8" X Coil In The U.S. - A Field Report

[jasong]

I was sent this coil for free to use and keep by the manufacturer many months ago with no expectations of reviews or anything else, and I had intended many times to test it in Nevada for my own personal use, but work kept delaying me and I never made it. But I was able to finally get free from work and give it a solid 12 hours of run time over 2 days in Arizona since it's winter now. Soils are mild, few hotrocks (more on that in a moment). 40-50F degrees out. Mostly shallow, rocky washes or hilltops I've pounded with the stock and 17" X Coil (as well as a 4500). I consider these spots flogged and dead for my purposes, and so great places to see if new products can find missed gold. My observations were as follows:

1. This coil (as expected with a smaller coil) was noticeably quieter than the 17" coil and the stock coil. I was able to bump my threshold up 8-10 points and still had about the same threshold chatter as I did with the 17" coil. 
2. I usually run 18 sensitivity here because I like a very stable threshold and EMI can be an issue, but I bumped up to 20 sensitivity with no problem.
3. The coil ground balanced ok and I ran in auto which seemed to work fine.
4. This coil loves hotrocks, as would be expected when you are running a smaller, more sensitive coil. I was finding hotrocks deep, shallow, and in places I considered more or less hotrock free in the past. Conversely, I hope it will do well in salt, which I hope to test this summer in Nevada.
5. This coil is bump sensitive
6. This coil is sensitive to a lot of vegetation, particularly sticks/twigs and grasses. I'm unsure if it's detecting them or bumping them.
7. This coil screams on tiny nuggets just out of range of the stock coil. It gives decent signal on edge of detection, tiny nuggets that I missed with the 17" coil.
8. The light weight made me very much more prone to lift up and detect side walls, benches, and pick up and poke/prod into just about any place I encountered, from beginning of day to end.
9. The weight didn't fatigue my arm after a half day of swinging, 5 or 6 hours. Much of that time was without a bungee. 
10. This coil eminates a faint, very high pitched squeel or buzz if you get your ear close to it
11. Overall, detecting with the GPZ feels a lot more pleasurable and less like fighting your equipment with a coil of this size and weight.
12. I've mentioned it in prior posts, but take my word from experience now - it's not the weight of the GPZ that causes problems, it's the coil. And this 8" coil is almost the perfect weight to counterbalance the GPZ with the shaft fully extended - ie, this is the coil weight the GPZ should have been designed for. I'll take another pound on the control box no problem, but add 100 or 200 grams onto the coil end, that causes fatigue. Swinging the GPZ with this coil (or any coil of this weight) is a pleasure and not oppressive.

The bump sensitivity I'm guessing is a relic of trying to cram so much wire into a tiny space that might not be meant for it, as I get the feeling that this coil is pressing the limits of how small a Super D can be built. But it does mean that I have to slow down and really concentrate on not hitting rocks or vegetation, which ends up being ok because this is a cleanup coil where I am going slow anyways. 

I expected to find a handful of faint, edge of detection signals I had missed with my other coils. But other than a couple nuggets, almost all the signals were bright, some even loud, and all pretty obvious. Even right out in the middle of the wash. This coil hits hard on tiny stuff.

I haven't compared it to the GB2 or Gold Monster, but I found stuff down to 0.06-0.07 grams and they were all great signals. Pinpointing these tiny targets with the coil edge can be difficult as the center of the coil is more sensitive. And they are too tiny to register on my pinpointer, especially the porous and not flaky ones.

And that is why I think I missed all the nuggets originally which I later found with the 8" - its a lot easier to get the center of the coil over more of the potential ground, especially with obstructions in the way. In the end, I didn't find a lot of missed nuggets in nooks and crannies, most of them were simply next to a rock or other obstruction like a bush which I was able to get the center of the 8" much closer to.

Overall this seems like a good coil for working steep areas (Colorado comes to mind), surface patches, tight washes, and banks/vertical surfaces. The bump sensitivity is the only real major downside, so a slow and controlled swing is important with this coil I think. If NF doesn't end up releasing some critical sizes of coils and new detector releases make the GPZ cheaper (and less risky to make an adapter) then serious detectorists may want to give X Coils another thought. Because right now I can't help but feel like with these coils I am running a new detector that no one else has access to in a way, and I'm somewhat surprised more hard detectorists/enthusiasts haven't availed themselves of this opportunity. But, in the same respect I'm happy, because my time is slim and I haven't had a chance to put them over a lot of places I know others would have flogged to death already. My favorite coil by far is still the 17", but if this 8" (and the 10") perform well in NNV then I may change my mind on that.

Here are the nuggets I found (weights are estimated) and my recollection of why I thought I missed them originally with all my other equipment but then found them with the 8" X Coil:

Test Wash 1, less than 0.1 gram, too deep for other coils

Test Wash 1, 0.08 grams, next to a rock and slightly into wash bank

Test Wash 1, 0.12 grams, from a boot scrape and I had given up finding this with the 17" for some reason

Test Wash 1, 1+ gram, next to a rock and oriented vertically in a bedrock crack, not sure why I didn't hear this on at least 6 or 7 previous passes since it's right in the wash, but it didn't produce a diggable signal with other coils/machines

 

Test Wash 1, .2 grams, in a little ring of rocks, was only a few inches deep though

 

Test Wash 1, .15 grams, too deep/edge of detection, or too close to rocks

 

Test Wash 1, 0.12 grams, no idea, great signal and should have found before

 

Test Wash 1, 0.15 grams, in side of bank, arm was probably always too tired to raise the coil up there 

Test Wash 2, 0.12 grams, no idea why it was missed before, right in middle of wash 

Test Wash 2, 0.3 grams, 2ft up wash side

Bench patch, 0.3 grams, next to cactus, too deep/edge of detection?

Bench patch, 0.08 grams, too deep/edge of detection

Bench patch, 0.06 grams, edge of detection

That was all of them. Smallest was 0.06 grams and very porous and almost on surface, largest was like 1.1 grams but I forget the exact weight. All total was a little over 4 grams out of severely beat up washes and a patch. Not much, but it did pay for my gas down here at least. 

I think once stuff gets below 0.15 grams, it's not really worth my time to chase on general principal. But when you need to grind out some finds for gas, food, whatever, and if you have a lot of patches that produced more than 5 or 6 stray nuggets, then this little guy can probably pop up a few more when you really need them.

 

[jasong]

It really does scream on tiny stuff, the first few surprised me thinking I had 1+ grammers just to find little bitty guys. I was vocally dubious about your claims of the GPZ obtaining parity with the GB2, and I still want to go test it myself, but after using this coil I have to think that gap has been closed significantly and you are right. Though I feel it's still not hitting on stuff 0.07 grams and under quite as hard as the GB2. But honestly, that stuff is like toss back in the wash material to me so maybe it doesn't even matter. What I'd like to test is speci gold, disseminated in quartz and ore pile type stuff. I think the GM1000 and GB2 are still required there but honestly I think think this 8" will hit some of the stuff I thought was out of range.

Reason I say it hasn't achieved parity is because Test Wash 1 has a bank in which a lot of black sands and tiny gold nuggets are eroding out of. I can run my GB2 over it and pull out a bunch of 0.02 gram type stuff, and I could hear there was more left when I left it last year. I can pan it and usually get 2 or 3 per pan. The 8" surprisingly heard a few but not as many as I know are there. But it did hear some, and I was unable to recover any because the pinpointer wouldn't hit them, the coil edge wouldn't detect them, and light was getting dim and my patience for tiny stuff was limited.

Does your 8" have bump sensitivity to rocks? And vegetation? Mine will sound off on certain vegetation which just scrapes across the coil, not even bump it.

Also, does your coil emit a high pitch squeel? I didn't notice it until I dug into a bank and had my coil leaning at head level. It's extremely high pitch and anyone with hearing loss or anyone over the age of 30 or 40 probably won't be able to hear it. But I have great hearing despite 20 years of playing punk and metal drums loudly somehow... I was able to record it on my phone, but I don't want to waste phone bandwidth uploaded it if you heard it too.

[jasong]

Simon - I was wondering if it was my adapter or maybe the cable knocking around, and some may be that, but it definitely zaps when I scrape a rock on the underside too hard, and when I'm poking the coil into bushes it will go off when stuff scrapes against the top of it, and I determined none of that was cable movement. I didn't try running under 18 sens though, and I only ran at 18 sensitivity for maybe the first 2 minutes since I realized quickly this coil was quiet (EMI-wise), the rest was all 20.

Oh also, I can mount my AT pinpointer on my backpack with this coil, no problem. The GPZ does still set my pinpointer off in a feedback loop if I get it too close, but oddly it only seems to do it when I'm in black sand laden wash bottoms. It will interfere but then stop when I move the coil if I'm in mellow soil.

JW - Hey good to see you post again. These coils feel to me like the equivalent of having a GPZ 8000 in a way, it's a noticeable advantage over the stock 7000 in basically every measurable way. If NF comes out with a range of coil sizes I think people will understand what we've all been talking about. 🙂 My experience with the GPZ in Arizona tracked similar to your story above - in so much as I revisited a lot of GPX patches and found a few nuggets here and there with the GPZ. But the amount of nuggets I missed with the stock GPZ and later found with the various X Coils (mostly the 17") + GPZ was far greater than what the stock GPZ found that my 4500 missed. I feel that if I took this 8" to every good wash I've ever found I could probably pull up 200 or 300 little nuggets I missed with the GPZ/stock coil. That is Arizona gold/ground though.

Nevada is the big question mark in my head. I haven't run an X Coil of any size there because the spring-fall months are really hard for me to escape work. I really want to see what the 8" does up there wet, and the 17" dry.

Lacking a GPZ successor on the horizon, lacking a range of NF sizes, and if the GPX 6000 doesn't improve heavily on the 7000, then an 8 or 10" X Coil and 17" X Coil is probably the best way to maximize detecting performance for anyone fairly serious about such things in the US. That 15x10 looks compelling too based on the NZ reports and good successes, that may be the killer all around single coil. We will see what NF and the 6000 brings though.

[Condor]

Re: Desert shrub falsing with the 7000

Here in Sunny Yuma and in Qsite I find the 7000 makes faint target sounds when it passes through desert shrubs, particularly the browned out dry stems along the wash banks.  It hits on the first pass, then silence after that as if there is a static discharge between the coil and vegetation that releases the static energy after that first pass.  It's maddening when you're trying to find those whisper targets on the bank edges.  I even tried spraying the coil with the anti static product used for clothing, didn't help.  One of those quirks you just have to learn to live with.     

[jasong]

My feeling was something like salts/electrolytes in the plants became detectable with a more sensitive coil, but since they are mostly dry I don't know about that either. Maybe it is some sort of static component...added with maybe the coil is sensitive enough to detect small movements in the cable as Simon suggested. Little from column A, little from column B situation?

I had a visitor this morning, a guy who's been detecting Gold Basin since the early 90's. I told him I was testing this new coil out so we went to a patch he had worked for 20 years while my coffee brewed. A dealer and their clients also work this area with GPZ's pretty hard, and there are boot scrapes and dig holes everywhere.

Snagged 2 little guys in 15 minutes, 0.07 (was ~1inch deep) and 0.09 grams (~4-5" deep). Screaming targets, tested both in situ with his 4800 on sensitive extra and 11" mono and not a peep, but that wasn't too surprising since it's PI. The 0.09 grammer would make the faintest peep when we bumped gain up and turned off stabilization, but it was just a "barely there" sitting on the coil after I dug it and the smaller one wouldn't sound off sitting right on the coil. I think someone is in the market for a used GPZ now. 🙂 Still, shows it's fairly easy to snag a few dinks out of patches that had a lot of production in the past with this coil. 

[Joe D.]

Great thread guys!! Lots of good information to be used here!👍👍

[jasong]

I'll grab some electrical tape next trip into town and give the cable stabilizer a try, thanks for the recommendation.

Did a poking and prodding mission on the benches and in the bushes. Got a couple dinks, one 0.05 grams which I think is about the effective lower weight limit of this coil for my personal uses.

Also got this guy from in some rocks around 16" deep if you can believe it, looked like 2 full coil diameters to me including the rocks that were piled and removed, and it was still a great signal. I am going to do a depth test on this piece sometime because I actually think it'll go even deeper which is kinda amazing for an 8" coil. This coil really goes from 0 to scream quickly, there is no mistaking most targets. If I can keep it quiet I can work pretty fast with this little badboy just by listening for fairly obvious signals. I'm guessing 7 grams of gold in this one, but it's really erratically distributed. 

Out of the hole thusly:

And doused in water as so:

 

[jasong]

Ok last update with the 8" and I'm off to prospect new areas with the 17" again. 

Last year I made the unfortunate discovery that 2 or 3 people had determined where a large number of my patches were at. This year it appears they've found them all. It's only possible by following me or using a GPS tracker. And where I went to pains to leave no trace, and only hiked in, they are absolutely tearing everything up with ATVs, even raking down 6", moving boulders, and leaving nasty trash. Sounds like the same happened to a couple other people I know here too. I give up on that area. Whatever. 

It might be obvious why I'm not really posting many photos this year now though.

Moving back in time to 2016, there is a wash in different area that I have to hike waaaaay in to get to, and I've put off revisting for years because I just don't have the muscle and endurance I used to. I hit it twice with the GPZ/stock coil (and a few times with my 4500). But it was really boulder-y, gave me some 1/4 oz'ers, and the temptation to run this 8" in a spot tailor made for it was too great. So I did the hike today. And finally! No tracks, no dig holes, no trash. No one has found this one yet.

This coil still impresses me. But I get the feeling I'm running up against a limit for average size nuggets when the washes get around 16" deep. So I gave up on the lower (deeper) half of the wash. But that's not surprising, honestly to even be hitting 16" with a tiny 8" coil is pretty excellent performance. Something like the 10x15 would probably be preferable in ground deeper than 12" if one had both coils, but that's just a complete guess as I haven't done much testing, just field work.

This one ended up 4 grams. It wasn't quite as loud as I expected it to be, which makes me want to run some tests on it because I missed it with my stock coil entirely and it wasn't any more than maybe 10" deep and located in that bedrock crack. Maybe at some weird angle? It also has quartz, but hard to tell when dirty. But I was hitting 1 grammers at the same depth that were screaming louder.

Another nugget cozied up into a bedrock crack. Just barely peeking out if you look close. Got this one working between boulders. You can see there is quite a lot more black sand here than in Gold Basin typical stuff. The coil did good in it.

The total take for the day. 12.88 grams. If the question is can a person pay this coil off with finds in flogged areas? Then the answer in my specific case (if I had paid for this coil), is "yes!". This puts me at 1.2 ounces with this 8" coil now.

Biggest: slightly over 4 grams. Smallest: 0.05 grams. I think my scale only goes to 0.05 grams though - anything 0.01 to 0.05 will always say 0.05. I think the smallest is actually more like 0.03 grams. 

This is the little coil that people were hoping for. It's just not the cable that people were hoping for. 😄 But again, if you are a serious detectorist, doing this for money or needing to pay your trips off, there is no question in my mind that these are the best way to instantly up your game without waiting. This little guy just paid for all my gas, food, propane, and this month's mortgage payment back home. I'm pretty happy with that since I have to stop working to go detecting.

Here's one that won't give a patch location away. It's Jupiter and Saturn together.

That's it from me, I'm off to explore for new places again!

 

 

 

[LuckyLundy]

Great shooing!

[DolanDave]

Jason,

   Great work out there with those x coils... hope you get to compare the new z search coil by nuggetfinder with the x coil, would love to hear the outcome of that....

Dave