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  1. Another Treasure Talk blog I wrote was just posted on the Minelab website at Scrape and Detect – with the SDC 2300 The Minelab SDC 2300 is a remarkable metal detector, and more people are finally realizing it. The SDC 2300 has exceptional sensitivity to very small gold and even larger gold that other pulse induction detectors have difficulty with. Porous specimen gold is being found that is surprisingly large in mass but which due to the spongy nature of the gold has been missed by other detectors. The SDC 2300 small gold capability rivals the best VLF detectors and exceeds their capability in highly mineralized ground. It is useful therefore to steal a page from the VLF playbook when it comes to detecting for small gold. The very first thing many people will find that have used other pulse induction detectors is that a nugget cup or scoop is a genuinely useful thing to have when running and SDC 2300. Some of the gold found is so small that is cannot be detected by grabbing a handful of soil and waving it over the coil. The tiniest stuff is often found by scrubbing the ground and the smallest gold signals come from gold that is nearly touching the coil. Simply holding the soil in your hand keeps the gold too far from the coil to locate it. A plastic cup or stout plastic scoop allows you to shake the material to get it right to the bottom of the scoop, which can then be run over the coil. I let the scoop touch the top of the coil to get the gold as close as possible, and it helps to locate the hot spots around the edge of the coil when dealing with the tiniest bits. It is this ability to hit very tiny gold but only at very short ranges that I want to discuss here. There are huge volumes of gold that can be detected by the SDC 2300 but at only a few inches at best. This means the SDC 2300 can be used to effectively work dry placer deposits of gold by carefully scraping and detecting them. Before I go any further I want to point out that the method I am about to describe can mean moving large volumes of soil. Even working by hand the cumulative effect can be large and falls into the realm of regulated mining methods. In the United States the term used is “significant surface disturbance” and no doubt similar issues arise in Australia and elsewhere. All I can say is be sure to always minimize the surface disturbance with proper reclamation methods including backfilling holes and redistributing topsoil. Be sure to observe all applicable regulations and have any required permits. Now, with that out of the way let’s get on with the fun! Whether by hand or with the aid of equipment the process is the same. It can be used in any dry placer location whether it is a patch on flat terrain or on a hillside, or a dry placer in a gully. First, have a plan. Decide where to start and where the material will go. The goal is to move the material as little as possible and if possible to reclaim the ground as you go. The simplest scenario is the one I undertake most often – working a hillside location or a gully. I always try to locate the lowest location that has gold, then work forward and uphill. Material is worked in strips or patches, with each successive area pulled into the previous location worked. That way the ground reclaimed as you go. In the simplest form I use a pick and a hoe or heavy duty rake. Material is loosened with the pick, then carefully raked and spread downhill. If you are dealing with very small gold that the SDC can detect at no more than two inches, and then the material must be worked about two inches at a time. Loose rock and rubble is raked into the previously worked excavation. The SDC 2300 is used to carefully detect exposed material, then the fines raked into the rubble pile. With careful methodical work a pick, rake, and SDC 2300 can substitute for a dry washer or other recovery method and leave very little gold behind. The goal at all times is to make sure every bit of material passes within an inch or two under the coil. There certainly are situations where the dry washer or other method makes more sense. But for somebody who wants to keep the gear and the backpacking to a minimum the “scrape and detect” method is a 21st century twist on older hand mining methods. If done properly dry placers can be worked with fairly high recovery rates and with minimal ground disturbance. You will also discover you find a lot of larger gold that was hidden under large rocks or just too deep to detect before. Good luck!
  2. So I have had two very experienced older prospectors tell me that they don't like the 2300 because the threshold warbles. In other words it is not stable. It does not really matter which setting you use it still has a slight warble to it. Since I am new to prospecting I just kinda figured this was normal for the Minelab PI's They tell me that their 4500 and 5000 have a nice stable threshold which allows them to hear the faint signal's better. Therefore they don't have to use as much gray matter trying to figure out a target. I have sometimes wondered if I am missing small pieces of gold because of this. But then again I have found some very small pieces with the 2300. So my question is....is this normal for the SDC 2300 or is something wrong with both of my machines? I'm guessing normal. A few nuggets found during the last couple weeks. Biggest is .52 grams strick
  3. I seem to be having a little trouble in pinpointing my targets. With the GPX 5000 I am spot on in getting the target in my scoop. With the 2300 I seem to be going a little right of where I think the target is. I eventually get the target, but am wasting time in my retrieval . It is a numbers game and it needs improvement. Anyone else having these issues? Or am I the only special one. LOL
  4. Has anyone else notice that if you leave your cell phone in your front pocket that the SDC will false when you swing the coil over to the left---- i couldn't figure it out one day and thought it was that dang pinpointer---but then i remember the deal about not keeping your coil level with the ground on the end of a swing----and remembered that will cause one to make a blurb,,,, Anyway, i finally figured out that when the SDC came across my body and the detector touched my front pocket where the phone was that i was getting a little interference---it was killing me because it was repeatable noise -- AS soon as i moved the phone it quit.... just in case any of you are dumb enough to hunt with your phone on --- paul maybe i should get my shovel back out......
  5. Hi Steve, I am very new at metal detecting and have been wanting a gpx 5000 since they came out. Go to buy one and there is a new kid on the block. I'm Planning on detecting old mine sites and tailings in Virginia. Price is not an issue, but I cannot afford two, I really like the folding up to backpack size and waterproof sdc 2300, but still want to buy the best detector for what I am doing. I have read all your articles and thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I have only used a very cheap Tesoro and would value your opinion as to purchasing a sdc 2300 for simplicity or Gpx 5000 and learning all the different settings. I know you said if you only had 1 detector it would be a gpx 5000 and am leaning towards that. Thank you for your time.
  6. The place I've been river prospecting recently is only showing me very small flakes of gold (so far). They are so small in fact that even the SDC can't pick them up. Yesterday my Garret Pro Pointer arrived and that also sees nothing when I pass it across the vials. Even some of the quite big flakes that I found a while ago in Scotland. So I got to wondering, what is the minimum flake/nugget size that can be detected? Could anyone with an SDC (or even a Pro Pointer) post and tell me their results? Thank you!
  7. Wow Minelab SDC2300 It makes you really want one. Ivan
  8. I just purchased a SDC 2300 and own a GPX 5000. Have not taken the sdc 2300 out yet due to snow and work. But was wondering how many detectorists here go detecting on salt? Lakes, Beaches or Ocean area's? Do you have any success ? I never seem to ever hear of anyone finding gold in these area's. But Minelab makes settings for them.
  9. The folks Downunder are busy with the SDC-2300. Keep up with it here http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t20312-coil-size-used-on-gpx-before-the-2300-cleaned-up-old-patches#193870 For my part, I have a call in to ML in Chicago. Mine is falsing over green plants and there is the small matter of gross stupidity - MINE. REMEMBER MY BRILLIANT IDEA ABOUT PROTECTING THE BOTTOM WITH gorilla Tape. Worked great - when I peeled it off, off came the clever anti-counterfiet sticker on the bottom. After spending 20 minutes seperating it from the tape - I stuck ot back on. Hurray, except now - through the magic of holograms or something - it reads VOID - about ten times. Guess the FBI will be knocking soon!!!
  10. First off, thanks for the add to the forum Steve and secondly i wanna express my thanks for your willingness to do real world tests of all these detectors--that's what means the most to me...how they react on the same undisturbed target. I am looking forward to the comparisons. If you get tired of your FrankenATX i wanna be the first to have a shot at buying it--i love the idea of the weight loss program you have it on. I may have one question---what is your normal set up of the 2300 here in NV?--- [Mine is not as quiet as I expected, of course i run it on 5 sensitivity if i can get away with it and about 2 on the threshold---it almost reminds me of the 2200v2 i had...a little warbly.....I am afraid to run it on the lower sensitivity settings because i am afraid i lose too much depth]--- What say you? Chris you can chime in too--or anyone else for that matter---- i really like his forum---it is educational for me...
  11. It's well known that the SDC is finding a lot of small gold, but the truth is that it can also be used to find some larger types of specimen gold where the SDC also has an advantage over other detectors, because the response of wiry, porous gold is much like that of small gold even when the overall amount of gold is fairly large. Metal detectors work by seeing the eddy currents created by a magnetic field coming out of the detector’s coil. The eddy currents which are created in porous, mossy or wiry pieces of gold decay and disappear much more quickly than those which are created in solid pieces of gold of the same weight. This type of specimen gold behaves much more like a very small nugget even though the amount of gold contained within the specimen is good sized. The new MPF technology found in the SDC 2300 allows it to begin searching for eddy currents much more quickly than previous pulse induction detectors. This accounts for its ability to find smaller gold, but also allows the SDC 2300 to be very hot on specimen gold, and that is why I am making this post. If you want to find larger pieces of gold with your SDC 2300 that have been missed by others or could not have been detected with previous detectors, you need to be looking in places where specimen gold abounds or the gold is of the mossy, prickly, porous or wiry variety. So the next time you are thinking about where to prospect with your SDC 2300, remember that if you choose places rich in specimen gold you may be finding some very nice specimens with your detector. These nuggets were all iron stained ugly specimens a few weeks back but spent a lot of time soaking in acid. The larger nugget I found a few weeks back - plus a few more found a couple weeks before that. The small one below the bigger one is from California, the others are from Nevada. Biggest piece is 0.57 ounces, total is 0.9 ounces.
  12. I'm currently trying to find something like that black ATX bag for my SDC 2300. Really a bit miffed that having paid so much for it, it doesn't even come with a bag to protect it. Don't need a hard case (Pelican make some very good ones if anyone is interested), just a durable bag to stop it getting scratched while I'm carrying it in the back pack. Think I may have found one designed for a Midi controller that would do the job. Just have to double check the sizes.
  13. I went back to the deep canyon this morning. I found 2 that I missed the other day. It seems peculiar that I found 4 quality nuggets in there with a total weight of over 1/4 oz, but nothing deeper that about 8 inches. The canyon is all bedrock with overburden ranging from 0 to about 2 ft. I covered just shy of 2 miles of this good looking ground and obviously had decent success, but just wondering what I might be missing. I found no nuggets on the margins of the wash, everything would have been right in moving water during heavy rain runoff. Today's fatboy was smack in the middle of the wash, but found a hidey hole in jagged bedrock. Perhaps when that new Minelab Super detector comes around, this spot will give up its secrets. Today's take, 3.3, and .4 grams.
  14. I witnessed first hand the power of the SDC Detector on small gold. The SDC 2300 has has amazing sensitivity. Its true what they say about its ability to find small gold. I compared targets with my GP3500 and the SDC and to my surprise the SDC out performed on the small gold. I just want to say I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes. Simply amazing.
  15. Hey Steve, How would you like to follow behind Glenn with the SDC? I got out for a few hrs and dug a bunch of bird shot, but found this guy in a spot that screams gold. A bedrock bench with a foot of overburden. Based on the birdshot, I doubt it was ever detected. I need to pull off that overburden and give her another go. 3 grams, we're getting there.
  16. I went out to a new old spot from last year. I had taken a few pickers off an old bench with shallow bedrock using the Gold Bug II. The overburden is 8 to 10 inches with decomposing schist bedrock. The bedrock was almost too hot for the GBII, hard to separate the tones. I had raked down the overburden and went over it with the GPX 4000 with 16 inch NF round mono, no joy. I went back yesterday with the SDC and immediately got a faint tone. The bigger of the nuggets was right in that decomposed bedrock. With no more signals, I again pulled down the overburden as best I could with my short handled pick. Got another faint tone 8 inches from the first nugget. I opened up the hole and the signal just wouldn't improve. I kept opening the hole thinking the target must be in the side of the hole. Still no luck and the target just wouldn't improve. In frustration I used the pick to bust up the bedrock and pulled the whole mess out. Bang, now the target was blowing my ears off in the dig pile. That was the long looking nugget. I waved over the hole and got another faint tone. Same issue, I couldn't get the tone to improve until I got it out of the hole. My assumption is that the hot bedrock is somehow diffusing the quality of the signal, even when I'm right on the target. Once out of the hole, they sounded off like the quality of nuggets they are. 3.5 grams total. They must be fairly porous, awfully light for their overall size.
  17. There is clear evidence that the SDC-2300 presents a new capability when it comes to finding small and specimen gold. However, given it's 8" coil and preference for slow sweep, it can't cover acres at a time. Since I'll be getting one soon, I'd appreciate it if everyone would kindly send me GPS coordinates for all their "worked out" patches. i would especially appreciate ones with high mineralization or EMI. OF COURSE i will give you full credit for putting me on to all that small and specimen gold which was undetectible with PI detectors or un "hearable" because of limitation of VLF machines. Sorry for the foolish tone of the above, but I for one will be scouring the forum archives for clues as to where gold has been found under circumstances which lend themselves to "clean up" by the SDC. After all, they say you should never "leave gold to find gold". Edit Note: I re-read this post and realized that the last paragraph basically said that I was going to figure out exactly where some forum members had found gold. Not so. What I am going to do is try and figure out (mostly from older posts on other forums) areas where a combination of mineralization, small gold size and maybe features like powerlines have made it likely that previously well known productive patches are candidates for what Steve has called the "patch vacuum".
  18. When I was big in coin hunting most of the time I used a small coil. One reason was you had less trash under the coil and the ID work better. Another reason that small coil would detect the very small coin are gold ring. I knew I loss depth but I'd come back with the large coil to punch down deeper. We all know a small coil will detect the very small and it will detect something larger if in the ranger of the coil. The small and large coil has a limit in relation to the power of the detector. I can take the GPX 5000 and put a small coil to detect the small gold. Now I got the small coil with the power of the GPX. Then I can pull it off and go with the big one for the depth but loose the very small gold. Remember small coil small gold and large coil will detect some small gold with more depth over all. The SDC 2300 has shown it's hot for the very small gold and it's going to detect other gold in the range of that 8 inch coil. This detector has to have the power but is limited by the size of the coil on depth. Again it's small coil small gold and in the case of the SDC very small gold. My thinking on the SDC 2300 is only limited by it's coil.Now if I could change out the coil for a larger one could it be near the GPX 5000. I think Minelab has a detector in the SDC 2300 that is so near being a GPX 5000. In having the coil on the SDC 2300 hard wired will keep the sales up on for both. detectors. Oh if I could only put another coil on the SDC 2300. Then I just may save me two thousand dollars buying the SDC. but right now Minelab will keep us in the dark on this subject. Here we are with a GPX that I can get a small coil to detect the very small gold. It's not a lot of trouble to change from one coil to another. I can get a lower shaft for the smaller coil and that's makes it less trouble Oh the SDC is new it's blue and I fell in love with this new blue toy. Ha I can't blame you if you go get a SDC 2300. What's not to love in a new blue toy and waterproof. Chuck Anders PS I'm sorry to repeat myself at times. That's the way life is after you go over a few hills. HaHa
  19. Ok, so what about SDC 2300 for beach hunting? I can't find anything about that... this is weird. Any videos, reviews just nothing. How to compare ATX to SDC 2300 in salt conditions. Steve could you help with this?
  20. I was out hunting some dredge tailings yesterday and did some testing with the SDC 2300 and the Gold Bug Pro on some specimens. I tested a variety of pieces but the one that is most interesting is in the pic below. I previous tested this with the GPX 5000 with standard 11” mono and it registered only very slightly when touching it to the coil. The GB pro with the 6x9 coil in all metal mode will easily pick this up at 8”-9” in an air test. The SDC in an air test was slightly less at 7”-8”. I then put this at the bottom of an 8” hole without covering it up and retested. No change on the SDC but the GB was now barely able to pick it up. After filling the hole the SDC still had no problem but I couldn’t pick it up at all with the GB. Further testing determined that the GB would pick this up at only about 4”-5” when buried. I actually found this specimen about 4” below the bottom of an 8”-10” hole where I dug out a large square nail. Other observations were that on the buried test the GB was only slightly deeper in all metal than in disc. mode but the target response area is far greater in all metal. In all metal I tested with the machine ground balanced neutral and with ground balance at + 10 and – 10 on the GB screen. Also if I put one of the numerous hot rocks from the tailings over the specimen it almost completely masked it. After this test I carefully covered over a 15’x20’ area with both detectors from 2 directions and marked all targets. I got 7 targets with the GB and 9 with the SDC. The 7 with the GB were all seen by the SDC but the GB could not see the other 2 SDC targets. 6 were square nails and one was a small piece of tin. The 2 the SDC saw that the GB did not were a small (about ½”) tip of a rusty square nail at 4” and the item in pic 2 below at a about 6 1/2 inches. Not certain what this item is. Looks like some kind of melted metal possibly solder. It reads on the GB screen about the same as gold or lead but too hard to be lead. This screamed on the SDC and once out of the ground hits very hard on the GB also. I reburied it at about the same depth and the GB hit it fine. It seems that there are certain situations or rocks that mask targets from the GB. Last observations are that the GB seems much more sensitive to iron targets than the SDC. The deeper nails were stronger signals on the GB but on the specimen in the pic and some heavier gold specimens I tested the SDC clearly had significantly more depth in the ground (at least 25% - 30%). Bottom line the SDC will clearly potentially find more specimens than the GB in tailings if you have the patience to dig every target but with the amount of trash in the area I was hunting it would be difficult to have the discipline to dig all targets. I have gone out many times with the intention of digging everything but after 3-4 hours of digging junk ever couple of feet I usually fall back to using the Disc. to try to determine if its trash. Given the random distribution of specimens in the tailings this is most likely gives the best overall odds but that being said I have found a couple of nice pieces that in ground read and sound just like nails on the GB pro (Target id only in the high 20’s in disc. and 3 or more bars on the iron indicator in all metal. Once out of the ground or reburied they read in the normal 48 to high 50’s range in disc and 0-1 bar on the iron scale in all metal.) I am trying to video as many digs as possible to try to catch one of these to post showing the sounds and readings. It would be great to get some of the groups opinions on the reason for this.
  21. Last week Steve and I got out to a spot in Northern Nevada that is known for spongy specimen gold. This is the type most PI detectors have some difficulty with because the gold is not solid or well connected - its almost like a delicate jewelry chain formed into a ball. Stuff that is sparse enough in gold content can even be invisible to a PI. However, this is the kind of gold the SDC does really well with - and it doesn't have to be tiny gold either - some spongy, loose, hard to find specimen type gold even in larger sizes can show up poorly on many PI detectors. This is the first time I've had my SDC 2300 out specifically for specimen type gold (though I have found some specimen stuff with it). So I hunted this spot with my SDC 2300 which has been gone over time and time again with the GPX 5000, as well as high frequency VLFs like the GMT and the Fisher Gold Bug 2. I am guessing I was the first one here with an SDC. There were no trash targets at all because it had been so pounded, but right in the middle of the patch were these two specimens, both of spongy specimen gold. Both were about 6 inches deep. Total weight for the two is five pennyweight or a quarter ounce. Tested one of them on a TDI and it only responded weakly when touching the coil. The SDC has really done well for me this year - and has much more than paid for itself. Steve got some pieces of this spongy specimen gold on the same trip with his SDC as well.
  22. I'm loving the performance on small gold below .3 gram of the new SDC 2300. So doing a bit of testing vs the ATX I got the ATX performing a bit closer to the SDC2300 performance on this small gold. Tested in the video is a .25 gram nugget. The dirt in the video will stick to my magnet on my digging pick. Check out the video to see what I did... Bonus video... How to use the Minelab SDC 2300 as a meat slicer:
  23. When ground balancing with my previous metal detectors I am used to hearing the change in pitch of the threshold as the metal detector is being raised and lowered. With my SDC it barely makes any noise at all when ground balancing. Is there something wrong with my machine or is this normal for this unit? Chuck Strickland
  24. After leaving the skunkfest at Sawtooth I decided to detour on my way home and hit some old ground where I knew some small gold existed. Don't get me wrong, Sawtooth was a great outing with a great bunch of people, but except for one really nice nugget, the gold was pretty scarce. So, I drove to Riverside, CA where an old friend always has a spare room and a jaccuzi. I soaked my aching bones and tried to wash off the skunk, downed a few glasses of Cab. and got a decent nights sleep in a bed, not a camp cot. Yesterday I drove out to a zone near Palm Springs where Kaiser steel once mined iron ore. I got an early start knowing I had over an hour hike to the spot I wanted to try. The spot consists of a small ridge where the old timers had drywashed 2 small gullies. Bedrock on the ridge face is less than 8 inches. I had found a few nuggets in the past with the GPX, nothing over 1 gram, but the ironstone just plays hell with the GPX, especially when looking for small gold. Whisper targets are out of the question. Some of the golf ball sized ironstones are super dense and make a swinging a coil a hearing buster. The softball sized pieces are like swinging over a horse shoe and the GPX will find them real deep. I hiked in the long way much to my dismay later in the day. The temps were in the mid to high 80's and I miscalculated on my water supply. I had 3 1 ltr bottles, and drank the first one on the way in. I got to the tailings and within minutes had 3 small flakes of gold, right out of the tailings. I worked the entire hillside trying to find bigger pieces and clusters, but it wasn't to be. The SDC was a dream in that ironstone. It growled and groaned on probably 60 percent of the ironstones, but gold signals came through loud and clear with obvious dig me tones. The biggest piece of gold was just shy of 2 grams and blasted through with the low/high tone. I dug a fair amount of really dense ironstone, but the SDC purred along for the most part. I hunted that spot for about 2 hours and came away with 16 pieces for about 5 grams. I spent too much time searching the barren parts of the hillside instead of concentrating on a 30 meter zone that produced 90 percent of the gold. I ignored most of the faint threshold warbles because of the ironstone and only dug solid signals. I was short of time because of the my water situation and had to call it day after about 2 hours of detecting. My hike back was brutal. Hottest part of the day and my water reached the critical. I had abut 4 inches of water left in the last bottle and had to take a small sip and hold the water in my mouth to overcome the dry tongue and mouth sensation. I tried to take a shortcut and naturally missed the mark because of a sheer rock face. Thankfully, I had a cooler full of cold water and beer and that's all I could think of as I trudged around the rock face obstacle. Man, was I glad to see that truck in the distance and polished off the last of my water. I should have stayed another day, but my heart just wasn't in it after that hot, dry hike.
  25. As I understand it, the headphone jack is unique to this detector and is not compatible with your favorite aftermarket dry land headphones. Is there a solution, headphone jack conversion for standard 1/4" jack headphones?
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