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I figured I'd contact Nugget Finder to see what's going on with the other GPX 6000 coils, I quite like my Xceed 12x7" so intend to buy the 8x6" also, I think it'd be a weapon on the 6000. So, to save anyone else wasting Rohan's time replying to endless emails about when the coils will be available, I thought I'd post it here. This was his reply. Hi Simon Releasing the 16x10 is our priority at this stage, I don’t expect to have the 8x6 ready for sale until sometime in 2024. I understand these delays may be frustrating and I appreciate your patience. Regards Rohan Perhaps that means the 16x10" may be released this year, but the little guy is a fair while off yet, a shame as spring/summer (now) is when I do most of my detecting so I'll miss out this season. I'll stick to my GPZ and 8" X-Coil for the most powerful small coil detector for now.

hi , i need to know the data of this mosfet and help me to bot it on ma gpx 5000 dosn`t work thanks .

I've had this coil for a couple of months now but hadn't got around to using it until today. JW asked if I wanted to go for a detect this afternoon, I was having a day off skiing as the weather wasn't going to be all that great so it worked out well, perfect time to test out the coil. JW also has the coil, he's used it a bit recently at this spot but not overly had any success with it, in saying that it's going over ground that's been done by the GPZ and X-coils along with the 6000 and 11" and I've had my 6000 and Coiltek 10x5" there a few times too so it's a big ask to do well. We discussed his experience with the his 12x7" on the drive to the spot, he's found his is a bit bump sensitive and doesn't have edge sensitivity with small targets, I was a bit worried at this point I'd wasted my money buying one. This time he took his GM1000 and GPZ and 15"CC and I took my 6000 with the 12x7" NF. JW started off using the GM and popped up a tiny nugget pretty quickly, he brought it over to me and put it down on a rock and we ran my coil over it to see if it behaves any different to his, and nope, edge sensitivity is non-existent on small targets, mine is the same. The area of the coil outside of the red line marked with the X is completely dead on very small targets, the target needs to get beyond the windings to the inner area of the coil to respond. I maybe a bit generous with my red line as it seemed with the nose of the coil the gold was under the sticker before it would respond. This is a bit of a typical spiral coil thing, my 14x9" NF EVO was where I first experienced this with the centre of the coil being the most sensitive area, but I was a little surprised as I hadn't noticed the same on the stock 11" nor the Coiltek 10x5", I'll have to check that now but it means it's not an ideal coil for rocky areas for me with no edge sensitivity on small gold. Throughout the afternoon finding shot pellets I was able to verify this and indeed the edge lacks sensitivity. Tilting the coil on edge to locate tiny targets just can't work like it does with a bundle mono on the older GPX series. It's not the end of the world but something to be aware of, especially for those that hunt tiny targets. Now with the negative out of the way the coil behaved brilliantly, absolutely no bump sensitivity like JW is experiencing with his, I made sure of that by being quite aggressive with it on rocky areas and I ran in normal with maximum sensitivity all afternoon and it was fine except when really close to the power lines where I dropped down to about half sensitivity but didn't need to if I wanted to put up with a bit more instability. In both below videos I was in maximum sensitivity even though I was near powerlines. I think it did very well with hot rocks, I only encountered one hot rock all day, quite unusual for this area as it has a lot of them but it had me going, such a faint target from the surface, I dug down and the target was well below the depth I'd expect to find a pellet and still a faint signal so I was hoping it was a little nugget, but after messing around trying to find it for some time it turned out a small hot rock, the size of a reasonable sized coin. Damn! I thought it was going to be my first bit of Xceed gold. I don't use auto or auto +, I don't believe that auto+ can give higher sensitivity than maximum manual like has been said, if anyone would experience that it would be me in my very mild soils but I've never once found auto+ to be more sensitive than manual, the same was said about the GM 1000, I find it not correct, manual is always more sensitive. The NF appears to like pellets, responds nicely on them, near surface tiny targets give a great signal. The pellet to the right is a #9 bird shot, the pellet on the left was the smallest size I was finding, pretty small and a great response on them, I'm confident it will find smaller if there. Here was my first nugget of the afternoon, it was on a bit of a cliff ledge I climbed down onto hoping I was the first to ever detect it, turns out I probably was, pretty easy target, quite a small bit but had a good response The rest of the afternoon consisted of trying to find other ground I personally hadn't detected before while also trying to think of spots others are less likely to have been over before too, detecting the hard to get to spots basically, and lifting and flipping big rocks over to check under them, areas others had yet detected seeing it's such a hard-hit spot. Then, after some time and no success I ventured down onto a little cliff ledge that I found a couple of nuggets with my Coiltek 10x5" when I first got it, figured I may as well try that spot again as I don't think anyone else had detected it so I climbed down and starting going at it, I found 2 pellets down there which was a surprise as I surely would have dug them previously with the 10x5" and the 8" X-coil on the GPZ that have both been there, I doubt they were new but always possible I guess, they were just near surface targets. Then I hit a big boomer of a target, I couldn't remember ignoring any targets here but I must have and I do tend to get lazy with boomer signals especially if I'm tired from the heat in summer, today being winter I was full of beans and ready to dig it all, even my Equinox would have found this one with ease though so I'm pretty confident I was lazy the other times and ignored it, silly me. Quite a meaty bit. I decided I'd keep checking out this ledge after that, and nothing more, I even climbed down lower and risked being stabbed to death by the thorned plants to reach another bit lower down but unfortunately the only target turned out junk, I was able to benefit from the discrimination on my Sphinx 03 pinpointer to not have to keep battling the rocks and recovering this target, it told me it was ferrous so I passed. I used the Sphinx to help recover the previous two gold nuggets and a heap of pellets and its discrimination was accurate, always a green light on the gold and lead pellets and a red light on the junk. For those interested, the Sphinx worked perfectly with the GPX, I noticed no issues at all having it on my belt with its holster and liked it turned itself on when I removed it from the holster and off again when I put it back in, no need to press any buttons. At the start of the afternoon, I did notice I needed to do a noise cancel with it turned on and the GPX sounded like a Police Siren every time I turned the Sphinx on, once noise cancelled with it turned on it was all good. Now the weather was starting to turn and JW's head popped out over the top of the ledge I was on seeing how I've been going, he saw the weather coming in over the mountains and thought we should bail out, wise idea as we only just got back to my car when the rain really hit. Unfortunately, he only ended up with the tiny bit with his Gold Monster that he got right at the start. So, overall happy with the 12x7", ran really well, worked under and around the power lines OK, no issues with stability tilting it and using it on rock ledges, sensitivity seemed great on small targets except for the noticeable lack of edge sensitivity on small targets. No bump sensitivity unlike Jw's 12x7" and overall, a good coil by the looks of it. I still think I prefer my Coiltek 10x5", similar sensitivity but I didn't notice any edge sensitivity issues, both run nice and stable although it's quite possible the NF ran quieter over all, more time will tell there. As for the Sphinx 03, quite possibly my favourite pin pointer over-taking my Garrett Carrot AT, just need to make sure it doesn't interfere with the GPZ now. Here was my junk, not bad considering 2 bits of gold. On my drive home I drove past the ski field entrance I go to the most and the cars were all coming down covered in snow, good call not to go today in the end but great to get more snow for my next time up! Yay!

“Based on gold nugget performance only. I don’t care about the ergonomics one way or the other. Will the Axiom for sure make lots of finds I can’t possibly make with my GPX 5000? Should I sell my GPX to get the Axiom based on that assumption?” That’s the question that was posed to me. And my short answer is no. The Axiom is in the same general ballpark as the GPX 5000, but there is no particular reason to think its performance is different enough to make a real difference. What one will normally find, the other one probably will also. Though coils are a factor, and at six coils versus over 100 the GPX has a definite edge. I’d bet on a 5000 with 18” round mono on a four ounce nugget at depth versus Axiom with 14”x16” mono every time. On small gold things get more interesting, but a 5000 with a 6x8 Sadie coil is no slouch. So while I’m an Axiom fan, I’m not telling any GPX 5000 owners they need to switch based purely on performance. Especially if you are very comfortable with the 5000 in general. If you own no PI at all and are looking for one or the other, well, that’s a more interesting question for sure. I lean Axiom myself if that’s the case, but if a person is only interested in multi ounce gold at depth, well, it’s the coils again. It just depends on the person and the situation as to which might be the better pick. If anyone does go from any of the battery on harness Minelabs to an Axiom it would be great to hear how it’s worked out, one way or the other.

I took a good friend to The Dragon's Lair to teach him how to find gold with his brand new GPX6000 and within an hour he had found his first nugget with it. He is excited to find more and we are exploring a new area close to one of mine and GoldRyder's claim. After I got him lined out on hunting with the 6000, I reworked my patch that has given up hundreds of nuggets and just pulled one tiny piece of gold out. I couldn't pull anymore gold out when I was getting ready to leave, so I focused heavily on very faint iffy signals that did not repeat, and pulled out some iron tiny trash. I got a non repeatable signal and scraped a thin layer back and heard a soft faint whisper repeating. I ended up digging a .63 of a gram nugget out shaped like a heart. It was about 14" deep maybe a little more. Damn this 6000 is impressive. I got it all on video and it will go up in about a month. I have the depth marked into my pick handle and will measure it soon. What a fine and impressive machine. Hats off to Minelab!

Hi all. I have in the past used a SD2200d at the beach and now run a GP 3000. It gives great depth and very basic discrimination, and I am easily able to get coins at about 16-17" with a Detech 15x12 DD SEF coil, using discrim on half-way and salt mode. Just wondering if there would be much of a depth or sensitivity difference if I was to upgrade to a 4500 or 5000? Has anyone here used either of them at the beach before? I have the opportunity to get a 4500 pretty cheap but for the cost, would I be best to get an old 5000 instead? Would it even go much deeper than my 3000? Would be keen to hear reviews from anyone that's tried.

So some of you know that my 6000 arrived defective right out of the box and that I sent it back to be replaced the morning after I got it. Well the new replacement arrived yesterday and the detector works as I assume it should. Well, at least it will sound off on a nugget, so I assume it is working properly. I have the 14" DD on to test that out. When I picked up the 11" to pull it out of it's plastic bag, I noticed something odd on the top of the coil. There was a crescent shaped crack in the coil. What in the world is going on with Minelab and their quality control.?!! People spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on their detectors, you would think they would be more strict and precise with their quality control procedures. I sent the 11" coil back to be replaced, this morning at 9 am. It is possible it could have happened in shipping, however the inner box and shipping box were in great condition. No smashed areas anywhere on the boxes. Anyone else want to chime in about their particular Minelab detector defect. If Minelab is reading this, you have alot of people out there spending alot of money on your detectors because they are the best-Hands down, but it seems like since the sdc2300 came out the quality control is going down hill. I understand some defects can get by or crop up over a little bit of use, but this is not good.

Firstly my thanks to the guys at Coiltek. After dreadful weather here in central Victoria, and recovering from surgery, this morning dawned clear and sunny. Nice hot coffee and before the dew was off the ground I had the 6000 cranked up. Rudimentary reading of the manual the previous day saw the new detector humming sweetly after a short warm up. JP had been most helpful with a few tips on the local Finders forum, so it was quite easy to feel a certain amount of confidence as I ground balanced and paired up the headphones, which are surprisingly good compared to some of Minelab's previous offerings. There is a shallow but substantial lead running west to east across my fifty acre property which yielded a small amount of gold to my GPZ a few years back. I had gridded out the most promising area at the time, so it seemed obvious that this would be a good place to test my new toy. Not bothering to take a pick I headed off towards the east end of the block. Where on earth did these signals come from? A number were I am sure just shotgun pellets, but a few were at a reasonable depth as I tilted the coil to get some idea of just how deep. The more interesting signals I marked with boot scuffs and will check out within the next few days. I did not get to go back for my pick as a visitor turned up to have me check his detector. Initial impressions; Pretty damned good.

I've been using the Minelab GPX 6000 the last few months for gold nugget hunting. Also been doing some experimenting with it for relic hunting. Left early Friday morning and got out to Northern Nevada and meet up with Chuck (GB_Amateur) for all day Friday and half of Saturday until the 30 mph winds drove us off. I had planned to stay until Sunday morning. But decided to just drive back to Utah a day early and get out of the wind. Below is the gold I found. On the way home one of my hunting buddies in Utah called and wanted to know if I wanted to get out Sunday to an old fort site. So I decided why change detectors, I'll just use the 6000 and see how it does on relics. So for about 4 hours I tested my theory about what targets would be found using settings I came up with specifically for relic hunting. My relic hunting settings/coil on the GPX 6000 are: 11" mono, difficult timing, threshold ON, sensitivity 1 (lowest setting), dig only low tones. In theory, digging low tones only you will dig on the low end of the scale small pewter buttons and $1 gold coins. You will avoid, most .22 brass and lead, percussion caps, small foil and small bits of iron. The cutoff on the high end is about silver dimes. So IHP, all gold coins except the $20, 3 cents silver, half dimes, all bullets and round balls, cuff and coat buttons will be a low tone. Silver dimes and up will be a high tone. I would still dig the right sounding high tone based on sound, shape and size if I came across one. So the real test for this hunt is would my buddy Mike dig less iron that I would with him using the GPX 5000 with iron reject or me using the GPX 6000 using my settings. The picture right below is Mike's finds and just below his are my finds. You be the judge. Also did a video if anyone is interested in seeing the GPX 6000 in action relic hunting.

A couple of years ago X-coils discontinued older legacy model GPX coils, however demand has been large in their part of the world by relic hunters and big deep gold hunters for a large coil, so they come up with the goods with a 32" Spiral wound GPX 4500/5000 coil. It's an absolute monster of a coil, I can't imagine this being sold into the international market due to shipping a coil this size, hopefully the people in Europe can find some good deep relics and gold with this thing. It's good seeing some life brought into older models with all the excitement and talk these days of the newer models.

I was looking for an external speaker to put closer to my ears. I see the 6k uses bluetooth and picked up a LEZII BT525 wireless waterproof speaker with volume control. The speaker works and pairs up with the GPX6000. Anybody else doing this, and what speakers are known to work? https://www.amazon.com/Shower-Speaker-Bluetooth-Waterproof-Portable/dp/B07JVHGN54/ref=asc_df_B07JVHGN54/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312099670269&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8403305686597357607&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9051682&hvtargid=pla-588401982372&psc=1

and another spot that I have been getting small gold from that was very close to or had been gone over somewhat last year with the Zed and the 17"cc x-coil. So the last two days on this next patch had yielded 32 bits of gold so far and have another go at it today to see if there might be a few more.

exactly the reason I parted ways with the 6000 and kept the SDC......

Hello friends. I need your help. I want to buy a detector that will give me a 100 percent result. I'm thinking of buying a minelab gpx 5000. It's expensive, but it's better if a person pays that amount and gets good results and enjoys the search. I need your help which detector to buy. I want to search for gold in the mountains by the rivers near the rocks. Gold is mined in my homeland. And not only gold, I want to search for coins, relics and jewelry. And of course, on valuable things and old things. But I want to find more gold. So help me which detector to buy. My opinion is minelab gpx 5000. I made a choice about it and what do you say? Thank you all in advance.

Hey All - I can confirm we will definitely be making coils and release will be in first half of 2022. Coiltek Quality - Fully Minelab Approved and no need to break a coil to make a coil. We will be releasing more info on this in the coming months. Stay safe everyone. Trevor.

What does Geosense do? Surely it's not just a name for auto sensitivity and auto tracking of the ground and we don't even know if it does actually adjust the sensitivity at all. I've often wondered what it actually does and nobody seems to really know from what I've been able to see, maybe I've just missed an explanation from someone who knows. This is what Minelab's description of it is GeoSense-PI™ technology analyses and responds to ground signals with great clarity and precision, so you can detect in difficult environments once thought undetectable. It rapidly suppresses unwanted signals via three overlapping feedback systems for superfast detection of even the tiniest gold pieces. So it's a form of auto ground balance that sounds like it's in 3 different feedback systems, what are these so called feedback systems? could it be like on the older GPX where there was sensitive extra, fine gold, enhance and the 6000 runs in all three of these timings Minelab selected as optimal all at once for the ground conditions its in? So maybe according to ground conditions it selects the timings most suitable out of the range it has available for the ground automatically and keeps analysing the ground and if in a difficult situation it changes selected timings? I guess it's Minelab's secret sauce for the GPX 6000 and the engineers probably have a giggle at me when I say I'd like a way to disable it sometimes as then it wouldn't be a GPX 6000 at all 😉 It would be nice to know a little more about such a defining feature of the detector. It could explain why there is no fixed ground balance as using the three different timings at once it needs to constantly check in case ground conditions change enough that one of the timings is no longer suitable. It would also explain why Jason's pointed out if you hit enough bad stuff, like a few big steel bolts shallow or something the detector appears to lose sensitivity and take a while to get it back, as it's switched out to a more difficult timing that's not so sensitive. If it was just the big bolt throwing out ground balance the auto tracking by Minelabs own admission maybe too slow to update and a quick trak is recommended, see here from the manual. GPX 6000™ tracks automatically to changing ground conditions during normal use. It is effective for typical detecting in most grounds. There will be times when the automatic ground tracking will not be able to track fast enough, such as when moving to a different type of ground. In these situations, a Quick‑Trak Ground Balance will quickly recalibrate the detector to the new ground. And for those that say the GPX doesn't track out small gold like the Gold Monster does, again Minelab say it does and when recovering small targets its wise to use quick trak to prevent it happening. I'm sure many of us have experienced targets disappearing when trying to find them with the GPX, especially those of us that hunt small gold. Just like the fully automatic GM 1000 it tracks them out, again from the manual. Quick‑Trak ` Ideal for both new and experienced users. ` Tracks successfully to most ground conditions. ` Detector continuously tracks ground during detecting, but Quick‑Trak may still be used to rebalance to changing or variable ground conditions. ` Ground balances more slowly than Quick‑Trak. ` Quick‑Trak is a manually initiated Ground Balance process for faster ground balancing than Auto. ` Use to ground balance to a chosen area of ground, e.g. patches of extreme mineralisation, hot rocks etc. ` Use in between digging and checking for a target, so that the target is not ‘balanced out’ accidentally. All this Geosense stuff is just a wild theory of course but my understanding of what Geosense could possibly be. Models are usually successors of older models so features we saw on older models are often incorporated into new models like the GPX timings, perhaps in a modern world they were able to automate them and auto adjust which timings you're using while allowing multiple timings at once with the software doing the work to pick signals out of each timings results. We went from having 9 timings on the GPX 5000 to no longer having any on the GPX, although you could say that normal and difficult are its only timings. The conductive setting and the EMI setting on the DD coil don't appear to be associated with timings, more functions of the DD coil. It also detects both small and larger gold at once and handles various ground conditions at once eliminating the need for manually selecting timings like we do on the older models.

What detector would you get especially if you have used both?

What is the latest? Which one does what better?

This is a good Q&A on the GPX 6000 for those considering one, Nenad was a field tester for it and knows what he's talking about. I found what he has said in his Q&A here very agreeable. https://phasetechnical.com.au/minelab-gpx6000-gold-detector-qa/ I like that he makes the case for the various detectors and honestly talks about their strong and weak points. Now the GPX has it's known issues resolved it really is a good detector and I really like mine, as is the GPX 4500/5000 he also talks about and of course the GPZ 7000 is great, and in my mind the best there is.

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....

I got to spend a day and a half on some claims in the Little San Domingo Wash area north of Phoenix Arizona this week. I also got to meet up with Bill Southern (Nugget Shooter) for a few hours too. Thanks Bill! I mostly wanted to see how the GPX 6000 with Coiltek Goldhawk 10X5" coil and the audio mod would behave. Finding some gold was secondary. The GPX 6000 was super quiet running at sensitivity 7 or 8 with a stable threshold tone and only sounded off on some of the metamorphic magnetite filled schist and gneiss which also tended toward ironstone. Those hot rocks were easy to recognize and kick out of the way. The threshold only got a bit wobbly when aircraft were in the area. I did manage to find a 0.11 gram rough looking LSD nugget. The photo is of the targets that made it into my nugget containers which are 35mm film canisters. The GPX 6000 with the Coiltek 10X5" was super easy to swing for two 6 hour sessions, easy to pack and hit some incredibly small targets. Those are .22 long rifle shell casings which give a good size comparison. I really enjoyed using the GPX 6000.

Wow! 25% off the GPX-6000 for the month of March and its just reaching its second year anniversary. It’s always good for the consumer when two competing companies are trying to keep sales up and use pricing to achieve that goal. If these recent sales prices our part of this goal and could remain in a long term competition, then its going to be a very competitive market for these high end detector. Note also, the 15% military discount Is now also offered by both companies. The prices added in the list below do a fairly reasonable job at separating out the performance verses current pricing options on the higher end PI detectors. The only caveat to this is If pricing and performances are close together I would always choose the three year warranty option though. Below is the price list including the most recent February/March sales prices offered on the most high end Pulse Induction detectors. ATX $2,379.00 Weight with 11 x 13 inch mono coil 7.0 Lbs. Water submersible. Lots to offer for coil sizes & coil configurations to achieve small and fairly large gold performance. Offers partial iron discrimination with DD coils. 2 year warranty SDC 2300 $2,550.00 February SALE vs. $3,499. Weight with 8 inch mono coil 5.3 Lbs. Water submersible. The MFP timings with the small 8” coil seems to handle higher mineralization pretty well. Very small gold performance. 3 year warranty Axiom $3,995.00 Weight w 11 inch mono 4.2 LBS. Very small and fairly large gold performance. Offers partial iron discrimination with DD coils. 2 year warranty GPX 5000 $3,999.00 Weight on arm minus battery pack 5.3 Lbs. with 11” coil. To be wireless you need to add Doc’s Gold Screamer battery and booster pack 6.3 Lbs. Largest offerings for coil sizes & coil configurations to achieve small and large* gold performance. Offers partial iron discrimination with DD coils. 3 year warranty The GPX-5000 could definitely use a price reduction also but is still one of the most versatile PI detector on the market. *Note: Coiltek Elite & Nugget Finder Evolution coils add more performance and sensitivity over previous released bundle wound coils. GPX 6000 $4,500.00 March SALE. Weight 4.6 Lbs. w 11 inch mono. Very small and fairly large gold performance. 3 year warranty GPZ 7000 $6,375.00 February SALE vs. $8,499,00. Weight 7.3 Lbs. w 14 inch DOD coil ZVT or 6.0 Lbs. with the Nugget Finder Z-search 12 inch coil and compatible CTX-3030 Li-ion battery. Minelab’s flagship detector with very small and exceptional large gold performance. 3 year warranty Please do not get to excited about the iron discrimination capabilities on the ATX, Axiom, & older GPX series, as it is only has partial discrimination at best. Works good on surface iron, but for any deep iron you will still need to dig quite a bit of dirt until your detector can determine it is iron. The only chart that I could find to show this was a GP-3000 Minelab chart showing its limited discrimination abilities, attached below.

Yes it seems to be true, Minelab (at least for USA) is offering the most popular GPX-6000 at 25% off. We've been told this Limited Sale is good through the month of March or until supplies run out? Well what happens if Minelab sells a bunch of them? Will they see the writing on the walls and realize, just maybe the price points could be better off for us here in the US? Prime example is the very popular Minelab Equinox 800 prices under $1000. That strategic price point move was brilliant and all other manufactures dream of having such sales. Hopefully this move proves to be GOLDEN for Minelab and you/I the consumers. Or maybe there is a GPX-8000 around the corner?

Hello friends, new to this forum. I've looked at topics here a few times. Great place! I been detecting for awhile for gold. Eventually I bought a gpx 5000 and a few xtra coils. The biggest I have is a 14". But I have some gold sites that have some deep gold. I already dug everything that had a signal after chaining the whole deposit. I've been checking out online at some larger coil choices. There is a couple that came out last few years that I'm kinda interested in. They have a nugget finder 25" ddx coil. And a detech 24" concentric coil. I've only seen a little info on both online. I was wondering if any members have any experience with these coils or know anyone that uses one. I don't know if they are capable of detecting at least a small piece of gold down to a gram. Not sure either how good they run in strong mineralization. If anyone has a opinion about these coils or which one between the two they would pick. I would be very grateful. Thank you.

I've been researching the Minelab detectors and I would like to make a sizeable upgrade from my VLF detector (GB2). I would like to own a new PI detector that can handle hot ground better than the VLF machines can. I should first point out that I will mainly be using the detector for hunting meteorites, but I foresee myself hunting for gold in the coming years as well. Currently there is the great deal going on with the 6000 for $4500. I have also been looking at the GPX 5000 as it can be found used for around $2000-$2500 on ebay. I've read a lot of posts saying that the GPX 5000 is a good all around detector and can handle hot, mineralized ground quite well. On the other hand, there have also been great reviews on the 6000 for finding small gold, and the ease of use and lighter weight is very attractive as well. Just wanted to ask what you guys think the better option is for handling hot, mineralized ground, as that would be the primary ground I would be hunting starting out. I'm leaning towards the 6000, but I've heard that it can have issues with hot ground, and if that's the case, then I might just want to get a used 5000 at first, and then I can always upgrade to the 6000 in the future... My main considerations are cost and handling hot ground. I can deal with the heavier weight that the 5000 brings but if the 6000 truly is leagues ahead of the 5000, then I will probably go with the 6000.