Running The 15" Cc X Coil Over A 6000 Patch

[jasong]

General Summary: I set out with two goals in mind, but only accomplished one. I wanted to compare the 6000 response on small nuggets to the 12" X Coil, but this was completely pointless due to the 30mph winds making audio on my cell phone completely inaudible. Also, I wanted to try out the 15" CC X Coil I was sent last year but simply have not had a chance to try out due to a number of factors in life. X Coils sent this coil to me for free to try out right as my detecting season had ended last year.

I worked over about a 20x50ft section of a patch completely with the 6000 until there were no audible targets left. I use Auto+ in normal. Then, as is my general technique, I set the GPZ such that I was running the maximum gain with the most stable threshold I could acquire. In this case, 18 gain, 12 threshold, low smoothing, normal. My feeling is that these settings average out to something fairly close to what the 6000 is doing in Auto+, if any equivalency can be drawn, ignoring GeoSense.

Almost every target was 6+ inches deep with the CC. Whereas most of my 6000 targets were about 1-7" deep. Nothing too surprising here. Initially from this section I got about 40 nuggets with the 6000, and got another 7 more with the CC. The avg size of the 6000 nuggets was around 0.1 grams, and the average size of the deeper CC nuggets was around 0.25 grams. There is both salt and medium mineralization in this ground, and the CC suffered as would any larger coil in the salt. I'm quite sure I left some nuggets in the ground because I got tired of chasing salt signals. The 6000 w/11" pretty much only gave a signal on targets or the buried clay balls and so it was much easier to dig only just good targets. But it definitely missed stuff once it got deeper than 5-6" or so. 

Here you can see a pretty typical ~7" hole that the CC was finding gold in. This gold looks bigger but it only weighs 0.21 grams. I think the deepest one I dug was around 9". The gold here doesn't often get bigger than 3/4 gram, so physics limits the depth at which this stuff can be found, thus the lack of deeper results. 

My gold vs trash take. Almost everything was 6"+ deep, including trash. The 6000 got almost everything closer to surface aside from the one smallest pellet. I say almost  everything 6" deep because the longer nugget was only like 2" deep and there is no way the 6000 missed that thing. Again, I swear the 6000 is occasionally "hiccuping" and missing some quite obvious targets. I don't know if it's due to electronics bogging down/glitching, or just needing to hit some nuggets exactly the right way and in the right direction. But that one was almost an overload signal on the Z. But maybe I just didn't overlap swings enough...no clue. 

The gold vs trash ratio is pretty similar to what I got closer to the surface with the 6000. A lot of this surface soil is deflationary, meaning gold is often found right in the grass roots up top, depending how heavy the wind is and how much ground cover there is. 

My Opinions: Having used the 17" CC earlier in Arizona, I already knew these coils were killer. Seriously, they are like having a GPZ 7500 before anyone else, and I'm not just saying that because I got the coil for free. They are that much deeper. Anyone who has an X Coil adapter already, and who hunts in ground where deeper nuggets have been proven to lurk - this coil will almost certainly find you more gold (as long as the gold is actually there). 

That said, like any larger coil, they suffer in salt. So this test wasn't quite an apples to apples comparison. And actually, I didn't even fully realize there was salt in the ground here when I was running just the 6000, otherwise I'd have chosen a different spot. But the salt signal was definitely there and obvious when swinging across soil interfaces. Also, I recall reading that these CC's are way better in mineralization than the spirals, which may be the case (I haven't tested), but the 6000 had far less overall response to the iron mineralization than the GPZ+CC, even though larger coils are better with ferrite type mineralization, generally speaking. This is more a function of the GPZ than the coil though, I believe, in this case since the 17" I ran in Arizona didn't suffer any more than the stock GPZ coil in medium mineralization.

In summary, I'll end with something I've said before: these CC's (and the 8" in salt) are the only reason I'm still hanging on to my GPZ still. I'd have sold it long ago if these coils didn't exist. They are seriously like having a new GPZ that no one else has access too.

That said, nothing - and I mean nothing - can compete with the ease of use of the 6000, and it's quickness and speed. It's built to be a prospecting machine, not a patch cleaner. Yes. It misses stuff. Absolutely, without doubt. And if a person is primarily spending time cleaning up the last remaining crumbs in long dead patches then the 6000 is not a great choice and nothing can compete with the depth and sensitivity of the 7000+ X Coils. But for general prospecting and exploration, nothing on the market can compete with the 6000 either. Two separate machines, two separate use cases. 

My arm was dead tired after swinging the GPZ again, I only made it 6 hours and normally I like to spend 10 hours if I'm making a trip to the field. And I just have to swing far, far slower with the GPZ both due to the increased ground response and the outright weight of the coil/machine. And in the end, I actually found more nuggets by number and weight with the 6000 just by accepting that I would lose some gold left behind and being ok with trading that for raw speed and ground coverage. I wasn't sure how much gold I left, but I knew I left some. It paid for my gas and back, so not insignificant. And if one of those deeper nuggets was a lunker, well then it might pay for an entire season of gas, never know. 

But my personal detecting philosophy is to sweep up 80% of the easy stuff quickly and move on to find more places. It just pays better over time. Then come back with the GPZ + X Coils to clean up patches when times are lean and exploration isn't paying off, or when my arm and elbow feel up to the task. This is the reason I'm using the 6000 so much now. And it's also the reason I'm still keeping the GPZ. But of course we all use detectors for different things, and this is just me showing how each works well in their own specific use cases which might not apply to anyone else.

[jasong]

Also: my transmission went out in my warrantied Ford. Ford said "parts shortage" prevented them from supplying customers with replacement transmissions, which is total BS because they have thousands of F150's and F250's stacked in the Kentucky Motor Speedway parking lot with transmissions in them and they are still selling new trucks. They were saying it might be 4 months to 1 year to get my truck fixed and that my only solution was to buy a brand new truck, which I had literally just done. Totally unacceptable.

You'll note I have my F150 back. The day I decided to contact my attorney and forward Ford copies of relevant federal warranty laws and how they were in voilation, all of a suddent the "parts shortage" ended and I got one sent to me.

Companies are starting to use this crap as excuses for their own mismanagement and to do less for their customers IMO.

Anyways, just letting people know who might find themselves in a similar situation with truck warranties in the US. We have laws protecting the agreements manufacturers made with us when we paid for what we bought and fulfilled our part of the agreement. If they offshored their entire manufacturing to make shareholders a bit more profit, we aren't the ones that have to pay for it, they are. 

[phrunt]

Looks like you got a nugget that looks a bit like a KFC drum stick too 🙂

It's a shame you didn't get to test the 12" on in ground targets next to the GPX 11".  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised 🙂  The 12" is the smallest of the fully spiral coils.

[abenson]

Nice right up and nice bunch of gold. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences with both machines.

[jasong]

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

Looks like you got a nugget that looks a bit like a KFC drum stick too 🙂

It's a shame you didn't get to test the 12" on in ground targets next to the GPX 11".  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised 🙂  The 12" is the smallest of the fully spiral coils.

I'll try the 12" test this summer when winds die down. I couldn't even get a final nugget shot sitting on the coil at the end of the day without the wind blowing the nuggets off! The pic i got on my finger was early when i got there before the tornado force winds came in for the rest of the day. Other places the wind would blow dirt and everything right out of the scoop unless I shielded it with my body. 😆 

Haha yep that is kinda a drumstick looking nugget too. I'm always real bad at seeing resemblances, they all look like shape 1 or shape 2 to me until someone points something out.

[Aureous]

Now just imagine what a 6000 could do with a CC coil. The 6000 runs DD coils with twin windings so nuthin to suggest that a CC coil (also with twin windings) wouldn't be able to run successfully.

[phrunt]

Yes, CC coils on the 6000 may catch it up a bit to the 7000 with a small coil on small targets, It might be something that needs to happen for the 6000 as it might help with the EMI issues too. 

[jasong]

3 hours ago, Aureous said:

Now just imagine what a 6000 could do with a CC coil. The 6000 runs DD coils with twin windings so nuthin to suggest that a CC coil (also with twin windings) wouldn't be able to run successfully.

 

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

Yes, CC coils on the 6000 may catch it up a bit to the 7000 with a small coil on small targets, It might be something that needs to happen for the 6000 as it might help with the EMI issues too. 

It'd be interesting to give a concentric a run on the 6000. I wonder if NF and/or Coiltek tried to make one, they are notably missing from their lineup but it's early still...

I seem to recall seeing something about X Coils already had some sort of coil out in testing for the 6000 already, I'm guessing they will make one if it provides some measurable advantage. 2 adapters required on the 6000 though right? DD chipped adapter for concentric and the monos would require a separate mono chipped adapter? 

Also, not trying to be overly pedantic but "CC coil" is like saying "PIN number". The coil is already in there. Ok sorry. 

[Aureous]

4 hours ago, jasong said:

Also, not trying to be overly pedantic but "CC coil" is like saying "PIN number". The coil is already in there. Ok sorry.

The term comes from the first 2 syllables Con-Cen-tric. CC.....as in the better lookin Cousin of DD 

[mn90403]

Well ... I want a CC for my Z!