the speaker EMI issue. I was screaming from the hilltops for a built in speaker on a gold detector since I purchased my GPX 4500 and was disappointed with my audio options with it after using VLF's and using nothing else but their built in speakers. The simplicity of the built in speaker was appealing for someone that dislikes headphones. The 6000 came out with it's speaker and I was happy they did that, then within weeks of people buying one they were noticing the EMI problems attributed to using the speaker which went away when they used headphones. I thought I'd sit on the sidelines for a while and see if Minelab secretly fix the problem with a new revision PCB like often happens in electronics products, the early adopters would be stuck with their v1 PCB and I'd be able to buy the new revised v2 PCB with the problem fixed silently in the background. An example of this is my Gold Bug Pro, it has a revision 3 or 6 PCB, I can't remember which, either way there were obviously v1 and v2 PCB's before it, they fixed or changed something between PCB revisions, PCB v1 owners will never know what was changed or improved in newer versions, they won't even know newer versions exist, it's never advertised or acknowledged this stuff takes place, sometimes its component changes due to part sourcing, often its due to design improvements, this is coming from an IT background not detectors. The 6000's been out long enough now and the problems been known from virtually the first week it hit the market with owners piping up about it quickly so I would think by now if it was something they could fix they would have, the ones being sold now are certainly not from the first production batch anymore yet still have the same issue. The thing that made me think it's something that can't be fixed is the problem seems too obvious those testing the 6000 before release surely would have pointed it out the Minelab during the year or however long the thing was being tested, so it would have been fixed then if it was something they could remedy. This rules out me wanting to use the internal speaker, I don't want to use it if it's going to cause any performance degradation or make the detector even more unstable with its threshold than it already is. The Pro Sonic does have some lag compared to aptX low latency, so a newer version of it would be good, it'd also not need the transmitter for the 6000 so just a receiver/speaker WM14 unit, so ideally that would be the best solution for me for the 6000 audio. I hope Minelab reads this and decides to upgrade the dated Pro Sonic to a newer model with aptX LL instead of their custom attempt at wireless audio. The idea of it is to add wireless audio to their detectors without it like the GPX 4500/5000, and with so many people still using those detectors the Pro Sonic atpX model would sell, and 6000 users would possibly buy it too, I know I would. The quicker every company moves off their own custom versions of wireless audio the better, thankfully the trend is starting already. So please Minelab, a WM14 aptX Pro Sonic would be great, and a discounted version for GPX 6000 owners that don't need the transmitter side of it would be great, a nice gesture for selling a detector with a speaker that isn't really ideal for general full time use.

This demonstrates the area I was hunting. You'll see just how small it is. The stars are the nuggets approximate locations. I also marked on the spot where I found the 1.2 gram nugget with the GPX 4500 a couple of years ago. I've blurred the photo to hide the secret spot 😛 If there is one thing having a broken foot has taught me it's how to detect an area slowly and thoroughly, something JW has been unable to teach me no matter how hard he tried.

While not quite as exciting as Reg and James and their colours I did manage to pop a few up myself yesterday. JW and I went back to the same place I found my KFC nuggets the other day, I once again stayed right at the entrance due to my broken foot, I really can't walk very far before the pain is too much and I need to save some life in my foot for the days hunting, If I walked too far I'd have nothing left in me for swinging the detector. JW fortunately has healed up quickly from his leg muscle injury and was able to walk off into the distance, he ended up going a fair way away to an area I've not been to since I was using my GPX 4500. He did well too, ended up with 8 nuggets. Seeing I was going over ground we mostly went over the previous days I didn't have much hope for myself, but I wasn't going to let that get in my way. I was more determined than ever to at least find one nugget we missed. It's a very small area where I was hanging around, I first found gold in this exact spot with my GPX 4500 a few years ago, I found a 1.2 gram nugget down by the creek, and a couple of little ones near it, I then asked JW to go over it with his GPZ and stock coil and clean up anything my 4500 missed and I vaguely remember him finding another 6 or so tiny little nuggets I'd missed. It really is a small area, there is a dirt road and about 10 to 15 meters (30 to 50 feet) wide on one side of the road is where the gold has been found, it goes for a stretch of about 50 meters I would guess (165 feet) along the side of a bit of a drop off into a creek. It's on a downward slope and drops into a little gully and down the bottom of this is where I previously found the 1.2 gram nugget. This is the area I confined myself to that we both confined ourselves to a couple of days ago. Over the other side of the road is another area with quite long grass and deeper ground. I had an explore over there on the road side for a few hours and found nothing but junk. The other day I stayed up near the top of this area where I found 6 nuggets including my KFC pieces 🙂 This time my focus was more down towards the bottom, JW had a bit of a shot down there the other day but I didn't make it down there as we keep our distance apart to stop the detectors messing with each other, both the GPZ 7000 and GPX 6000 JW is using work remarkably well next to each other though. He was going to use his GPZ this time as it's just better for in the long grass, the shaft on the 6000 twists, the coil ears don't appear strong enough for pushing the detector through long grass so he's a bit worried about breaking them doing what we do with the GPZ. We use our detectors as a way to push down and flatten the grass, and with the GPX this isn't really possible so you have to do it by foot stomping and then detect over it which takes more time. His little flap cover on the back of the detector is always hanging open too, that thing just never holds shut, might have to tape it down or something. The GPZ is much more robust and you just bulldoze the grass down. Anyway, he just ended up using the GPX again as it was ready when I arrived at his house, it was a bit of a last minute idea to go on our gold hunt yesterday. This is the long grass I'm talking about, the 8" is a breeze in this stuff, it just squishes it down and the nice tough GPZ shaft has no problems doing it, being dry the grass is quite firm too, not nice soft green grass. JW doesn't have this little 8" coil though so he'd be using a 15" Concentric coil which wouldn't be quite as good in the long grass although he'd still be able to bulldoze it over with the stronger shaft, I've used the 12" Concentric fine doing that, but still not as easy as the 8". The little dig hole to the bottom left was just a pellet in this photo. My first nugget of the day was right down the bottom where the road drops down into the gully, right near where I found the 1.2 gram piece a few years ago with the 4500 and where JW had checked with his GPZ and stock coil at the time cleaning up the bits I'd missed. Down by the water in the shade of the willows the grass stays green, unusual for in this area as its so arid and brown. Sorry about the spit on the scoop, I had to clean the gold to see it was even gold 🙂 It was quite deep down, its hard to tell in the photos but you can sort of see the soil pile in this one above. The 8" is like a laser, you can dig pick width holes to get your target out as it's so small and accurate. And the nugget, I thought it was going to be heavier than it was, it was my biggest of the day. I was happy now, I thought at that point it was extremely unlikely I'd find another one, we'd just done this ground too much for there to be any more nuggets we'd missed. JW rang me from his location way out of my walking range to check up how I was doing, at this point he'd found 3 nuggets and I'd just found this one, I guess he was about a kilometer away along the dirt road at the time. A little further along down the bottom I had another target, weird, perhaps a pellet that was rejected or something so I dug it up. A little ball 🙂 Although a lot smaller it weighs more than the bigger flat one. And it wasn't 10 minutes and I'd found a 3rd, all in a similar area down near the bottom of this little dip in the road. This one was probably hidden due to the long grass, because I was able to squish the grass down so easily I was able to get close to the ground. In fact it's probably similar for all of them, with the clumps of grass the GPZ just has more push strength to crush it down to get closer to the soil. A little KFC mini drumstick 🙂 There isn't much meat on the KFC mini drum. I gave up in this area now, I've absolutely slammed it and so has JW, I was honestly surprised to get anything. I went over the other side of the road in the small area between the road and the fence, it was just full of trash, although I did find a silver ear ring, probably from a hiker. The really bad bit about detecting along this road was hikers, they kept walking past me, I felt like a monkey at a zoo with them all stopping to watch me and talking to me with the same standard lines, "have you found anything" or "are you looking for gold". This place is normally pretty empty, you're lucky to see one other person in a day, this day I am sure there was 20 or 30 hikers go past! so weird! JW encountered them way further along where he was too. He probably wasn't right at the road though so wouldn't have had it as bad as I did. The ear ring I found, I also found a wedding ring from a mouse. Poor little guy probably got a big lecture from Mrs Mouse for losing his wedding ring. and my junk, I zoomed in so you can get a real good look at it! I was rejecting surface pellets, if it moves on the first scrape or two it stays there, these are the ones I had to dig, using the same dig and recovery process of a nugget, very time consuming. I don't understand how the pellets get down deep into the ground, maybe they've been there a long time, some get down in cracks in the bedrock and everything and really get you excited. A majority of this junk came from the opposite side of the road to the gold along where the fence is. JW has found gold on that side in the past, I wasn't able to find any there this time. I had a fun day, even though I confined myself to such a small area I was happy to get some gold. I'll post a photo of JW's nuggets weight when he sends one though to me. And for those wondering, yes we got KFC on the way home 🙂

JW and I went on another prospecting adventure yesterday, JW was taking the day off work as the night after our first hunt he woke up in the middle of the night with a cramp, and his leg is now very sore, although that didn't stop him wanting to go look for gold, he is dedicated so he contacted me asking if I wanted to go, of course that is a hell yes. I still have my broken foot so we were both hobbling along. We planned to go to the same area where I found my KFC Chicken drum stick nugget On the way to the area we stopped at another spot, I'd only been here once for an hour or two, that time I tried to use my Gold Monster but had no success, this area is very salty and just drove the GM nuts, I couldn't use it but in his car I had the GPX 4500 with Nugget Finder EVO coil so I got that out and used it, it found me a piece of gold, I don't remember what settings I ended up using it was a couple of years ago but I know I had to adjust my settings from their usual settings for the salt. This time I had the GPZ and Equinox with me, I was going to try the Equinox but never got around to it, I just used the GPZ and 8" X-coil, I wasn't too confident it would work well with the salty soil and was going to change to the Concentric coil but JW encouraged me to give it a shot, there is a lot of thyme bushes in this area so the smaller coil would be very helpful to get between the bushes that the 12" coil would struggle with. JW was right, the 8" worked fine and within about 5 minutes of putting my coil to the soil I had my first bit of gold. I'm not that organised but I think it's this nugget It wasn't all that deep but it was a very booming signal. You'll notice from this shot how different the soil looks compared to the other area we were heading to. About 10 minutes after I found my piece JW found one with his GPX 6000, we spent another hour or so looking around and found nothing more so we moved on, so we had one each from this area. The next place we went we decided to just stay right at the start seeing he's got a bung leg and I have a bad foot we didn't want to have to walk far, especially on hillsides, and by that I mean right at the entrance, we didn't even leave the dirt road area going in, we'd done this area before a couple of years ago at the time I would have been using my GPX 4500 and GM1000 and JW was using his GPZ 7000 with standard coil, it has been a while since we've done it, he'd previously done it with older GP detectors too and VLF's. I stayed in High Yield, Normal 20 all day and JW had his GPX maxed out too. It wasn't long after arriving and I had my first nugget. It looks like one of the fries to go with my KFC chicken drum stick from the other day 🙂 A decent weight too for the area. It sounded pretty funky being a long thin bit but was a simple target. The next ones were all quite small but I just kept finding more and more, it was fun. This spot had three next to each other, you'll see where my coil is, just down below that is two big rocks, each of those rocks was a dig hole for nuggets. Another one 🙂 A bit of a ball. This one was tiny, a 0.043 of a gram nugget, simple target though as you'll see if you watch the video of it. And another one I even lost count of how many I found, usual for me 🙂 Here is a video of my second smallest one, a 0.065 of a gram We often compared the nuggets we found on each others detectors and both the 6000 and 7000 were equally doing well on all the nuggets, there was no obvious winner that's for sure, very close and I'd say I'd prefer to use the 7000 as the smaller coil was beneficial for poking around especially when the thyme bushes are involved, but soon the 6000 will have small coils anyway from various brands. So here are my weights And my total Jw was hunting within 10 to 20 meters of me all day (30 to 60 feet) and the detectors behaved very well, he had to get very close to me for the 6000 to cause a problem with the 7000, and the same the other way around, it was pretty good being able to hunt near each other like that without any problems. Here is Jw's total for the day with his GPX 6000, 1 at the salty spot and another three at this KFC drum stick spot.

Here is JW's gold for the day As I said he did a fair bit better than me this time. His total. This is the big one I was talking about that I missed with my GPX 4500... and his total split by detector, the left hand side the GPZ and the right hand side the GPX 6000. We tested his two smallest nuggets on my GPZ and it gave a good 10cm/4" at least on the nuggets easily so it wasn't my detector that was stopping me finding them, it was me, or my foot 🙂 Geoff, funny you should say that, JW commented my foot would keep my speed under control 🙂 I guess the best way to describe his finds is him doing it himself, he sent me an email today with the photos and this was what he told me about his finds. I ended up with 9 bits. Three for the Zed & 15" CC & 6 for the 6000. All 6 for the 6k came from that area where I was when you came over to show me the piece you got. I know I had got gold from there in my earlier days but not with the zed & its bigger coil. I had not had the zed & any x coils on that spot. I don't know why really. I guess I thought it as being very shallow bed rocky type ground & there was nothing left. The bits I got with the 6000 were down a bit as the gravels on the bedrock were deeper than I remembered which surprised me as from the surface it didn't look that way going by other similar looking ground there. Goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover. I then went over it all very carefully & slowly & got rewarded. So yea, his 9 bits make my one chicken drum stick look pretty bad, but It was just nice to get out there looking for gold again after hanging around home for weeks on end with my broken foot.

Yesterday I went for a bit of a gold hunt with JW, we went to a spot we've done to death but it just keeps on giving. JW went between using his GPZ with 15" CC and GPX 6000 and once again he won the tally for the day, by a significant amount this time, I blame my sore foot, I've got a broken bone at the moment in my foot so walking and getting down digging was a bit difficult but I survived 🙂 It was quite good we were able to go to a spot that involves only a very short walk. I can't blame my tools as he found the best of his gold using the same equipment as me so I can only blame myself and my foot seems a good thing to blame 🙂 One of JW's finds was particularly interesting, he found a nugget that we estimate is about a gram in a spot I know for a fact I'd covered that exact same ground with my GPX 4500 and Nugget Finder 14x9 EVO coil, I am 100% confident I covered the exact spot he found the nugget, I've covered in more than once too, it's at the edge of a drop off into a gully and quite a small little area of deep soil in otherwise bedrock covered ground. When he showed me the spot he found it I knew I'd been there so many times with my GPX and possibly with other coils on it too although at the time of using it in this area I was almost exclusively using the 14x9" EVO, I'm pretty sure I've had the Equinox there too. He was using the GPZ with 15" CC at the time of the find. By far the biggest nugget of the day. He said it was a faint target, but it was deep. It's always a shock to know you've walked over a nugget and missed it, probably happens to me a fair bit, I don't yet have the skill levels of JW, he tends to mostly always find more nuggets than me when we're using the same equipment. Anyway, here is my KFC chicken drumstick, my favourite nugget I've ever found. If the only food available on earth was chicken, I'd be happy. 😄 It wasn't particularly deep, about 10cm I would guess, approximately 4 inches. I dug quite a lot of junk, I was mostly targeting the deep ground hoping to find something we've missed in the past as the more shallow bedrock ground we've done the most, although it paid off for JW as he seemed to mostly target the shallow bedrock ground and found more than me by a lot 🙂 The place is riddled with junk, especially shotgun pellets so it can be a challenge and possibly why we can still keep finding more gold there. Here is my junk for the day that didn't fall out of my pocket to be found again next time, I lost quite a few pellets 🙂 I also found some nails, but the weird one is the tiny little nail, I wonder why the miners had such a tiny nail, it was down quite deep, I think it's pretty old. What on earth would they use such tiny nails for? It was a nice day out and my first one in a few months as I'd broken a bone in my foot which has kept me at home. I'd like to see your favourite nuggets that resemble something so feel free to post them on this thread, I do love my Chicken nugget 😛

Colour screens are nice, I really like them but they're relatively pointless on a PI, you're not checking the screen constantly for Target ID's or anything, you do your settings and that's about it, the screen isn't even an important part of the detector, look at the GPX 4500/5000, a tiny little screen you rarely look at on a day of detecting hidden away under your elbow. Unless Nokta can bring something to the table that makes a screen something we need to look at then it's not worth putting a nice colour screen on it. I think most GPZ users would probably prefer if their screen wasn't colour, but was easier to see in sunlight.

I wonder if the anti interference figure 8 style coils like Coiltek made for the GPX 4500/5000 would be possible for the GPX 6000? That'd be awesome if they could be made.

The battery is part of it, my GPX 4500 / 5000 batteries weigh 870 grams although using a home made Lipo battery pack significantly improves that so obviously newer models are capable of lightening the weight of the battery using newer battery technology. It's housing is very robust, it's made of alloy rather than plastic. One thing about the legacy GPX series is they're built tough, the amount of times I've dropped mine on rocks and bashed it around and it's never once blinked an eye, solid as a rock. I would not like to treat a newer model the same as it won't survive. The coils are also quite heavy, they're built tough also though, when do you hear anyone with a GPX complaining about coil ears breaking, even the ones made by Minelab? The main reason for the coil weight is the amount of wire in them though. After swinging my GPZ for some time even with my smaller lighter coils to go back and use my GPX 5000 it feels light as a feather, especially now JW gave me a carbon shaft for it 🙂 The Garrett ATX and SDC2300 are heavier than they needed to be simply because of their design, and the waterproofing. The GPZ has a lot of its weight in the coils, a whole lot of wire to do a DOD design coil over a simple mono for a GPX. It will be interesting if Nokta can do a lighter PI gold machine while still keeping build quality as tough as they usually do, their VLF detectors are never really lightweights I'm guessing due to their build quality. Generally I think with light weight comes flimsiness. I can bulldoze through long grass with my GPZ.....

A guy can't have just one, right? Very situational for me. So, to make it brief, of all of the machines/brands that I've owned over the years I've narrowed it down to four which are the ones I still have.Three are ML and a Deus....a GPX 4500 has netted me the most gold, the 6000 just hasn't had the time on it yet though I'm confident it will surpass the 4500, the E-trac the most coins ( non trashy yard and park hunting), the Deus has accounted for the most coins and relics in trashy areas. Garret was/is the least impressive of all for me. Nok/Mak was good but the shine wore off fast for me. I've easily owned and enjoyed more ML machines than any other brands.

I use a ski or snowboard type bag, detector and coils in main compartment, accessories in the accessories compartment. Tons of options to fit any size or style, and pretty much at a price to fit any budget. Great for longer detectors like the CTX 3030 or GPX 4500/5000, etc. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Snowboard-Bags/zgbs/sporting-goods/1240799011 More specifically, something like this one: https://www.amazon.com/AUMTISC-Snowboard-Storage-Compartments-Available/dp/B0816NNSMM/ Check out bow cases for shorter options

Thanks for the insight Nenad, it's good to hear from someone that was involved in doing these things. Yes, these TV shows are the best marketing detecting companies can get to the newer to detecting people, they sell the dream to them and make detecting seem so fun and exciting. I've been watching a UK one lately, River Hunters, not because I really like the show but it runs through the history of the finds and even the history of the things they don't find that they want to find 🙂 I find the history of the objects interesting as I think it'd be great to hunt with a detector on Europe, a place with so much history. They use Garrett's in that show and every time they use their pinpointer the shiny new black GARRETT words are in your face, somehow the angle they hold it is always just right for the words to show. Anyone who's owned a Garrett AT knows those black words only last a few weeks before they rub off so they're obviously using new pinpointers all the time though out the seasons. They also only use Garrett AT Pro or AT Max detectors as they need waterproof being river hunters. Garrett makes its way into most of the metal detecting TV Shows, I watched Rebel Gold before this, and they used Fisher F75's with obviously plugs throughout the episodes of the detectors, it wasn't a very good show 😜 The Garrett ATX even made it into a season of Aussie Gold Hunters where the Gold Gypsies stopped using their GPX 4500 and GPZ 7000 completely and both started using an ATX, seemed an odd move but by next season they were back on the GPX/GPZ combo so Garrett must have sponsored them or something for that season and it didn't work out. I guess to keep all of these shows entertaining they have to have an element of fake in them, people would tune out quickly following me around detecting, they'd be bored to death. Pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, small nugget, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, pellet, etc etc.

Keith/Lunk would be a great option, frankly better than I at this point. He gets around more to more locations, detects more these days, and really knows his business. Gets my vote for sure. A few answers - 1) IS GPS NECESSARY/BENEFICIAL ON A PI UNIT? I find using a GPS to be incredibly beneficial, and having it in my face continuously as part of the detector even more so. I was also very surprised how paranoid prospectors are, how many think it is tracking them or sending info somewhere, and so refuse to use it. So while I’d love it, time and money probably better spent elsewhere. If it is implemented, make it compatible with Garmin software export/mapping options, instead of doing some proprietary thing. 2) IS COLOR SCREEN MORE PREFERRED? ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES Not needed. Even a screen is optional, unless GPS implemented. 3) ARE YOU OK WITH AN EXTERNAL CABLE AROUND THE SHAFT? I prefer this. Internal cables create more issues than they solve. Anyone who has cable snagging issues, needs to learn how to wrap and tie a cable properly. 4) COILS - SIZES AND SHAPES (3 PLEASE) 6x11, 9x14, 13x17 (roughly) 5) IS 10 FT WATERPROOF GOOD ENOUGH? More than enough, and not needed if it adds weight and expense. Rainproof is all 99% of genuine prospectors actually need. Benchmark to match or exceed GPX 4500 performance in less than 5lb total under $2000 package. The GPX 4500 last sold for $2699, and Minelab could move fast to reintroduce a stripped down version under $2000 to stymie perceived competition, should they choose to do so. The 4500 weighed 5.3 lbs, but that did not include the 1.7 lb backpack mounted battery. Balance is extremely important for large coil options, so a rear mount, under elbow, straight shaft configuration desirable. And ability to adjust both control box and handle location to get good balance with any coil is a plus. Even then, and optional harness and bungee would be a good idea for 12 hour days with a large coil. I’ll echo that Minelab GPX coil compatibility would be looked on very favorably by a large number of people, making a switch over, or purchase as a second detector, a more viable option. Straight up, I have a GPX 6000, but am in the market for a detector that more or less matches the GPX4500 not just in performance, but ability to handle certain hot rocks and salt ground, places where the GPZ and GPX 6000 struggle in various ways, and that the 4500/5000 handle with ease. I simply do not want another detector with separate battery and no speaker. Even an ATX would do what I need, if it were not a boat anchor. It’s just a matter of time before I have a Fisher, Garrett, or N/M model to complement my GPX 6000. It’s just who does it first. Unless Minelab beats you all to the punch, which at this rate is not impossible either.

I'm very excited about this Nokta PI, gold prospectors desperately need it, even ones that are so stuck with one brand need it perhaps not even because they'll buy it, competition is a wonderful thing, their preferred brand maybe holding out new models for years as they really have no need to release them, why rush, they've got nothing to worry about now. Nokta are not likely to beat them, but it's nice for everyone to have another horse in the race. Competition drives innovation. Nokta have proven themselves with the Legend, I had my doubts, they crossed the finish line in style, the Legend is better than I expected it to be, and I may end up owning one. If they can surprise me the same with a PI I'd be so happy. There is a detector made in a guys garage in Australia, one single person has made it, it's not a GPZ, it's not a GPX 6000 but the QED is a decent detector for a significantly lower price and it runs GPX coils, if one man can do this, what can Nokta do? Even if they just made a QED with a quick track ground balance and a good build quality for the right price they'd be on a winner. They have an opportunity here to make an affordable detector for the masses, a PI that people who detect occasionally can afford, lets face it the GPZ, GPX 6000 and even the GPX 5000 prices aren't really hobby prices for the normal user, from what I've seen most who buy one never even find enough to pay off their detector. Nokta can and I hope will change that and it will shake Minelab to their core even if it's competition only to the older GPX series by performance, if it's priced right it's going to be a very good seller as it will be a detector for the average user with the average budget. It's a numbers game, what percentage of gold is missed by a Gold Racer user that's found by a QED user, that's missed by a QED user that's found by a GPX 4500 user, and missed by a GPX 4500 user that's found by a GPX 5000 user, and missed by a GPX 5000 user that is found by a GPX 6000 user, and missed by a GPX 6000 user that is found by a GPZ 7000 user and the story goes on. If a Nokta Gold PI user can get into that queue in a reasonable position for a price that's affordable by most people they're on a real winner. I really hope they succeed, there is a huge gap in the market for an affordable PI prospecting machine, I want Nokta to fill it. A side benefit is they could further develop the line to include a PI for salt water hunters and also target the relic hunters. They should not blur the lines, they need multiple PI's just like they need multiple VLF's, don't make a waterproof diving PI for prospectors, we don't want another ATX or SDC2300 design detector.

I posted this to another forum about my first hunt with the Legend today. Even with all the negativity surrounding the Legend I couldn't help but try it out along with the Deus II and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Out of the box its depth is comparable to my Equinox but its separation was lacking. I primarily hunt civil war relics in mild ground so lead and brass are my main targets so I ran both detectors over a bullet surrounded by square nails. The Equinox hit it in all modes and it wasn't until I switched to all-metal and lowered the 1st tone break to 7 that the Legend started unmasking like it should. So I took it out for quick hunt on my property that's seen the likes of F75, T2, Tarsacci, Deus 1 & 2, Equinox and GPX 4500 and 5000. Now we all know you can't find everything so I hate when people say a detector found something the others didn't which just isn't the case. Everything I found the Deus II or Equinox would have found but the speed and ease at how I was finding tiny lead and bullets was the surprising part. I primarily ran Field M2 All-Metal with the 7 tone break and would check signals with Prospecting in the Custom mode notching 1-10. I used the Equinox in the same manner. The Legend was extremely stable, I ran it wide open and it was quiet as a mouse. It falsed very little requiring me to spend less time investigating ghost signals and after awhile the prospecting mode was so effective I just stayed in it. Now there is no modern trash at this site, very little EMI but enough to bug my Deus II, and very mild soil. I'm also looking just for relics, not coin shooting, prospecting, or beach hunting but the same hunting everyone else around here does. The Legend is NO Deus II but its performance today and excellent ergonomics made it one of the most fun detectors I've used in a long time. If the updates keep coming this will be fantastic machine for people with my narrow area of detecting interest.

Yup, just depends what you are doing. For me, the GPX 6000 is hands down best detector, basically the only detector I will use in 2022. Anything else will just be dabbling. If I actually did have to pick my personal second place alternative to the GPX 6000, it would be the GPZ 7000. Next alternative would be GPX 5000. Gets a bit fuzzy after that. SDC 2300? GPX 4500? It’s a good thing I passed on the Deus 2. I really just don’t use a VLF much these days. The only one I consider a keeper still is the Equinox, and so if I could only own two metal detectors right now, it would be GPX 6000 and Equinox 800. Between the two I could do any type of detecting there is, and feel like I’m running a decent option. I like the 24K for sniping small gold, and DFX Bigfoot for jewelry, but could live without both of them, as being niche units I rarely use, if at all. But just too good to let go.