Search the Community

I like running the GPX6000 like a hotrod and trying to hear through the chatter, so I have been using Auto + with success patch hunting in a area that has very few hot rocks, just hit the difficult button when I encounter a hot rock and its usually gone, but will still get a great response on the small gold targets when switching to difficult, if in doubt I just switch from normal to difficult mode to see if it's a metal target or ground effect. This matches up with what JP mentions on the small gold timings in the difficult settings. I also tried comparing the Auto to the Auto + but could only notice a very small difference. Would the Auto be comparable to one of the Manual setting, if so which number would closely match it? Another thing I have been trying to do is determine the high/low tone responses on different objects in Normal vs. Difficult settings to help in trashy sites. Steve Herschbach has mentioned this in a topic linked below and got me started doing some testing. My goal is to use these setting to separate out my most common targets, square nails. Please read the article below to better understand this concept.

Anybody know if the Minelab GA10 Guide Arm fits on the 6k shaft? I love the 17” coil but it did a number on my shoulder last weekend (but nowhere near as bad as the Z did). Would like a guide arm for it and I used to like the old Z guide arm.

Gerry was asking about the GPX 6000 on specimen gold a while back, and my response was "not to worry." Here is a link to an Aussie forum post, from a bloke using both the GPZ 7000 and GPX 6000, to recover hundreds of gold specimens. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=615409#p615409 Bottom line, if you want a PI detector for specimen gold, the GPX 6000 is the one to have. Only a hot VLF will hit smaller stuff, but overall a VLF can't get the depth the 6000 gets.

The GPX 6000 Detector is great at revisiting old patches and finding missed gold. Really impressive how deep and small this detector will go while handling the worst ground. I do not need a vlf anymore unless working spider gold at hard rock mines or dealing with trash sites. Smaller gold piece 2 grains. Bird shot way smaller.

Lightweight 17 elliptical coil, you`ve got to love Mono coils for their lightweight but in saying that for me I`ll run using a Hip Stick wheras I found I don`t need to do so with the 11inch coil. It is a very stable coil even when swung amongst grass, but very sensitive, it gets the gold no doubt. As per my "first impression of the 6000" thread the shaft locks do not hold sufficiently and this problem is exaggerated by the larger 17 coil. In regards to EMF, I have found this is no problem, a simple press of the ground cancel button and in no time your ready to continue, tis just part and parcel of using such a sensitive detector. Like all elliptical coils this is tops for "linear detecting" ie. pushing ahead through grass and not swinging, this may sound an unlikely detecting method but be assured it has found me many virgin patches over the years, mainly following Brumby (wild horses) worn tracks, of course once found such a patches location is saved to GPS and returned to when the grass has dried off and lays down later in year. My initial comparison test patch for the 17 was the Placebo Patch found by the GPX6000 amongst high grass with the 11inch coil, I found the 17 could not find further gold on the bony/shallow parts of patch but higher up and lower down the slope where the soil was deeper(and grass bigger) the 17 showed its depth advantage over the 11. The 17 will probably be my go to coil for patch hunting, I still have not returned to using the GPZ7000 but can see once I`m fairly confident I`ve done these deeper soil areas with the 6K/17 combo will be time to run the Z/XCC 17 combo.

Here is a video of the GPX 6000 running a 15x10" X-coil, a test over a little nugget.

Gerry, in June you did air tests on all the detectors present at Rye Patch including the just arrived 6000. Your memory is better than mine and you are in contact with lots of detectorists so you may be able to answer the depth question for me? While in Rye Patch in June , Paul, a former student stopped in and showed a pic of a "large" nugget found 30 inches deep with his 7000. The gold pic looked to be 3/4 wide by 1 1/2 inches long and flat. I have seen lots of pics of small gold found with the 6000 because most all gold found is small of course. Just curious about depth on larger pieces if you or anyone has any info ? Failing anyone sharing info I am curious on depth of the EQ800 on say a 3/4 piece of gold since that is what I bought from you. One of your instructors said that weekend that the EQ will detect maybe 14 inches on a "large" piece? I know, I know, a lot depends on density of gold, size, position in ground, ground conditions etc. etc. Seems the 6000 is going to pick up way better on "moderate" gold than the EQ from what I observed at Rye Patch..The EQ didn't "hear" some of the 6000 targets we all saw. I'm just wondering that if I am ever fortunate to swing over a 3/4 or 1 ounce nugget what my chances are of hearing it at what depth? Know you are a buy guy....any chance, downtime you get to answer is appreciated!

Ok, so I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the GPX 6000. It got delivered lightning fast and I was really pumped up in getting it so fast. I called and booked some time at the Native American village I hunt at a lot, for this Thursday. The machine was supposed to get here on Tuesday but arrived on Saturday. I was like a little kid in a candy factory!!!! So I charge the battery a while up to 8 volts, and assemble the machine which is a breeze. What a nice looking, nice feeling unit. Even the packaging is thought out well. Here we go. Pop that battery in, hit the power button, watch the circle spin and then it happened. I get the dreaded devil symbol - 😈 "!" Exclamation point. Not the one with the coil pictured too, just a single, flashing "!" The worst symbol on the machine. Yes, I tried both coils with the same results, and I tried to do a factory reset, but you can't do it. You can't even shut the machine off with that symbol flashing, you have to remove the battery. So I think you know where this is heading... unless there is some miracle fix that they can come up with, it looks like I will be shipping this machine back to the dealer or to a Minelab repair center. It didn't even make a sound while I turned it on....silent from the beginning. I'm thinking this machine knows how hard it's going to get used during my hunts and decided to bail on me 😆 So needless to say I will be pulling out that old outdated (but EXTREMELY durable) GPX 5000 for a general hunt at the Native village. Really bummed out about this. I would think that the machine should have been tested before it got shipped. but with high demand come these types of problems. When I do get it working I'm going to run a post about how it does beach hunting in the fall and small relic hunting at the village site. With no discrimination, I may not use it anywhere else, unless I'm in the mood to dig.

If you want a hard case, I ordered this Plano 36" case ($79) and it is just barely big enough. It works as is, but I will take a little foam out of the top foam in the areas directly over the body and batteries. You could buy a larger case than this, but do not go any smaller. Packed and ready for four days detecting

In between lockdowns, work, kids footy and endless cancellations of a trip to W.A because of bl@@dy COVID have managed to get out for a few hours here and there with the GPX6. Just short trips to go over old ground where I have found gold before. Unfortunately, 'real prospecting' hasn't had any air time recently. Difficult mode is my go-to around here due to mineralised rocks that light up in Normal (do the same on the GPZ in Normal too) and also the fact that we are saturated at the moment and the red, clay soil has 'come alive'. The GPX6 is just loving the specimen type gold and is reaching depths that the Gold Monster, Equinox and SDC cannot match. Also tested about half a dozen of these signals against a mates GPZ and it couldn't hear them whilst still in the ground (and didn't check once out). As they came out... After a little smashing... Another few hours result...the big piece in this photo ended up having no gold, I think it may be galena?? And a different small spot with heaps of trash where my mate had found a 2.5 gram piece and he felt he had cleaned out an area maybe 6 metres X 6 metres. Found about another 8 targets (the rest trash) including the bigger piece which was about 1 foot or maybe a little more. Sounded like a very soft target at the top, much like a small piece of lead shot. About 5.5 grams but has gone into some acid so might be just under 5 once cleaned. Old mate had done the spot in High Yield/Normal with his GPZ but (I hope he doesn't read this) he is not the most thorough detector operator. I went over the spot again with his GPZ in General/Difficult hoping to get a decent piece that may be hiding a little deeper but got no further targets. The other little pieces were from nearby old diggings. Still loving the GPX6! 😀

Hey Guys/Gals, Well the forum is back up, wasn't sure if I got banned or the forum actually crashed .... First, Welcome back Steve, hope you had a wonderful trip. Looking forward to seeing a post or two about your adventure in Alaska. On another note, been using the Minelab GPX 6000 a bunch. Really impressed, still haven't let the GPZ 7000 go, still believe it's got it's place. Here are a couple of short videos of some of the gold we have been finding placering a dry wash. The gold is normally in pockets (normally cracks/crevices). You can shovel, rake and detect large sections with minimal nuggets, but then hit a nice hot spot. Hope you enjoy.

My 1st in the field trip review of the new GPX-6000 and what I experienced. The info of my learning, field observation, side by side comparisons, thoughts and comments are in no means the final verdict of the GPX-6000. The reason I say this, is the way my staff/I 1st started training customers on the GPZ-7000 is not how we train them today. Things could change, software downloads might come and as we spend more time in the different gold fields our knowledge goes up. I had the opportunity to hit the hills and that’s exactly what I did as I jumped into the truck and took off 1000 mile drive (one way) for some new gold fields. These were not just any gold fields but of locations and states I have never hunted Au nuggets before. I was able to spend 5 days in lush green forests in Black Hills of Dakotas and also the high rolling exposed bedrock grizzly bear country near 8000’ elevation in WY. Both of these states are on my check list of “Needs to find a Nugget” states, as I am a man who enjoys the phrase “been there – done that”. I don’t think it makes me a better nugget hunter, but I do feel it makes me more rounded and educated as a knowledgeable Gold Detector Dealer. Day one was a soaking wet ground day and I was sure the capabilities of the GPX-6000 were going to be diminished as it had rained all night long. The nearby creeks were chocolate brown in color and swiftly running to their edges, which is pretty rare the end of July. Either way, I was going to do it as I’d already drove 1000 miles, the schedule was already made and I had 2 other Dakota prospectors eager to chase Black Hills Gold with their detectors. For this story, I’ll make up names as I don’t want to expose their identities and or ruin the permissions on the lands we were granted. Common names are great for such times like this so I’ll use the names Dan & Brian. Dan was stepping up his game from a proven VLF, the Gold Bug-2.. but we all know it’s limited depth, inadequate capabilities in mineralized soils and liking of hock rocks, to a new shiny Pulse Induction GPX-6000 (yes I personally delivered all the way from Idaho). When we arrived at the site and I was shown the actual patch (quite small in size maybe 20’ x 10’), I was impressed at the location and amount of moist green vegetation around us. The surrounding mountains and area was quite different than what my mind expected and the movie series (Deadwood) I watched. The actual patch had been cleared though and we were down almost bare ground but some areas had about an inch of grass root systems. Funny how a couple pieces were actually in the roots. Dan certainly was the eager one as he scored 1st gold of us 3 and in fact, I was still trying to understand my new 6000 when I heard him holler “gold”. It was nothing big, but it was his first gold in his first 15 minutes with his first PI, a new GPX-6000. Not long after, I had my first signal and when I called Brian over with his GPZ-7000 he could not hear it. Interestingly the first 2 targets I called him over, his 7 missed though they were not gold, but actually small lead bird shots. Then my 3rd & 4th signals were small gold and still this GPZ was silent. Now we are starting to see a pattern. Another Dan nugget.- In the back ground I hear Dan yip yip like a little kid and I thought, oh my they do have 1 ounce nuggets in the Black Hills, but quickly see, not the case. It was very impressive though and weighed over a gram, which was actually his biggest gold nugget in his young Au chasing career with a detector. How his face was shining, I could see he was totally on board with his new high end PI detector, which made me feel good. Finally Brian hollers gold and I could see a nice picker of .2 gram from distance. No, it was not the area I was swinging as he wanted me to be on the exact spot of his so called cleaned out patch, so I did not get to see if the 6000 could have heard, but I’m most certain it would have. The one thing about having 2 GPX-6000’s and 1 GPZ-7000 in a 60’ area and a power line running no more and 150’ from us, it did leave the GPX-6000 needing the Noise Cancel about every 10 minutes. Once I realized this and how fast the “NC” is complete (approx 5 seconds), I had no more issues. Yes the GPX-6000 needs to have the Noise Cancel done more often then I did with my GPZ-7000, that does not make it a bad detector, it’s just the best way to handle EMI. Back to the cleaned out GPZ-7000 patch Brian put me on. So far the targets I have been finding, the signal responses are all pretty clear/loud and I was impressed how easy the 6000 was indeed outperforming the 7000 in wet saturated soil with the detector settings running NORMAL GROUND, THRESHOLD ON, and SENS at 4 – 7. After a couple more nuggets his 7000 missed, I decide to go back over the patch, but this time I adjust the settings on my GPX6000 and adjust the SENS to 10 ( Not Auto +1 ,but actual 10, which is MAX). I am not recommending newer users of this detector to go there right away, as my ears have been listening for gold targets in mineralized soils with a Minelab PI for 25+ yrs and I usually can pick out odd sounds and patterns quite easily when compared to most newer hunters. Yes the detector is much harder to understand and more noise coming from it, but a trained ear helps. With the new HOT settings and me going back over the same 20 foot square, I get a really weak iffy signal that repeats half the time. I call Brian over and his 7 does hear something, but it’s just about the same and he says he would not have stopped. Well the one thing I know is when I get in a patch, I don’t leave any odd noise undisturbed. 2” later off the top and I am most certain to dig a nugget. Another 4” deeper (now I have removed 6”) and the 7000 is still having issues, but the 6000 is easily singing the Au tune. 2 more inches deeper (total of 8” depth) and I have the little solid .3 gram nugget out of the hole, most impressive. IMPORTANT OBSERVATION - One thing I noticed when I swung the 6000 outside of the patch area and into deeper wet soils at this site. The GPX would hear saturated reddish soil pockets and the narrow pocket ones did sound like a really soft deep target. I dug a few down 4 to 6” only to have the signal disappear. After doing this a few times and even on the actual patch I was fooled, I decided to test the assumed target spot in the “DIFFICULT” Soil Timing before I dig. Wow, what a difference that made. Each time there was a target, the DIFFICULT would still hear it but when it was just ground noise, the DIFFICULT timing cleared the assumed target and response was gone. I would love to hear others observations on this as I am sure there has to be a breaking point? The afternoon ended with my GPX-6000 TRUMPing the 7000 as I scored 11 nuggets in about a 20’ area of the old 7 patch. Brian did score a few on the outskirts with his 7 and Dan also dug a couple more. The 3 detector total was around 17 Black Hills Gold Nuggets, 1 happy customer Dan and a stunned Brian with a heavy GPZ-7000. The moral of the story, Brian is now swinging a GPX-6000 and finding more Dakotas gold pickers. Dan is in heaven as at one time he was trying to justify a GPZ-7000. I accomplished part of my goal, to prove the GPX-6000 will get most folks in the US more gold in their pockets with a better user friendly, lighter and less exhausting detector. And… I was able to check off the gold nugget recovery for Dakota “been there, done that”. Later on in the trip and after Brian witnessed the extra gold I was getting from his patch with my GPX-6000, he decided one needed to be in his hands. He also realized the majority of gold nuggets the people in the USA find are smaller gold of less than a half ounce, so the GPX-6000 will do him just fine. Would you believe me if I said, I just so happened to have another new GPX-6000 with me…SOLD. Just to give him some love, we did detect another site and he was the bread winner that day scoring 3 nuggets to my ZERO. I was busy stuffing my cheeks with nice sweet wild raspberries, they were everywhere at that site. Part #2 to come when I get more time…hopefully worth the read.

Is that title click bait or what! LOL After 4 years of talking about it, Gerry finally comes to South Dakota! Yes I am "Brian" in Gerry's Part 1 post. It all started in 2018, at that time, I had been detecting for 4-5 years learning on my own along with a one-day lesson from Gary Drayton (before Oak Island) during my first year. I was well versed in book smarts and had done a bunch of research but never received formal instruction on gold detecting. See I was spoiled, my first nugget ever detecting was a ¼ ozT beauty on the first day and I thought they all were all going come like that. Nope LOL. I decided that it was time for formal instruction on metal detecting and had reached out to Gerry at Gerry’s Metal Detectors and signed up for one of his 3-day courses. Gerry’s lessons, along with his quality fellow instructors was priceless! It was during those lessons Gerry asked where everyone was from. When it came to me, I said South Dakota. I remember very vividly him saying. “Brian doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to invite me to SD because I have yet to detect gold there.” Or something like that. We all laughed but that stuck with me. A year later I called and said let’s put that trip on hold for a year as I was getting married and had a lot going on. The next year we had planned very tentatively, but Covid hit. Finally, after 4 years, the trip was established. Now, the hard part was to figure out where to put Gerry on some gold. I mean I had a hard enough time putting myself on the gold and this would be the first time I have ever invited someone to come detect. I was a little nervous that Gerry would come out on over a 2 day - 1000+ mile drive, 5-day trip and not find a thing! We all know gold is never a guarantee but, c’mon this is the first time I have ever invited someone to come out and detect and I wanted to impress somewhat. 😊 When it got closer he said that he was hopeful to have a 6k with him, and when it was a couple weeks out, we knew we would have at least one. My friend “Dan” was on the early list and Gerry would bring his out – hand delivered. Not until about Gerry being 6 hours away did he spill the beans and said he had one for me too. I was on a later list and just before he was about to leave, a shipment arrived. He knew that I would want this, even though I was acting like a doubting Thomas. I needed to put my fingers in the nail holes of Jesus’s hands to believe. I needed to see the Zed up against the 6k. Sure enough I did. Gerry explained it all in his post. 11 nuggets left behind in the first patch. Then I got to hold it and wow, Idaho Peg explains that really well in her post too LOL. It was being set free. Now like Gerry said, the ground on that patch was very saturated, wet down almost a foot. That patch is never like that, it was so humid it felt like being in FL. Very uncharacteristic. Power lines 250’ away. And he still pulled out 11 nuggets. I grided that patch 3 times with the Zed using 3 different settings for the ground I was on, ranging from a high sensitivity setting to a smoother threshold setting to a deep target setting. I was confident that that patch was worked out. Gerry uses a 6k and gets out 11 more nuggets. We ran the Zed over quite a few of Gerry’s targets with different settings and nothing. It would not have stopped me and obviously it didn’t. Would it have stopped me using the 6k, you bet. Very clear signal even through the SDC like threshold. That patch also had an SDC2300, Equinox 800 with 10 x 5 coil and a Gold Bug 2 ran over it as well, still 11 nuggets left behind. To me, seeing the GPX work in real life was what was needed for me to believe. It is hard to explain everything on a forum, but having Gerry stay with us for 5 days was in itself a 5 day personal lesson. We were able to talk freely, bounce ideas, theories, scenarios, ground conditions, you name it! It was so much fun, so informing and the most important we had a ton ‘o’ fun. I won’t tell you how my wife and I spoiled Gerry on this trip (let’s just say no one went hungry LOL), but we tried to give him the best South Dakota hospitality that we could. I wanted this to be a trip to remember and hopefully something that he would want to come back to. We took Gerry to 4 different spots overall and we had a success rate of 75% gold found. On the last day that we went detecting, I made the plunge and opted for the 6k. We went to a “new” area that that the SDC and the Gold Bug found a piece each in only 2 hrs of a recon detecting trip. By the end of a 5-hour session we had a new patch, “The Six Patch.” I added 3 more pieces as seen in Gerry’s post. Gerry I just want to say that we had a blast! It was so much fun, extremely entertaining 😉, and an overall great time! We forgot to take a group pic so you are definitely gonna need to come back! Now the rest of the story…….. So Day One on the 6k and I find gold. I am now so excited to start going over old patches and see what we missed. Well I can honestly say this--I have found gold every day I have used the 6k since owning it. Now granted it is only 6 outings, but that is 5-6 weeks of detecting for me. I have a job, I can only go out detecting on weekends and usually it is just one day on the weekend. So if I get skunked at least 4 times in a row that is a month of no gold and months are limited up here. So not only do we need to do massive amounts of research, you also better be using the best equipment you can as well and you better know how to use it properly. My Dad always told me “The poor man pays twice.” You can interpret that how you would like, but to me if you don’t get the best you’re going to end up paying for it in the end anyways (repairs, upgrades, etc.). So for me, when the 6k came out, I had to know I was making the right decision. Two reasons: 1.) I have a Zed, it is still considered the flagship detector, do I NEED a 6k or can my Zed do the job. 2.) If I want a 6k, the Zed had to go, because of my financial positioning, I must sell in order to “upgrade.” So I researched, read all I could and watched. For me though in the end, I really had to see it in person, I had to touch it, I had to use it. I mean if it was as mind blowing as the Zed was when it came out, I think it would have been a no brainer. In my research one of the things that really stood out to me was the star chart, believe it or not. Doc kind of opened my eyes to it analytically and with a combination of Nugget Heads statistics videos and seeing it in person replicating the same analytics, it was like a eureka moment. It finally made sense. See everything that Steve and JP told us about the detector was accurate, right on the money. I believed them, but doubted them as well for some reason, I needed to somehow verify this for myself. It is just my personality and I also learned some personal lessons along the way and also apologies had to be made. In the end the 6k is by far the best detector for me, it made sense to me, it works the way I want it too and it finds the gold just like it says it does. So onto Day 2 with the 6k, I go back to the patch Gerry covered, Memorial Day Patch. I grid it nice and slow, he was nice enough to leave 3 behind for me 😊. One of them was a nice 0.5g piece but I blame “Dan” and Gerry for leaving me this one. It was by a rake “Dan” had used for his Gold Bug. Nobody moved it LOL. It was hiding that nice nugget but go figure the other detectors did not hear that before the rake was there. I can’t explain it other than the 6k heard it and the others did not (matches the star chart BTW). None of the targets were super deep, about 4-5 inches. Day 3 with the 6k, I go back to Stank Patch. It was overgrown so this one will need much better covering in the fall or early spring, but in 3 hours I pulled out two pieces that I missed that again had an SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 and a Zed over. Depth on those two were at 6.” Day 4 with the 6k, I go to the E Patch. Lots of garbage at this patch so I go to the top and BOOM, hit 7 pieces to 3 pieces of garbage. This was one of our first patches. It has been hit a lot with again the SDC2300, GB2 and the GPZ. That was a fun 4 hours. Day 5 with the 6k, I go back to the E Patch. I continue down and again another 7-piece day, more garbage this time and the garbage that I am picking up are flakes of rust 12” down. 14 pieces now, it just tripled the amount of nuggets on this patch. I will let “Dan” fill in his story here LOL. Day 6 with the 6k, I go back again to the E Patch. Working a little further down found two more pieces in less than 3 hours with my wife. I love when we go together, it is such a…..joy. Just kidding. She likes to do some of the work but if you remember that video of the kid I posted a while back. Yeah it is kind of like that LOL. So here are my thoughts on the 6k: Overall I absolutely love this machine. We all know how awesome the ergonomics are. One arm, no harness, detect all day. Matter of fact I have had to relearn coil control all over again because of this being so light. I was swinging way to fast! LOL. At first I was racing all over the place, the Zed was so heavy and cumbersome that it MADE you go slow, not with the 6k. Most of the time I was running Auto+ in Normal with Threshold on. I would test my targets in Difficult and also had no problem hearing them. Only once did Normal give a signal that Difficult did not hear and it was a rust flake about a foot deep. Like Gerry noted, if you hear a signal in Normal and switch over to Difficult and there is nothing there, switch back to Normal and that signal tends to breakdown and disappear. We found this to usually be ground noise or iron rich ground pockets. I would always give these a boot scrape and double check. As of now, I play the odds. If the signal is still there when switching back to normal, I dig. If not, I move on. The cam locks I think are a huge upgrade compared to what we used to see, they have been remodeled and I crank down on them extremely hard. It is pretty hard to break carbon fiber. The shaft might flex but it does not wobble, I only notice the flex if you swing the thing like a golf club. Regarding EMI, it is there sometimes, but I “grew up” with the SDC2300 and to me the threshold/EMI is smoother. We were even detecting by power lines and when you got to about 250’ from them you had to stop. Haven’t tried the DD coil yet. Matter of fact the EMI saved me from a massive thunderstorm that hit just as I got back to the truck LOL. I only run the external speaker and usually at 1 or 2 so that might help and I also extend my coil to the max (just the way I like it), so that might help too. I did notice that if I have my phone on and sometimes my Garmin inReach that I would get some EMI, so I just turned them off completely and did not have problems after. Breaks in the threshold are very clear so you just need to “listen through” the chatter, but like I said I learned this a long time ago with the SDC. In regards to depth, I have found 0.03 g pieces with a max depth of 4 inches, a flake of rust at 12 inches. Overall the average of the pieces are 0.15 g at an overall average depth of 7 inches. I have not found a 2-foot-deep nugget yet, but never have with my Zed either. Most of all of my multi-gram nuggets were found between 6-8 inches so I have no concern about the 6k not picking them up and since I believe in the analytics of the star chart I am confident that the 6k will pick up the big deep nuggets 4 out of 5 times vs the Zed. I have no problem in that trade off vs everything else that the 6k offers. But for me here is the best thing, instant out the door detecting. Charge one battery the night before, grab your detector, pick, scoop and finds bottle and away you go. Less than 15 minutes and I am out the door. Before I had to grab a harness, grab a WM12, obviously grab the heavy detector, make sure both of them are charged, grab a bungy, make sure I have all the parts to the harness, grab a ferrite, etc. Then when I got there, I had to gear all up, no more. Out of the truck and detecting in minutes. Oh, and for the long hikes in, this is awesome as well, beats the SDC at this as well. With a small Camelbak on my back, I have my lunch and water, scoop and finds bottle. Put the pick in one hand and I collapse the detector shaft down all the way, turn the coil vertical and hold on to the detector like you are detecting. It just becomes a part of your arm then and makes hiking in way easier than carrying it the old-fashioned way. Matter of fact it is kind of off balance if you carry it the old-fashioned way. Now I do have a couple cons as with any detector: The main one being where the coil attaches to the unit, it is plastic, that seems like an easy breaking point to me. Gerry said they always used to be metal. So do take care not to grab there when grabbing the shaft at that spot. Also, it is so sensitive that it goes off really easy now on my wife’s metal hip. She used to like helping me, especially the scoop part. She can’t get close to the coil now like most of us normally would, so just keep that in mind if you have metal parts in your body. Yeah, the stupid rubber door for the headphones sucks and comes open easily if you rub on it, but thankfully, Steve showed us how we can “fix” that easy and cheap. The last con is one that I cannot really put experience on because I never had a GPX previously, but it lacks the Iron Discriminate that all the old GPX, GP and SD machines had. Talking with Gerry I can see how this would come in handy as just another tool in the box. I am crossing my fingers that it could be added as a software/firmware upgrade. I mean they are already halfway there with the Double D coil and it sure would make the coil more “useable” at least for a couple of my situations. Well there it is for me. I am completely at peace dropping the Zed for the 6k. Keep in mind though, as we always talk about, this is for my conditions, my soil and my type of gold detecting. Everyone has their own conditions, ground and style and needs to make their own decisions and be comfortable with them. Seek advice, ask questions, do your own research, come to your own conclusions. Most importantly get out there and enjoy metal detecting and finding gold. The 6k taken that for me to the next level.

Drove down Monday and met up with Chet; we wanted to try out our new 6000s on some hammered patches, just to make sure I wouldn’t have “Buyer’s Remorse” after trading in my 7000. I got there about noon, and Chet had been out hunting in the morning. He had marked two targets in the ground so I could hear them too when I got there. One was in a scrape and the other a bit outside....hmmm? Likely iron crap in this pounded area we thought. Dug them out, and he had just found his first 2 gpx6000 nuggets...beautiful character, with some intricate folds. I ended up with one that afternoon. Even though the 6000 is light with great ergonomics, my detecting arm is out of shape and my bicep was getting a bit sore. I found myself missing my bungee, hip stick, and guide arm on my 7000 setup. I also missed the clip on wireless speaker. I was using the Aventree Torus headphones that hang around your neck; they fell off a few times while digging, then when I tried to secure them, the Power button would get pressed and they would turn off. Chet’s just stopped working. Weird. So need to figure out my speaker system. One other 7000 feature I also miss is the built-in gps...so handy. So day 2 we hit several other old patches. I used a bungee and was getting more in tune with the 6000...much more comfortable with it, though my left arm didn’t know what to do! Put hand in pocket? Hook thumb on harness loop? Its motor memory wanted to be helping with a guide arm😄! By the end of 8 hours we each had found a bit more gold. Nice, but nothing over .2 or .3 gram. On the 3rd day we went back to Day 1 patch, as it was close to camp. Again, the 6000 was able to sniff out some good stuff from this patch that had been hunted by 5000s, 2300s, 7000s. By now I was in sync with my new detector. I mainly hunted in Normal, setting at 3 o’clock position with threshold. Tried the Auto+ but preferred the other, I like hearing the threshold and it was more sensitive to targets. We knew the machine was awesome at finding these smaller nuggets, and weird shaped nuggets, but we hadn’t found anything of any size yet. That changed when Chet found a gorgeous 2.5-3 grammer at about 6”! Woo Hoo!👍 So Chet was the big winner on this trip; 6.2 grams in 3 days. And they will be beautiful when cleaned up...maybe add those pics to this post Chet? I ended up with 2.4 g in 2 1/2 days. Chet attributes a lot of his success on this trip to the ease of detecting with the 6000, compared to the 7000...fewer rest breaks means more time on the gold fields. Though I really loved my 7000, I think this detector will better serve me; either hunting known worked patches or walking miles looking for new, it will do the job and be easier on my neck and shoulders/arm.

Okay I’ve been counting the number of 6000’s that have either been offered up for sale or wanting to swap for 7000’s. The ads have been on the Aussie Gumtree site and to a lesser extent, other “for sale” sections online……the total so far is about 10 (over the past month or so). It’s clearly not an ergonomic issue as the 6000 is very strong in this area…….which leaves a performance issue or maybe the hype and excitement has been a bit too much and therefore expectations too high ? Are people tired of chasing tiny sub gram nuggets at depth all day or is it something else they don’t like. Early days I know but I was curious as to what was going on. Definitely lovers of the machine as well but not unanimous 😐

Hey Guys, Here is a short video of some nuggets we dug up on the first trip out with the Minelab GPX 6000. The detector is super lightweight, extremely sensitive to small targets and probably the easiest detector to set up and get detecting! Like always, we are here to help anyone with learning how to search for gold. We encourage all questions and comments, as we have a great passion for metal detecting for gold nuggets. Wishing you all the best of success out there! Rob

A new video has popped up comparing various nuggets on the SDC, GPX 5000 and GPX 6000. Looks like they're in pretty bad soil judging by the depths they can get the nuggets at with all of the detectors. They only use the DD on the GPX 6000 for some reason.

Considering the frequent mention of EMI troubles with the GPX6000 I thought it might be interesting to make a topic specifically for it as it may provide some answers/options for users. The poll might also give us an indication of what users think may be the biggest contributing factors to EMI for their locations or GPX6's. With a little feedback and data maybe it is something Minelab can update for us? I generally don't find EMI bad on my GPX6 in the locations I use it. I was within a few kilometres of the centre of Bendigo (about 100,000 people) last weekend and was able to run in Auto 1 with only a little mess to the Threshold. At another location not far from a tower (NBN or mobile - not sure) I pretty much had to use Sensitivity 1 the whole time if I wanted to use the Mono 11" coil. BUT, this allowed a really stable threshold and performance was still fine with gold found. I actually carry my phone (iPhone) with me and have it turned on. Always in my L) pocket. I have tried turning it off and turning it off and leaving it in the car but don't feel it made any difference at all. I do find the in-built speaker creates a noisier threshold and more frequent noise cancels are required. Since having the Bluetooth receiver and using my preferred out-of-ear ear buds I have found EMI much less of an issue. Be interested to hear others thoughts and work arounds. Cheers, N.E.

I figured I'd start a post on my impressions of the 6000 as I learn how to apply it to limited relic hunting and beach hunting. I've put it here so I don't bore the prospector guys with coin/ relic hunting pictures 😄 Their pictures are much better than mine will ever be. So, today I paired the headphones. Took me a bit, but I have never been one to pair things quickly. Tried both the 11" mono and 14" DD coil in my back yard. Mono was noisy as expected in an area with a lot of close houses. Noise cancel did help but not for long. 14DD took care of most EMI, especially if you back down sensitivity a couple of notches. I tried burying a Mercury dime at 10" and the 14DD hit it just barely. A signal I could easily miss. I was running manual full sensitivity. Not bad for a freshly buried coin with fairly heavy EMI. I bought it for the beach, so I'm expecting more depth there. I did not try the mono on the dime. I did notice it hits every small wire from all the fences that were in the yard over the years. Headphones feel nice but sound a bit muddy to me. I'll need more time with them to see if I can get used to them. I like a little crisper defined tone and don't like muddy bottom end frequencies.Tomorrow I'm at the Native village. This is the first test for the 6000 for what I bought it for. If there are any minute scraps of brass there it should find them. The 5000 was able to only find a couple of 2x3mm brass beads, probably due to just getting the coil directly over them at the correct speed and them being shallow @2in. There should be more there. My reservations for the machine are still the same, lack of control of settings is my primary worry. In the fall will be the second reason for the 6000, deep coin hunting at the beach in EMI. I probably will never use this in a park or cellar hole. It loves iron. I'm still trying to figure out the tipping point where the signal changes from high to low - to low to high. On the 5000 it's around the zinc penny range. Getting excited to spend around 5-6 hours at the Village. Pictures to follow. Wish me luck 😄......😶

My 1st customer of the new GPX-6000 is a very special man. We’ll call him Wade (because that’s his name) and he drove all the way from Texas (with 1 arm) for the Rye Patch training end of June. I am so glad and grateful this guy listened to me as he was eager to get a GPZ-7000 back in Spring and wanted to take my early class. But as a conscious dealer and one who knows the GPZ-7000, I just could not see him enjoying the extra weight, the chest harness, the swing arm (it takes 2 hands/arms to use a swing arm) and or bungee. The other issue I seemed to run through my mind… was how is a one armed guy going to use a pick and dig down 2 to 3 feet on occasion to find a beer can, an empty one at that? So I called this stranger back and begged of him to reconsider his choice and told him of an up and coming new detector, the GPX-6000. Now when you have you mind set on an $8000 GPZ-7000 and some guy you don’t know is trying to sell you down to a cheaper GPX-6000, some folks just take that wrong and walk, thinking this dealer has lost his marbles – which I have lost quite a few, but I do seem to find a couple now and then. Anyway, I was more focused on the customer and their lack of knowledge of what it really takes to properly use a detector, let alone a mammoth, heavy, awkward, robust, to many shafts, to much quirky harness which xo skeleton that can’t hold together properly to save my own life if needed, cheap built headphones that the 90 degree plug breaks after you take it out of the wrapping, a semi worthless WM-12 half of us forget at home or totally lose altogether, the ultra-thin slice of baloney (that’s not even fair to baloney, I actual eat it on occasion) cheap skid plate that a quality condom has better protection, the glare off the LCD screen is so bad your favorite polarized sunglasses are worthless because you see so many waves, you get a headache. Yes you all who own a GPZ-7000 know exactly what I am talking about and you know I am not bull shitting one bit. Now to be fare those laser focused pencil sharpened Engineers and Einstein minded Physicists’ (yes Geek squad Minelab has them too), are some of the brightest at getting performance out of metal detector technology and boy does that 7000 do it well. Yes that GPZ-7000 was about to be in the 1 good hand of a stranger….all I had to do was say “yes you are right it’s the best at this time” and I would not have been lying one bit and would have scored an $8000 sale. But that’s not how this duck walks (actually I kind of do walk like duck, but that’s just crappy feet) so I felt the long term relationship with this customer and most all of mine for that matter, was to get him the proper detector for his capabilities and in reality a GPZ-7000 is not that detector. So we waited, waited some more and then waited even longer, until the day came and I was shipped a few of the GPX-6000’s. It was so long of a wait I actually had to have a Staff Member grab a couple on 6000 and boogie to Rye Patch showing up early Saturday morning just as the 2nd day of our 3 day class was about to begin. So lets get back to 1 armed Wade the Warrior and his new GPX-6000. Yes he was easily able to swing the detector and before long his coil control was smooth, slow and low, just like an Easy Rider… Warrior Wade was starting to get the hang of it and by afternoon of the 1st day him swinging the GPX-6000 he is digging targets. Just the 3rd target in of that afternoon and it turns to gold. Warrior Wade is swinging his arm in air and smiling as a kid does when tasting his favorite sour gummy bears, with a golden grin. After all, this guy drives 30 hours up the US to meet some guys in the middle of the desert and pick up a gold detector. After all what kind of people are we? Yes it’s the fever and many of us have it. Anyway, I was very impressed with Warrior Wade from TX and his desire to listen, learn and like…his new GPX-6000 and the 2 nuggets he recovered. So the moral of this story is: Even a 1 armed Warrior Wade who drove all the way from TX., can properly use a GPX-6000, can diligently dig his own target and willingly share his trip and experience of finding his first detected gold nuggets for the rest of his life and he had a couple more dreams come true. Yes the 6000 is that easy, light and usable. Minelab Geek Squad did it again.

Yes I promised myself the old reliable GPZ-7000 was such a performance hog I would swing her until the end. Well folks, the 7 and I are about to split the sheets and I'll let her beat up on some other old guy. Sure she touched down in places I didn't know existed and had the sensitivity to blow my mind, but after a long workout with her, my pore old body ached for days. This new GPX-6000 (I promise you in the US) will rule the goldfields for a few years. The ergonomics on a PI is 2nd to none. The weight is not 2 ounces lighter than a 7000, but over 2 pounds lighter. But the compactness, the feel and lack of a harness and swing arm makes me feel naked again and I LOVE IT.. In fact, I might even take this sweetie to Burning Man (for those down under go to YouTube and watch a few Burning Man videos, watch out there might be A LOT OF NUDITY and some really weird shit. Anyway, this detector is the one we (most of us) have been asking for and patiently waiting for. After all, check out the pics and see for yourself. The GPZ-7000 in the pic is as short as I can get it and the new GPX-6000 is half as long. I even took a pic of my forearm next to the GPX-6000 and it literally i only a few inches longer, approx 30" with the coil flat out. It can get shorter if you lift the coil straight up but I imagine most of us will have the coil flat. The reports from my customers and 2 staff members are exactly what we heard as for performance and I am thrilled. I'm so excited, heck I'm even going to grab one and take it for a hunt to 2 different states I have never hunted for gold before in my life, just so I can say I found gold in those two. I won't mention the states right yet, but you'll hear about it and probably some pics of gold to share and show. Those of you at the Rye Patch NV training end of June, we had last month were able to see 2 of them in action and I even noticed a couple folks grab them just so they could find a nugget or 2. I'm not promising everyone will find gold, but from a guy who has been hunting and training at Rye Patch NV for 25 yrs, I sure know when something comes along that just turns the "gold switch" back on. I seriously think I could go there right now and find 10 to 20 nuggets a day, probably average 15 in a 3 day hunt. Now I know they may not be big gold nuggets, but when was the last time you went there and found 10 in a day? Last fall I took the GPZ-7000 to RP and had 2 days of 7 each day, and I know I'll do better and find more this time. Now here is the funny thing though. I personally really don't care about the better performance on most gold and that's a fact for me. I care most about the new design, compactness, ease of use and less wear to my body. Yes folks, I got caught cheating and I really don't care. I'll be swinging a new girl on the dance floor and she's one hell of a looker. Yes the GPX-6000 is a serious game changer and please do not wait a year or two before you decide to get one, I promise anyone swinging a GPX-5000, an SDC-2300 and most certainly the GPZ-7000 will really enjoy this new GPX-6000.

Approximately 12 to 14 hours swing time with the 6000 due to the heat.

When will GPX 6000 17” Mono Coils be available? Will Minelab produce any other coils for the GPX 6000? Smaller Mono and Double D elliptical coils would be useful in gullies and brush. Minelab may again do a disservice to both their dealers and customers by preventing other coil builders from providing competitively priced custom coils for the GPX 6000. While at the same time they may again not provide additional Minelab coils that are desired by customers. Short time materials shortages or small ID-chip shortages may not be a valid excuse for not having relativity small numbers of coils to be manufactured by Minelab subcontractors. Minelab should provide the dealers and customers a reasonable path ahead for additional coils. If they don’t have a clear and timely path within the company then they should open the door for competitive coil manufactures to produce them. The fastest and most cost effective way to do this would be for Minelab to patch the software to not test for an ID chip within the coil. Instead only test for an existing Double D receive coil winding. If the Double D receive winding is not detected then it is a Mono coil. This software patch would allow coil manufactures to go into production quickly without additional wiring, ID-chip programming and testing and associated electronic equipment. This would also reduce production cost and reduce final cost to dealers and customers.

Day one... I headed to the hills this morning to beat the heat and log a few hours behind the control pod of Minelabs' latest offering, the exciting new GPX 6000. Hiking up and down the hills with this featherweight P.I. nugget detector is pure bliss after lugging the GPZ 7000 around for the past 6 years...has it been so long?! Armed with the 11-inch GPX mono coil, I targeted an old nugget patch that I had carefully gridded many times in the past with several detectors, including the GPX-5000, Gold Monster and GPZ 7000. With nearby power lines, operating at a Manual Sensitivity of 10 or Auto+ proved a bit too chattery and required excessive Noise Cancel delays that became rather irksome after awhile. Backing the Sensitivity to 7 smoothed things out considerably without any noticeable loss of performance, and if I got an iffy target response, a quick jump to 10 would provide a definitive yes or no. After digging a few trash targets, the first “nugget” that the GPX 6000 hit was a 0.04 of a gram surface screamer, and the next couple of nuggets were small and shallow; nothing surprising. But how did the Gold Monster miss these? Must not have got that little 5-inch Monster coil directly over them.🤔 It was the next 3 targets that really blew my mind, however... By late afternoon, the temps were soaring into the mid-90's, and despite a nice breeze, it was becoming a tad uncomfortable, and I was thinking about calling it a day. That was when the GPX 6000 sounded off with a sweet, mellow and deep sounding target response. A few scrapes with the pick exposed the underlying bedrock, and somewhere - in a crevice, no doubt - a golden treasure awaited to be uncovered...or so I hoped...could just as easily be a bit of square nail, a bullet or boot tack.😒 Blasting a few inches into the bedrock with the pick got the target out - a nice little golden picker in the scoop. 🙂 After backfilling the dig hole, just one swing of the detector revealed another soft, mellow hit a mere foot away. Same scenario: a small golden goody a few inches deep in a bedrock crevice. Then, about another 4 feet away, a faint response. Quickly jacking the Sensitivity from 7 to 10 brightened the signal a bit, so I began digging about 6 inches through a layer of gravels before hitting bedrock and a rather thick tree root. A little more pick work and pinpointing with the edge of the coil located the target in a crevice right next to the root. This one was deep; nearing the 12-inch mark, the target was finally out, and it was screaming off of the coil edge! A quick sift with the scoop uncovered a hefty 1.34 gram nugget. How the GPZ 7000 missed this beauty, I'll never know...it's a head scratcher.😅 Time to call it quits for the day on that high note, for sure! I'll be at it again tomorrow, this time with the GPX 14 DD coil in EMI Cancel Mode; should be able to run flat out in Auto+ Sensitivity with the threshold as smooth as glass.