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I would say there is still a lot of life left in any 4000, 4800, and especially 4500 and 5000 yet, from the Minelab website. They'll be servicing those models for many years to come. DISCONTINUED PRODUCTS As new technology is developed and improves upon the performance of our current product range, Minelab discontinues our older product models. These products are listed on this page for your reference. We aim to service and support all of our older products for as long as possible. All products are supported for a period of at least 5 years after they are discontinued. Unfortunately, with some of these older detectors it becomes impossible to source the parts required for service work and so the detectors eventually become uneconomical to repair.

Hi Guys, Not to toot any horns, whether it really matters or not, but we purchased all the GPX 5000's Minelab Americas & American Detector Distributors had early last year. We sold them all within months of the purchase at $3995.00 US. Prior to that, we purchased all the GPX 4500's that were selling at $2499 and we blew them out like Hotcakes. I personally wish they were both available, the GPX 4500 at $2500 would still fly off the shelves in my opinion here in the US. I agree, at some point the parts are not available forcing them to discontinue detectors. Rob

I got almost 9oz with the Coiltek Elite on my modded 4500. Had a coil failure though and had to buy a used replacement....but hey, the results spoke volumes. The NF 12x8 EVO is also a killer small flat-wound coil worth trying. You must be like a kid waiting to go to the lolly shop Simon 😉

Yea that DD on the 6000 is short of worthless. I used it beach hunting one time and figure it's probably a cancel coil. Depth is waaaaaay short if what a normal DD will get that size. I guess if EMI is an issue it's usable. For relic hunting I use the 11" mono on the 6000 and can say I really don't miss iron disc of the 4500/5000. If you use your ears and go by shape, sound and size, the 6000 is great. I know where the crossover point with both timings are and if I get a questionable target I'll flip between normal and difficult to see what happens with the signal. But overall I don't miss DD coils. Having said that and swearing I'd never got back to a 4500 or 5000, I recently picked a used 4500 up for beach hunting and those real bad hotrock infested areas I gold hunt sometimes. The 6000 just doesn't do well in either of those scenarios. I'm real excited to see what the Algoforce has to offer when it comes to some form of target ID. It should be an extra bit of information to use when hunting trashy sites and time restraints don't allow for digging every target.

Something we ALL tend to forget. We are dealing with "Electronics Industry" And what's the Golden Rule that all consumers of Electronics have had to live with since day one of modern manufacturing and sales ! ??? Your Electronic gadget whatever it may be "cameras, detectors, blenders, etc. Will be obsolete by the time you finish paying for it 👍🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣So,...... Thank goodness we have had the opportunity to buy/own some of these ol relics of the detecting world. I know I've always loved the 3500 & 4500 models with aftermkts. Coils. They've done everything I ever wanted or expected for me as far as performance. I owned multiple models of each. "Electronics" spelled backwards is "What's New Today" 👍

I do what I can to foster competition that develops alternatives to the all too common VLF detector. There are plenty of options out there, but in my opinion they all weigh too much or cost too much. Usually both. I envision people out there with a popular VLF metal detector for beach, relic, or gold detecting. These machines all sell for around $700 and weigh 2.5 - 3.9 lbs. Perhaps they would like to add a ground balancing PI (GBPI) to what they have. I think that for "normal people" with normal budgets a machine under $2K and under four pounds just makes sense. It would be more than twice what they spent for their VLF, and in this day and age there is no reason why a decent PI should weigh over 4 lbs. I am drawing the hard line at 5 lbs. I am setting under 4 lbs more as an aspirational goal that I think can be achieved, but recognize that battery power and coils are key inhibiting factors in high power PI systems that may make sacrifices in depth necessary to get total weight under 4 lbs. To clarify what I am talking about here, I should say that for many people a $700 VLF detector is a great place to start and in many cases is all a person ever needs. However, there are places where extreme ground mineralization and mineralized rocks (hot rocks) severely impede the performance and use of VLF detectors. Alternative technology to deal with these conditions has been developed, by far the most familiar being the Minelab ground balancing PI (GBPI) detectors. These differ from common PI detectors by having the ability to ground balance. Other brands have offered the Garrett Infinium (discontinued) plus Garrett ATX and the White's TDI models. These detectors are used not just for gold prospecting but also by relic hunters, beach detectorists, and others who face challenges regarding ground mineralization and VLF detectors. Frankly, in my opinion GBPI technology is largely maxed out. The main room for improvement comes now in better ergonomics at lower prices. This challenge therefore limits detectors to those that weigh under 4 pounds with battery included, and which sell brand new with warranty after discounts for under US$2000. Detectors need not be ground balancing PI models, but must offer similar ability to ignore mineralized ground and hot rocks that trouble VLF detectors. I am going to rate detectors as to their relative performance using what I call the "Minelab Rating Scale. Details here. 1. Minelab SD 2000 - crude first version, very poor on small gold, excellent on large deep gold 2. Minelab SD 2100 - vastly refined version of SD 2000 3. Minelab SD 2200 (all versions) - adds crude iron disc, ground tracking 4. Minelab GP Extreme - adds greatly improved sensitivity to small gold, overall performance boost. 5. Minelab GP 3000 - Refined GP Extreme 6. Minelab GP 3500 - Greatly refined GP 3000, last and best of analog models 7. Minelab GPX 4000 - First digital interface, rock solid threshold 8. Minelab GPX 4500 - Refined GPX 4000, solid performer 9. Minelab GPX 4800 - Released at same time as GPX 5000 as watered down version 10. Minelab GPX 5000 - Culmination of the series, current pinnacle of GBPI prospecting machine technology. All Minelab models leverage an existing base of over 100 coil options from tiny to huge. I am a very practical person when it comes to detecting. I know all the existing models and options by all brands very well, perhaps better than almost anyone. This is the way I look at it is this. If I personally were to spend a lot of money to go gold prospecting for one month, and needed a GBPI detector, considering machines past and present, what would I get and in what order of choice? Put aside concerns of age, warranty, etc. just assume functioning detectors. Here is the issue in a nutshell. On the Minelab scale of one to ten as listed above, I would be generous in rating the White's TDI SL as a 2. Same with the Garrett Infinium which I will mention in passing as it is no longer being made. If I was going to spend a month of my time and a lot of money going on a prospecting trip, I would choose a TDI in any version over the SD 2000. I might go with a TDI Pro over a SD 2100 but I would have to think real hard about that, and when push comes to shove I would go SD 2100 were it not for the realities of age I said to ignore. A newer TDI Pro might be a better bet than a very old SD 2100 from a reliability standpoint, but again, this would be a tough choice. The TDI SL not really. In my opinion I would be shooting myself in the foot to go on this hypothetical trip with a TDI SL instead of a SD 2100. You see the problem now? The Garrett ATX fares better. I would rate it a 3, roughly analogous to the SD 2200 variants. Still an agonizing choice really and the ATX being new versus SD 2200 being old might again be the tipping point, but from a pure prospecting options perspective the case can be made that the SD 2200 might be the better way to go. The problem for this challenge is the ATX weighs way over 4 lbs and sells for slightly over $2000. The price is close enough really but the 7 lb weight is way off. That's it folks. That is reality. The best of the best that the competition can offer can only go solidly up against models Minelab has not made in years. I am not saying that to be mean or as some kind of Minelab toadie, that is my pure unvarnished opinion as a guy who is pretty well versed on the subject. Let's bring it all home. This person with the $700 machine really, really wants that under 4 lb, under $2K GBPI machine, but if they do their homework they discover that truthfully, they would be better off shopping for a used Minelab than what the competition offers new. With the TDI SL rated as a 2 the ATX in a much lighter box at under $2K is a solid win as a 3. A well designed ATX with standard dry land coils would look very enticing as compared to the GP series Minelabs. But Garrett refuses to budge! White's can certainly do something, anything to improve the TDI SL. A battery that lasts all day would be a good start. In the end they are limited by the basic single channel design of the machine. The SD 2000 dual channel design was literally the answer to and the improvement on the single channel technology used in the TDI, the basics of which predate the SD 2000. Still, White's currently owns the under 4 lb under $2K GBPI category so they have the first out of the starting gate advantage. Anything they do would at the very least just show they have not given up. The Minelab MPS patent that formed the basis of the SD series has expired. Not sure about DVT, which formed the basis of the GP series. Where is the competition? What the heck is going on here? Much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair is going on here, that's what!!! That is my challenge to the manufacturers. Under 4 lbs, under $2K, on the 1-10 scale I am offering, what is the best you can do? The TDI SL as a 2? Really? Yes, really, that is currently the best of the best in the brand new ground balancing PI, full warranty, under 4 lb, under $2k category. You can pick up a 3.5 lb TDI SL right now brand new for $1049. The White's TDI SL takes the crown. Note that a challenger has a half pound of weight they can add to the TDI SL and still make the 4 lb mark, and retail can be almost double the $1049 of the TDI SL and still come in at the 2K mark. I therefore do not think my challenge is outright crazy. Hopefully we will see more competition in this wide open category soon. I have been beating this drum for years to no avail, but I do have reason to believe we are finally going to see more alternatives soon. I hope. Maybe? All I know is I have had it. I sold both my 6.9 lb Garrett ATX and 7.2 lb Minelab GPZ 7000 and am boycotting metal detectors that weigh over 5 lbs from here on out. I don’t care how well they work, I simply refuse to buy such heavy beasts anymore. In the future I will support and give my dollars to companies that pay attention to and prioritize lightweight, more ergonomic designs. White's Electronics TSI SL metal detector

I couldn't agree with Steve and Karelian more. This whole has to be the best or shouldn't exist attitude is somewhat bizarre, we'd all be driving Lamborghini's or something if we followed that chain of thought through life, yet what do most people drive? very cheap cars by comparison. It's the same with metal detectors, a majority of people aren't running the highest price models there is and a big hole was in the market where this detector slots right in are people that didn't even buy one as they were too expensive. I've been hoping for something like this for a long time, I took on the QED and tried my best to have it fill that role but it really wasn't up to the standard of a professionally built metal detector, more of a DIY home built using parts from an electronics store, something that looks like it was slapped together from one of the electronics kits from the 70's and 80's and while it's performance was OK, especially on smaller shallow gold or on larger coins and possible gold that were quite deep depending on how you had the bias set on the detector it was missing too much to make it a viable choice for most. The price was right, the product wasn't. Since then, I was hoping Garrett, Fisher or Nokta would be doing it, I've been trying to encourage Nokta to take it on knowing there is a big gap in the market, Nokta appear like they're well on their way but they don't yet have PI experience other than a pinpointer but they have a proven track record of excelling when they focus on a product. Fisher is still tinkering away, well not so much Fisher as Alexandre although he may not even end up with Fisher and who knows if and when his AQ Gold will ever hit the market. Out of nowhere comes Algoforce with basically the product I've been hoping for, it ticks the boxes. And the focus of detectors now is smaller gold with that being the reason the 6000 is so popular now, people are finding lots of little stuff and going home with something in their bottles, the 6000, the Axiom, they're not extremely deep machines, but are hot on small gold, if you want depth on big deep gold there are plenty of options, right back to the SD's or grab a GPX 4500/5000 and big coil. For someone on a small budget they have the option now of owning something like a used GPX and an Algoforce and still have plenty of change in their pocket from a 6000 or 7000 purchase, between the two detectors they have most bases covered. Something I will appreciate is the fixed ground balance, being in milder soils the 6000 and its tracking is a frustration. I've complained about the lack of a way to "fix" the balance from the start so this to me is a bonus, the manual ground grab is fantastic for me, and something the QED has tried yet failed to have for years. This machine is lightyears ahead of a QED and will likely be the final nail in the coffin for the QED, it's all the QED should have been, and professionally built to go with it and priced perfectly, with its GPX coil support I can't see any reason for anyone to buy a QED anymore. I have now spoken to Ruifeng, what a great guy, very clued on and I can see their detector being a great success, He's as enthusiastic about their detector being as good as it can be as I am about it existing, all the gray nomads driving around in their Caravan's that want to have a go at looking for gold but can't justify or afford the price of a Minelab machine, they now have a great option, people like me that hunt a lot of small gold and would like fixed ground balance and have a good selection of GPX coils already, perfect! Let's not forget, this detector is a high-performance PI for the price of a good VLF and will bring to life a lot of peoples old GPX coils sitting in their cupboards as it exceeds the GPX 5000 on small gold. X-coils are open to producing GPX coils again now with this detector on the market, I can't wait to try my 10" spiral on it, I'll have a Algoforce as soon as I can. It appears to have good Detection modes to find a variety of size nuggets. Ultra-Fine Gold: This is the go-to choice for detecting gold nuggets of all sizes and is suitable for most situations. When used in combination with the Nugget Finder 8"x6" Sadie coil or similar-sized coils, it excels, even in highly mineralised soils. This combination is strongly recommended for locating small gold nuggets in various ground conditions. Fine Gold: Fine Gold mode reduces sensitivity to mineralised soil and may not detect very small gold nuggets. When paired with the Nugget Finder 12"x8" Mono coil or similar-sized coils, this mode performs exceptionally well, even in highly mineralised soils. It's a top choice for finding small to medium gold nuggets in different ground conditions. Normal Gold: This mode decreases sensitivity to highly mineralised soil and may not detect small gold nuggets. When used with the Nugget Finder 14"x9" Mono coil or similar-sized coils, it delivers outstanding performance, even in highly mineralised soils. It is highly recommended for locating medium to large gold nuggets in various ground conditions. Large Gold: Reserve Large Gold mode for use in extremely mineralised soil with high levels of wet salt. When used with coils larger than the Nugget Finder 14"x9" Mono coil, this mode excels, even in highly mineralised soils. This combination is highly recommended for locating large gold nuggets in different ground conditions. Although the four detection modes are specially designed for detecting gold nuggets, they can also be used for finding jewellery, coins, and other treasures on the beach. With a small coil like the Nugget Finder 8"x6" Sadie, use Ultra-Fine or Fine Gold mode for fine treasures. For a large coil like the 14"x9" Evolution Mono, employ Normal or Large Gold mode for deep beach discoveries. No ground balance is needed. As a PI detector, the AlgoForce E1500 naturally rejects seawater signals; the detection mode dictates the level of rejection, ranging from Ultra-Fine Gold to Large Gold, becoming more aggressive.

I really like the fact that the E1500 and a s/h 4500/5000 would probably be less expensive than a new SDC or a new Axiom. HavIng both these detectors working together over a patch with their interchangeable coils is an outstanding option for covering most gold types and still retaining depth on more solid bits. Hopefully the FCC goes quickly for the U.S., really looking forward to testing one out. 😎

Now that the Axiom has been out awhile are there any relic hunters that can provide some feedback on how the Axiom compares to the GPX 4500/5000 on discrimination? I've scoured the internet and have found a couple of competing opinions but very little other than that. I've owned the GPX 4500 and now 5000 and for 2 years I didn't own a vlf machine and I was very successful at finding Civil War relics in pounded sites in my area. Once you get your ear "tuned" I dug very little iron. Also on the Axiom is the iron check a button you hold down or a mode you can leave it in for those high iron areas?

If you just want to hunt for gold nuggets you have lots of choices from dedicated VLFs and pulse induction detectors. If your area has mostly sub gram gold, a VLF like the Fisher Goldbug 2, Minelab Goldmonster 1000, Garrett/Whites Goldmaster 24K, Nokta Gold Kruzer, Nokta NuggetFinder 2000 and the XP ORX with the white HF coils would be good choices. If you want to also hunt for sub gram gold nuggets plus relics, coins and jewelry eventually there are also some great VLF choices for that too that have simultaneous multi frequency operation like the Minelab Equinox 800, Minelab Equinox 900, Minelab Manticore, Nokta Legend and XP Deus 2. Those detectors have excellent dedicated gold prospecting modes that easily rival the sensitivity and mineralized ground handling of the dedicated gold prospecting detectors listed above them. All of the detectors listed in this paragraph are $1600 or less if you shop carefully. If you are current or former US military, Minelab and Garrett offer 15% discounts for many of their new detectors. There are some used pulse induction detectors that are good for a wide range of gold nugget sizes from 0.1 gram small nuggets and up. They are not cheap even when buying used. If you can find a Minelab SDC 2300, GPX 4000, 4500, 4800 or 5000 for $1500 or less that actually works, buy it. The Whites TDIs are good too but they simply will not hit sub 0.25 gram and smaller nuggets consistently.

Yes, I've done beaches where a large coin on the surface is reported as junk, and bury it an inch or two and it just blends into the sand's response being iron effectively not being detected at all, with the Equinox constantly having its overload icon on the screen. The GPX works to a degree on these beaches, better than anything else I've tried anyway but can't ground balance the ground out so I need to experiment more with settings to try get it working better, and I'm not even at the worst of the black sand beaches further up the country which are just pure black sand, mine at least around here have a mixture. The ones on the West Coast further up the country are next to impossible to detect. My 4500 went up there to a guy that wanted to detect them, didn't work out for him. Tarsacci made a coil they claimed was a NZ coil for detecting these beaches, needless to say it doesn't work, the guy that tried my 4500 had no luck with the Tarsacci setup with the "NZ Coil" and declared it a waste of money. It's good to hear the Axiom working to a certain degree in this sort of ground. I intend to make a trip up to these beaches sometime this year as they would have to be an untapped gold mine, very popular beaches for swimming yet nobody can detect them very well at all. I was hoping the 15" CC for the GPX by X-coils may help, sadly I can't see it resolving the problem with my attempts at the local semi black sand beaches, it appeared worse than the DD at handling the ground, perhaps being spiral didn't help with that. The QED where you were able to dumb it down by changing the pulse delay and a DD coil worked quite well on the semi black sand beaches so as Steve was saying the weaker the detector is on small targets the better it works in the bad ground. Maybe I should have kept it. My question is how does the Axiom compare to the GPX 5000 in heavy concentrations of black sand?

That coil is very interesting as it's had a 2024 update and is now 400 grams lighter than the original, that's a huge amount of weight to shave off a coil and I'm surprised NF has even had time to work on it when it's not that big of a seller it appears and they're too busy to make the coils that are in far higher demand like the 16x10" for the 6000, just adds to the mystery. If your going to get one in your part out of the world watch out Luis they'll probably be selling off the older heavy version by having old stock. I don't know of anyone that's got one, I vaguely recall reading someone has used one somewhere, there was a video posted on this site recently comparing coils and the 18" mono Nugget Finder was far deeper on a can than the 25" DD, but you would expect that from a mono, I do wonder if he was using normal with the DD X though, as one of its marketing speals is you can run it in normal in bad Aussie ground where his mono would not be in normal, he probably left them all in the same settings. The other weird thing about it is the GP SD GPX coils stil have a 3-year warranty but Nugget Finder has dropped the warranty on their 6000 coils to 2 years. Nugget Finder 25" DD Metal Detector Coil- Updated 2024 - now 400grm lighter! To suit Minelab SD, GP and GPX4000/4500/5000 metal detectors Fantastic Depth on Large Gold combined with Massive Ground Coverage down to maximum Depth... Super Strong Polycarbonate Reinforced Shaft Mount Pressure Regulated ABS Shell Divinycell Core Combination of Spiral & Bundle Windings Litz Wire Water Resistant to 1m 3 Year Warranty Weight now Approx 1250g This coil is capable of running Normal Timings in Highly Mineralized Ground (GPX Series) allowing significant depth gains on Large, Deep Gold & Relics...

been there on my 4500 when I first got it 🙂

I noticed a used GPX-4500 available locally. Includes 4 coils, 3 extra stems, 3 battery packs, harness and headphones. It looks like it is used little. I know the 4500 was discontinued in 2020. I have never used a Minelab but I've seen them find Au twice during group outings. Currently I'm running an XP Deus which I've run for hundreds of hours without finding Au. I've found everything else, right down to many tiny fragments of bullets. I'm keen on nugget-shooting in remote areas. Would the 4500 be a good choice at this point in time for a nugget shooting upgrade? Approximate cost is $2400 for the package, which is a lot of kroner for a hobbyist who has not yet found any Au. Any suggestions and comments are welcome. Ed, Tucson, Az.

The proven reality in the field is actually simple. Detectors in the GPX 4000 - GPX 5000 class hammered ground for 20 years and going back to that ground with the same machines gets little or nothing. People going back over that ground with the GPZ 7000 and GPX 6000 are cleaning up what the older GPX series missed. A 4500/4800/5000 can help with hot rocks that bother the 7000 and 6000, but the problem there is it is eliminating those hot rocks that caused them to miss the gold in the first place. There is no free lunch. For every hot rock there is a class of gold target, as gold grades imperceptibly into the ground signal. Simply ground balancing a detector causes gold to be missed, and there is gold being missed to this day. But Minelab has been filling those detection “holes” as well as they can be filled for a long time now, and the gains to be had are minimal at best with whatever they come up with next. So yeah, you can save money buying a 4500, but are you really saving money, if it leaves you with crumbs while your mates fill their pockets with gold? In general you can treat a large number of detectorists as a pretty good indicator of what works and what does not. People tend to hold onto the old tech for a bit, but once it is shown something new puts more gold in pockets, a tipping point is reached and a shift occurs. Everyone, and I mean everyone I know, is using a 6000 or a 7000 or both. And it’s because it’s the better value proposition that results in more money, not less, compared to running older models. More upfront cost, but more gold found puts the good hunters ahead in the game. The nature of the gold to be found determines what detectors are best for the application. There are many locations where there simply are no large nuggets. So let’s draw an arbitrary line. 1 gram. And two classes of detector. When considering a GPZ 7000 or GPX 6000, if the area you hunt has a good possibility of larger gold at depth, say 1/4 oz and larger, then lean GPZ 7000. But if it’s all under a gram, the 6000 may actually do better. Leaving X-Coils out of the equation, the 6000 will hoover up small gold a 7000 misses. Step down to the GPX 5000 / Axiom class. If you have the possibility of larger deeper gold, then a 5000 outfitted with an 18” mono will have the edge. If the gold is predominately small, the Axiom will have the edge with similar size small coils versus the 5000. Another way to look at it is if I was chasing a six ounce nugget at max depth I’d probably look at the 5000 with big coil or the 7000. If I’m cleaning up smaller gold in well pounded areas, I’d be looking more at 6000 or Axiom. None of this is black or white, just shades of gray and generalities.

Thanks phrunt I would like to see that video, I also remember reading that you thought the GPX 4500 was in the same class as the 5000. Do you still think that ? g_j I do understand where you are coming from, mentioning bigger nuggets, are you suggesting that the older models are more likely to find a deeper large nugget than the 6000, something I suspect may be true but have no experience to back it up. My problem is simple my sniping partners have moved to detecting using 6000's they have had success and are crowing about the virtues of the 6000 telling me that a 5000 won't cut it. This is where my problem comes in, budget, I can't justify the cost of a 6000 even second hand, but given the success of the 6000 the price of a second hand 5000 has come down to a point that I'm willing to pay especially when you consider the amount of coils and accessories that can come with a used unit. In Tasmania the nuggets mostly are small but they are finding a good proportion of 1 gram + Assay results of gold that I've sold previously show that we have high purity usually around 95% most nuggets are quartz free but do sometimes have a small amount of ironstone. I was of the opinion that I would go as old as a GP 3500 but given the price of used 5000's I'm not sure about that any more, the advice is usually to get the latest model you can afford. But if a good 3500 came up at a suitable price, would it be a good choice. Thanks

@Gerry in Idaho could likely give you an in-detail description of gold types missed as he does classes on it demonstrating it to people, it tends to be porous or prickly gold is worst affected, but it's not only that, there is more even normal looking bits its quite weak on. I don't really think the 6000 is all that much better than the 5000 on gram stuff, unless it's the type of gold the 5000 is weak on, the right composition piece and I think they would be pretty similar in performance and because the 5000 can benefit from larger coils it will inherently have the depth advantage for the bigger deep gold hunters. I filmed a video showing the holes in detecting on the 5000 and 4500 a while ago, showing nuggets they should easily pick up that they either didn't at all, or were very weak on, I'll try find the video, it really is surprising the gold the older GPX models can miss. I also demonstrated in the video how changing timings from for example sensitive extra to fine gold can change the results somewhat, changing timings can close up the holes on some gold to a degree, but then some timings work better than others so you really need to cover ground a few times in different timings. It's the big improvement made with the 6000 was closing these gaps. Now I am focused on its flaws here, on a good amount of gold its perfectly fine and handles ground better than anything else there is but the reason I think many are happy with the 6000 after having the 5000 is that these holes are fixed more so than the small gold improvements, yes they are there too, but the holes being fixed is bringing more gold to the surface than the extra small gold capability, the gold most are finding isn't that tiny or deep the 5000 would miss it all.

Thanks, and interesting Simon. Good to see reports on equipment and new things here again on the forum, this is the stuff I come here for. Interested to see what else you find, I still have a 4500 laying around unused and curious if there is some non-relic/beach niche for the 4500 still between the 6000 and 7000.

What coils did you get with it? Congratulations on getting a 4500 by the way, nice detector.

As someone who owns half a dozen claims. We have some claims here in Montana that have very good big gold on them and no water. So on these claims we dig holes in layers to bedrock and detect. There is still good close surface gold to be found on the claims as well but its a fraction of what is at depth. This to me is the type of ground that is logical to claim if you can find it. But if I was strictly a surface or close to it detectorist. I dont think it makes alot of sense to own your own. You would work out a 20 acre claim fairly quickly and the cost and government red tape is just not worth it. That being said with gold climbing good unclaimed gold ground is gonna get trickier and trickier to find and hunt. A classic example happened to us this year. All the previous unclaimed ground around us 4500 acres roughly just got swooped up this year by a large scale mining company. So now we are hog tied from exploring very much new ground around our existing claims.

I sold almost all my detectors to afford getting my GPX6000 in May last year. The 4500 and 24K were the first to go.....sad but at least it paid off in the end. I am paying off a Nokta Legend and that will become my new HF VLF replacement for the 24K....just needed something that was more 'multi-purpose', even though I severely miss the 24K. I'll also be sourcing a Legacy Minelab PI for ultra-deep modding and using BIG coils only. With every downturn in life, there's always a new opportunity if you let yourself take it. 2024 is just that opportunity I feel. Thanks for the kind words :-)

I have used the Minelab GPX 5000 since it was introduced, and in fact probably owned the first one in Alaska. I have used the Garrett ATX also since it came out with one of the first units off the production line. I have been putting this review off while I got to know the ATX. I now have over 100 hours on the detector in a variety of environments so the time has come. This metal detector comparison review was very challenging for me to write. It pits two very different yet very similar detectors against each other. In a way it is almost like discussing three detectors instead of two, and there is the issue of a huge price difference. I apologize for the length but this is a case where I wanted to be as thorough as possible on the subject. This is the review you will never see published in a magazine! In a way it is all about that price differential. If the two detectors were priced similarly there would be much less debate than is going to occur amongst people and a far easier buying decision for some to make. For me personally it really is a story of the Garrett ATX being two very different detectors at once and so I will start the review there. I have been metal detecting over forty years now, and metal detecting is very important in my life. Not a day goes by that I do not think about, write about, or actually go out metal detecting. Luckily for me a large chunk of my income is derived from metal detecting and so I can justify a collection of metal detectors for what I do. I engage in quite a few detecting activities and I strive to have the very best detector possible at my disposal for whatever it is I am doing. Because of this I am constantly on the look for new detectors that might help me in some way. However, now that the technology is maturing I have the bases pretty well covered. The only thing I was still looking for was a detector that satisfied me while water detecting in Hawaii. Every other detecting scenario I have covered to my satisfaction, but every time I hit the water in Hawaii I was left wanting something better than was available. The combination of salt water, volcanic rock, and military grade electrical interference is very challenging for any detector. What I generally want is a combination of stability and power with good ergonomics. The perfect detector should only signal on desired targets and nothing else, at good depth, while feeling good on my arm. I obviously reject detectors that get poor depth - these are usually the lower price detectors. Most top tier models are very competitive in the depth department. Other detectors I have put aside solely due to an inability to handle electrical interference. Fine machines otherwise, but unstable in an urban environment. Other detectors are too noisy in mineralized ground or too chatty in dense trash. And finally, some detectors are holdovers from the old days of heavy and clunky. I do not like detectors that make my arm hurt! I was therefore very excited when I heard the Garrett ATX was on the way. I was very familiar with its predecessor, the Garrett Infinium, which was tantalizingly close to my perfect Hawaii detector. Unfortunately the Infinium suffered in the stability department. I was also aware of the Garrett Recon Pro AML-1000 military demining detector. I was intrigued by its having a non-motion monotone search mode and wondered if that could be incorporated into a new improved "Infinium Pro" model. I not only had Hawaii in mind but started envisioning scenarios involving underwater sniping for gold employing a metal detector. Add to this that neither Minelab nor White's seemed interested in putting a waterproof ground balancing pulse induction metal detector in my hands. I never expected it would be Garrett that would come out with a second generation model based on the Infinium before anyone else got to first base. I have told you all this to explain what I was expecting and hoping for in the Garrett ATX. The fact is Garrett delivered with flying colors on my desires and the ATX is now one if the most important detectors in my collection. I have already paid for the detector with jewelry found and it is the Hawaii detector I always hoped for. Garrett ATX in Hawaii If we are talking about the Garrett ATX as a new waterproof detector for use on black sand or volcanic island beaches the review can end right here. The Garrett ATX is a superb detector for those conditions and well worth the money. There is only one fly in the ointment. If you look at the full page ads for the Garrett ATX it is clearly being marketed as a prospecting detector, and one pretty clearly aimed at Minelab's top end models. Specifically "The ATX performs head-to-head with the most expensive prospecting detectors in the world." ads by Amazon... Interestingly enough this idea was not even on my radar. I had always thought it was a huge mistake for the Infinium to be set up as direct competition for the high end Minelabs. Anyone involved in that remembers the hype and resulting disappointment and backlash. The Infinium eventually found its place but more as a water and relic hunting machine than a prospecting detector, although it is a capable enough unit. My hope was to avoid a similar scenario with the ATX. I do not like hype and prefer things to be under sold so people are pleasantly surprised when their expectations are exceeded. Hype leads to disappointment when inflated claims cannot be met. The reality here however is that Garrett has chosen to make prospecting the battlefield of choice. There is a lot of money at stake here for a lot of people, and so I am going to do my best here to compare the two units as dry land prospecting detectors. I think we can all agree that if you are looking at both the Garrett ATX and Minelab GPX 5000 and need the detector to be waterproof the Garrett ATX wins hands down. The funny thing here is that if Garrett was gunning for Minelab then in my opinion they went about it the wrong way. I get the distinct impression the design process was backwards. It was not a matter of "what do prospectors want in a metal detector?" I think it was "we have this housing on the shelf we developed at great expense to go after a military contract. We need to leverage our development cost by putting something in that housing we can sell to the public." In other words, I do not see any sign of design following function. All I see is a prospecting detector crammed in a box inappropriate for the desired end use. If Steve Jobs was into metal detectors he would be rolling in his grave. I will have to suffice instead by simply shaking my head at missed opportunity. I will explain more about that later. Let's set ergonomics aside though for now and just talk about straight up prospecting performance. How does the Garrett ATX fare against the Minelab GPX 5000 on gold in mineralized ground? I have done fairly extensive tests but I do have to throw in the caveat that the world is a big place and when you discuss prospecting detectors one truth is paramount. It is all about the ground mineralization and hot rocks. What works well in one place fails in another, and for this reason alone I cannot offer 100% assurances. I have spent a month traveling Western Australia detecting every day and so I am quite familiar with what prospectors face there. I am not about to begin to offer more than an opinion about how these two detectors fare in the worst Australian ground but I do think my conclusions will prove to be true. I can tell anyone right now knowing detectors the way I do that either machine will prove superior at certain locations given their differing capabilities. In a nutshell, the Garrett ATX has a ridiculously good circuit. The engineers at Garrett have done a superb job of producing a detector that out of box performs extremely well on a wide variety of gold in a wide variety of ground conditions. I tested both units in some very red mineralized soil, both outfitted with stock DD coils. The ATX comes with a 12" x 10" DD coil. The GPX 5000 comes with two coils, one of which is an 11" round DD coil and this is what I used. The nuggets ranged from 0.1 gram to 6.5 ounces. Test conditions The impression I was left with was definitely not how the GPX 5000 blows the ATX away but instead by how well the Garrett ATX does. It is impossible to not be impressed by how well the $2120 detector does when run head-to-head against a $5795 detector. Garrett has done a fantastic job and in my opinion their advertising claims are not off base. This is a serious prospecting circuit well worth consideration. The two detectors basically differ in the range of gold they find best. The Garrett ATX skews towards the smaller more commonly found gold nuggets. The Minelab GPX 5000 skews towards larger gold nuggets that tend to be the goal of professional prospectors. Out of box with similar coils the ATX will find small gold nuggets the GPX 5000 would normally miss without special coils and tuning tricks. It does this simply and with no fuss. However, in mineralized ground with similar coils the GPX easily bests the ATX on large nuggets. By large I mean one ounce and larger and by easily I mean by a margin of 10-15%. The GPX 5000 does this using a coil that in my case had never been on the detector before. Most Minelab users would never consider hobbling the detector by putting the 11" round DD coil on if hunting large nuggets at depth. It is informative therefore that even doing this in the interest of "fairness" and with nothing more than stock Normal timing with Gain bumped to 16 (out of 20) the Minelab GPX 5000 easily outperformed the Garrett ATX on a 6.5 ounce nugget. The ATX was at max Gain of 13 for the test. Now the depth differential here was only about two inches but I have to throw in the huge caution note again that it will vary depending on ground conditions. Absolute depth was about 17" ATX versus 19" GPX for good solid signals. The kind nobody can miss. Again, do not take these as some sort of magical numbers as ground conditions and even nugget shape and alloy could cause you to get some surprising differences. That is why I hate mentioning exact depths and differences in most cases and just stick to relative conclusions. But you are going to ask so there you go. For reference a Fisher Gold Bug Pro with 13" round DD coil and White's GMT with 14" elliptical DD both with settings jacked to the max were barely able to obtain this solid gold 6.5 ounce nugget at 12" in this ground and the GMT in particular would not really have been able to hunt maxed out the way it was. Depending on who is reading this the response may be "really, only two inches?" or "wow, two whole inches!" Similarly, it is interesting to see the GPX with DD coil scrub a little nugget with no signal that the ATX easily detects at a couple inches. This however does end up being my basic and not new finding by any means. Others have reported similar results. The ATX does better on small gold and the GPX on large straight out of box with stock DD coils. I do believe the GPX has more ability to handle more varied and more intense ground conditions and hot rocks due to its many adjustments. However, this is more a belief than a fact as so far the ATX has easily handled everything I have thrown at it, including salt water, basalt rocks, and electrical interference in Hawaii. Garrett does make use of a salient fact in its advertising. The ATX handles a wide range of conditions with deceptively few settings. This makes it very easy to set up and it avoids a common complaint with the GPX detectors. They are so complex people are often left wondering if they have the optimum settings for the conditions. I know for a fact from observation that many people tend to use timings that are too aggressive for the actual conditions when using a GPX. The tendency often is to find something that seems to work well and then to just default to that way if doing things, even if conditions change. To get the best performance out of a GPX does require that a person be somewhat of a tuning wizard. The bottom line for many more casual prospectors in the United States especially is that the Garrett ATX represents a fantastic value. It is truly impossible to say but in my case at least most of the gold I find in the US with my GPX an ATX would have found it also. In particular when hunting areas where bedrock is a foot or less the ground would have to be extremely hot indeed for the ATX to not only find what the GPX will but to have an edge on the more common small gold. Even in deeper ground as long as the gold is measured in grams and not ounces and the ground not extremely mineralized the ATX is going to be a close match with the GPX. Again, out of box with stock DD coils. Where the ATX is going to clearly come up short is on large nuggets, especially those sought after 1 ounce and larger nuggets at depth and on gold in the worst mineralized ground and hot rock locations. To be perfectly honest I feel my putting an 11" inch round DD coil on my GPX 5000 in the interest of being fair does not reflect for one second how I look for gold. I am not out there being fair, I am out there looking for gold. I will be running a larger mono coil with settings optimized for larger gold and then the difference in large gold performance between the ATX and GPX is even more pronounced. I would consider a 10-15% to be a bare minimum advantage gained while in effect running the GPX with its hands tied. I have not done comparisons on the iron discrimination systems but I find the method used by the ATX to be inherently more reassuring. The GPX reacts to shallow ferrous targets by blanking out, a sort of non response. The ATX has a momentary ferrous check that kicks in at the touch of a button, and that gives a low tone growl on iron, which provides a more nuanced and natural response expected by most detector users. I am not a big fan of using discrimination on either unit but I did find the ATX method more to my liking for confirming shallow ferrous stuff as trash that I already thought was trash due to the response. Note that on either detector the ferrous rejection only works on shallow items and only with a DD coil. The amount of rejection is adjustable on the GPX and preset on the ATX so more tests really need to be done in this regard to determine which is the more accurate and useful system. Minelab GPX 5000 and Garrett ATX (Minelab outfitted with optional Nugget Finder coil) I do own both detectors and there is a simple reality here. If I am going looking for gold in the water, be it jewelry or nuggets in a creek, I will grab the ATX. For any other prospecting, the vast majority of it, I will be using the GPX 5000. I am not sure where the line between casual and serious is, but I am way, way over on the serious side. I spend a great deal of time targeting and hunting deep ground looking in areas where very large nuggets have been found historically. Most of the ground I detect I am hunting because it has produced nuggets weighing a pound or more in the past. I hunt tailing piles a lot so bedrock is tens of feet down, and the gold can be at any depth from shallow to extremely deep. I think most professionals would tell you that small gold is what happens along the way while looking for the big stuff, and at the end of the day it is the big stuff or the lack of it that makes the difference. I found over thirteen ounces of nuggets metal detecting in 2013 which is no great sum of gold in my book, but well over half of it was in the form of two nuggets, one weighing 6.5 ounces and the other 2.37 ounces. Now in this case the ATX would have found both these nuggets. Yet I would not use anything but a Minelab GPX for what I am doing. I am spending a lot of valuable time going over ground that I may only get one shot at. I plan these things well in advance and not only time but good money is invested in taking my best shot at getting good results. I basically cannot afford to be running anything that I feel does not give me the best chance of delivering that make or break it big nugget. One nugget can make all the difference between a month of lackluster results and fantastic success. If both the Garrett ATX and Minelab GPX 5000 detectors had exactly identical electronic performance I would still be swinging the GPX. I am on one hand very impressed with the ATX as a nugget detector and on the other hand very disappointed by it. The up front decision to use the Recon AML-1000 housing is an automatic fail from a nugget detecting perspective in my opinion. It adds not only needless weight but weight that is very much an impediment in rough, uneven terrain. This is accentuated by a stock coil that is sensitive to knocks and bumps. It requires an extra level of coil control to manipulate the detector in such a way as to not produce excessive false signals. This differs from Minelab coils that basically do not false at all unless something is wrong with them. I would caution anyone using a detector the way I do that the ATX requires extra care as regards the possibility of repetitive motion injury. Trust me as somebody who detected too much one year and ignored the signs this is something to regard seriously. A harness is a must for weeks of long daily use of the ATX. I shudder to think about how the detector feels with the 20" long rear mounted mono coil hanging off the front. That is an ergonomic nightmare. The ATX features silicone lubricated battery door o-rings that collect dirt. The coil connectors also have o-ring seals and even worse delicate pin connectors subject to damage if not carefully lined up. The headphone connector is similar to the coil connectors. All these are required to make the detector waterproof and not only unneeded for normal dry land use but an impediment as regards serviceability in the field. The coils are sold as a unit with the telescoping rod assembly adding needless expense and weight and making carrying an extra coil around something to be avoided. The rear mount enables the ability of the detector to fold up but is another weak point from a serviceability aspect and ergonomically the worst way to mount a coil. I always considered ergonomics to be the easy low hanging fruit for anyone considering manufacture of a detector to compete with the Minelab PI series, and I am frankly amazed anyone could make something even heavier I am less excited about handling. It is an absolute fact I would put the GPX aside for an alternative, even if that alternative was next best in overall gold ability, if it offered a big advantage ergonomically. I in fact often do decline to "harness up" and set the GPX aside in favor of a lightweight VLF at times because I am just too tired or not in the mood. More importantly, in steep terrain bedrock is often shallow and so when hunting hillsides and slopes there really is no advantage to using a GPX in ground only inches deep. I would very gladly use a properly designed Garrett ATX instead of a Minelab GPX in many situations that I currently encounter. In particular areas where bedrock is less than a foot deep or in areas where large nuggets have historically never been seen. The only reason right now that is not going to happen is I do not want the ATX on my arm. Yes, the ATX has an inherent advantage on small gold but nothing I can't negate by putting on a small mono coil and running the GPX hot. No, in my opinion Garrett missed a major opportunity to wow somebody like me by putting a fantastic prospecting circuit in a package very inappropriate for the target audience. Metal detectors are tools. Now the fact is that for the average person Craftsman tools do just fine and represent good value. But the guy making his living with his toolbox is probably going to be investing in Snap-on tools. It is an apt analogy accentuated by the real performance difference that exists between the Garrett ATX and Minelab GPX detectors on the kind of gold most pros are looking for. The vast number of accessory coils and other aftermarket options on top of a well proven platform makes it an easy decision for the serious prospector. Minelab makes a tool designed specifically for a certain job. The Garrett ATX unfortunately I feel is a duck out of water when employed for normal prospecting uses. I do have to say my hat is off to Garrett for producing a detector that is the first to really give Minelab a run for the money. I hope they do follow up and produce a model expressly designed from the ground up as a dry land prospecting machine. It may well become my primary prospecting detector if they do so. If you have read this review carefully you should understand the issues involved. For many people wanting maximum bang for the buck a Garrett ATX straight up and used properly is a real bargain in a PI prospecting machine. It can and will find gold and find it very well. The guys like me (you know who you are) that probably already have a Minelab PI plus extra coils, batteries and so forth can continue waiting for the next big thing in nugget detecting. You may also consider the Garrett for exactly the reason I did. It is waterproof, and currently is the closest thing you can get to a Minelab PI in a waterproof package. In closing I am curious to see how both detectors do for me this year. The ATX has the lead with about 2.5 ounces of gold and platinum jewelry found so far. I plan on using it often to hunt jewelry every chance I get in 2014. The GPX I will once again be taking to Alaska for a couple months of nugget detecting which may or may not pay off with a large nugget found. I will be hunting the right places but large gold is rare almost anywhere you go. Given the lead the ATX already has the GPX has its work cut out for it so it should make for an interesting year. For those of you trying to decide between these two very fine metal detectors I can only sympathize and count my blessings for not having to make such decisions. However, I hope this helps you with your decision because I have done my best to try and do just that. Good luck and good hunting! 2020 Note: Since this review was written in 2014 the price for the ATX was remained the same, while the price for the Minelab GPX 4500 and GPX 5000 have both come down considerably. This does change the value proposition offered by the Garrett ATX, especially as regards the Minelab GPX 4500, which can now be had for only a few hundred dollars more than an ATX. Detailed information on the Garrett ATX Detailed information on the Minelab GPX 5000 Great video by another party (a Garrett dealer) confirming the above results at another location with a different large nugget....

Really cool finds, I'm not surprised by your small gold take increasing, from memory last season you used the 24k and GPX 4500 modded? Did you run the 24k this year or has it taken a hike? You did very well, sorry to hear about the single and homeless thing, you seem the resourceful type that can bounce back and do better than before.

Hey ya'll, what's the best 4500 settings using an NF 25 mono for large, deep nuggets. Thank you in advance.