A Walk With The Midget Coil

[Andyy]

Well, I tried a new way to get out to this new gold area I found.  The gold seemed fairly small, but I had to hike in at least 3 miles to get there.  So I tried to drive in another way in hopes of only having to hike in a mile.  Of course Google Earth made things seem better than they were (almost like I could drive right there), but in the end I only cut about a mile off the hike (one way).  So now I had a decision to make … take my GPZ 14" coil, the GM1000, or what I call my Midget Coil (10" Xcoil).  GPZ 14" about killed me getting out there last time so that was out.  I love the GM1000 on bedrock, but some of the bedrock here was very hot.  Usually in those cases, I will go to my GPZ 10" Xcoil, which I venture to say is at least on par with the SDC 2300 (with the exception of being a little bigger).  And the Xcoil is still a pleasure to hike with.  So off I went.  

I started out hitting the areas I had been to before and got some good signals.  First piece was only about .1g.  Then I started finding slightly bigger .2g pieces.  Most of these seemed to be what I call runners.  Those are the ones in washes that I find on the sides of the wash, trying to run away when they see me coming.  The larger coils tend to lose a bit of depth when checking the sides and depressions.  The 10" Xcoil, however, does very well getting in there.  

Overall, 5 pieces were found (total .75g).  Not a lot, but at least half of these finds were detected very carefully with the 14" coil and were missed.  The Xcoil was very clear on all but a 1 grainer piece that was about 2" deep on it's side.   All in all, it was just a fun day crumb chasing.

[flakmagnet]

nice work Andyy…I am hoping to get an "x" soon.

[Lanny]

Nice bits Andyy.

Enjoyed your write-up as well.

All the best,

Lanny

[beatup]

well done , some good detecting on your part 

[oneguy]

nothing wrong with 5 itty bitties…  I'll dig those all day long if and when I can find em...they're fun, and they avoid the dreaded skunk!  HATE the skunk.....

[Gerry in Idaho]

Your abilities with the 7000 and X coil are very good my friend.  Thanks for sharing the story and pics.

 

[goldwright]

Well done.

Yeah the 10X does look funny on the end of the Z but wow its good.

[2Valen]

Great story with the pictures, I wish I had a place around here I could go to. About the only thing I have found here is some flour gold while panning. Some say there used to be a small mine around here but they can't find it any more.

Hope to get warmer weather and less rain so I can get out there.

 

[Andyy]

9 hours ago, kiwijw said:

Well done Andy.👍 The 10" X coil loves those size bits of gold & gets them at crazy depths. As Simon said I use my E bike a lot to get into places that I can't drive into. So much quicker than walking.

Even under power lines the 10" didn't even notice them & that was in High Yield/Normal & full max sensitivity of 20. The three photos below of the power lines were taken when I went there with the Zed & ML 14" coil before getting the X coils.

Same power pole & same power pole that Simon put up a photo of where he got his two little tiddlers.

Got these with the Zed on that occasion

But on going back there a few more times I got nothing more with the 14" ML coil. I went back to the exact same spot two Sundays ago with the 10" X coil directly under that same power line area & got 12 little bits that the ML 14" didn't

Best of luck out there

JW 🤠

 

Very nice haul there, JW.  I have not tried the 10" under the electrical lines, but the 14" handles it if you turn down the threshold.  I think the greatest benefit in my mind is really being able to get into depressions a little more.  And I still think it is comparable to the SDC, though I have no definite proof of that.

My 1 grainer had to be  chipped out of the bedrock and I almost thought it was ground noise until I got the dirt spread out.  It had to be stuck up and down in the vertical schist.  Same with another 0.1 grammer that I actually pulled out of the ground and it was stuck in the mud on the foliated rock slab.

Originally I had trouble with this coil ringing on everything it touched, but now I believe this was just me maybe not having the coil on tight.  I have used it in two other locations, now,  and have not had the coil ringing/touch sensitivity that I had the first time.  Live and learn I guess.

Andyy

[Jonathan Porter]

I work under similar power lines like those being shown all the time with the GPZ14 coil, thats were the GPZ is a major improvement over previous GPX machines. I can even turn the GPZ on in our shop and detect a 0.05 gram piece during assembly and training with our customers, the key is to keep the coil as flat as possible relative to the EMI source. High Yield is less susceptible to EMI than General and Xtra Deep.