Garrett Axiom - Outback Gold 2! Target With Audio Video

[GotAU?]

I am very intrigued by the Garrett Axiom, and being a 24k owner, I really love the brand and really wanted to get one, so I posted my 6k for sale early last week. I only had it on EBay and here for a short while, but decided to pull it off sale and wait until next year to see what the Axioms do in person. Well, and also as I mentioned to Steve when I asked if he could pull my ad, I decided I should put more time on it learning how to use it and making it do what it was made to do first.  Besides, I really do enjoy using it.  In the meantime, I also just got a Coiltek 10x5” for it as our areas are small gold in mild soils.

Anyways, good luck to those trading theirs for the Axiom, looking forward to reading about your personal experiences with them and maybe I’ll do the same sometime down the road.

[IronDigger]

I am a bit surprised why anyone would sell, trade or rid themselves of a perfectly great detector and a new one like the GPX 6000 for the new Garret Axiom, its not as if its going to get you the gold of all a sudden because you have a new detector. I suppose I am old fashioned, frugal, cheap call it what you want, if it ain't broke why fix it. Finding gold takes way more then a detector, you need access to gold fields, you need time to learn the machine that you have, and a lot of time behind it digging thousands of pieces of trash. I am sure the "New" Garret Axiom is a great performing detector, I watched the videos and it sure gets the small stuff!! I am not knocking it at all and would love to have one, but hanging up ole Betsy ML 4500 just doesn't  feel right for me, she still sniffs out the mosquito poop, the deep lunks she has found many times, if it aint broke, why replace her. Just a thought I had this morning wanted to share, a rolling stone gathers no moss. 

[jasong]

Hard to understand until it happens to you. In my case, the 6000 worked ok this winter, EMI was there but I could deal with it. Yet, as soon as I travelled up north and started trying to prospect different areas I discovered that the 6000 won't work in some places. Like - at all. No stability. So much wasted gas and time.

I don't know what the problem is, but I'm not compensated to figure it out for Minelab. I paid for a finished product. I don't detect on weekends, I am a prospector and this is part of my income and business, I pay taxes on it. I expect my detectors to work when/where I need them to work, or I sell them. 

Great detector in certain locations. Useless in other locations. I made no secret that the 6000 was my favorite detector to use - until it stopped working in places I needed it to work. So, if a better alternative is available, I'll take it. 

[phrunt]

It was nice to see the detector on actual targets with audio, the guy needs new scales though now he's using an Axiom and finding the smaller gold if he wants to see what it really weighs, he kept finding targets that were 0.00 of a gram not because that was their weight, they were more than that, his scales are just inaccurate ?

Still, picking up targets this sort of size which my guess-o-meter would say is a 0.04 to 0.05 of a gram is a decent small nugget so it shows the detector is capable of smaller gold.  Seems a really nice detector from what I've seen so far.  I really look forward to when general users start to do videos.    I understand what he's saying that everytime he does film it's a pellet and every-time he doesn't it is gold as the gold he's getting is so close in depth to the pellets it'd be very hard to know when to turn the camera on.  I'm a bit luckier than that with the gold being at more depth than the pellets so I turn on the camera once I'm confident it's not a pellet, I do get a few stuff up videos but more often than not my videos are gold on their first attempt.

[Steve Herschbach]

6 hours ago, IronDigger said:

I am a bit surprised why anyone would sell, trade or rid themselves of a perfectly great detector and a new one like the GPX 6000 for the new Garret Axiom, its not as if its going to get you the gold of all a sudden because you have a new detector. I suppose I am old fashioned, frugal, cheap call it what you want, if it ain't broke why fix it. Finding gold takes way more then a detector, you need access to gold fields, you need time to learn the machine that you have, and a lot of time behind it digging thousands of pieces of trash. I am sure the "New" Garret Axiom is a great performing detector, I watched the videos and it sure gets the small stuff!! I am not knocking it at all and would love to have one, but hanging up ole Betsy ML 4500 just doesn't  feel right for me, she still sniffs out the mosquito poop, the deep lunks she has found many times, if it aint broke, why replace her. Just a thought I had this morning wanted to share, a rolling stone gathers no moss. 

I can only answer for myself. Your assumption is it’s all about finding gold. Yes, I like doing that. I also enjoy metal detecting as an activity in its own right, and the equipment itself. Think of a person being a car enthusiast, or something like that. I enjoy using new detectors just to go use them, and figure out how to get the best out of them.

I think I also just like new toys. I’m a big kid. There are not many things I like, but I do like tech stuff, so a new computer, or iPad, or metal detector, tops my toy list. I like getting my new toys and playing with them. Never really grew up in that regard I guess.

There is actually an entire subset of detectorists who do almost no actual metal detecting at all per se. They make them for themselves, or buy various models, and do endless comparison tests on YouTube.

It all just comes down to different people enjoying different things in life. Because yeah, if you just want to go detecting, get a detector, and go detect. Keep it for a decade or more. There is a lot to be said about being 110% proficient with an older detector, then half assed with the latest and greatest. Personally, I’m about ready to settle in and get off the new machine of the week merry go round myself, and am currently weeding out, and selling, half my current stable of eight detectors. And then hopefully just going out and using what’s left, without getting distracted by the latest shiny new model.

I know men and women who seem to have similar old model issues with spouses, and thank my lucky stars I’m not one of them! 

[IronDigger]

44 minutes ago, jasong said:

Hard to understand until it happens to you. In my case, the 6000 worked ok this winter, EMI was there but I could deal with it. Yet, as soon as I travelled up north and started trying to prospect different areas I discovered that the 6000 won't work in some places. Like - at all. No stability. So much wasted gas and time.

I don't know what the problem is, but I'm not compensated to figure it out for Minelab. I paid for a finished product. I don't detect on weekends, I am a prospector and this is part of my income and business, I pay taxes on it. I expect my detectors to work when/where I need them to work, or I sell them. 

Great detector in certain locations. Useless in other locations. I made no secret that the 6000 was my favorite detector to use - until it stopped working in places I needed it to work. So, if a better alternative is available, I'll take it. 

Your point well taken and on that note reminds me of a conversation I had with a geologist and the former owner of the Colorado Quartz mine here in Mariposa. We were talking shop in my shop about detectors, he was looking to replace a few coils for his Fisher Gold Bug he used in detecting specimen gold in his mine. He said he has about a half dozen detectors including P.I. and vlf machines, with various size coils. He has even had his Fisher gold bug modified tweaked to be hotter , more chatty but a bit more sensitive to the crystalline specimens that are found in his hard rock mine. As we know one detector cannot do it all, having an option to choose the one that works the best in the environment your hunting is ideal. I certainly feel I have exhausted the abilities of the 4500 on all my patches, I have used coils from the sadie to the 20" Mono  and  feel confident  I have dug up 90% of the gold in those patches. So whats my next step, perhaps a new Garret Axiom, ? 

[phrunt]

I think you'll be shocked at how much gold the 4500 misses, not because it can't pick up the smaller bits, it just misses gold reasonably big or small that is well within its size/depth limits, it's been discussed often.  You may think you've dug up 90% of the gold in those patches, but I highly doubt you have.

[IronDigger]

On 8/11/2022 at 12:36 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

I can only answer for myself. Your assumption is it’s all about finding gold. Yes, I like doing that.  It I also enjoy metal detecting, and the equipment itself. Think of a person being a car enthusiast, or something like that. I enjoy using new detectors just to go use them, and figure out how to get the best out of them.

I think I also just like new toys. I’m a big kid. There are not many things I like, but I do like tech stuff, so a new computer, or iPad, or metal detector, tops my toy list. I like getting my new toys and playing with them. Never really grew up in that regard I guess.

There is actually an entire subset of detectorists who do almost no actual metal detecting at all per se. They make them for themselves, or buy various models, and do endless comparison tests on YouTube.

It all just comes down to different people enjoying different things in life. Because yeah, if you just want to go detecting, get a detector, and go detect. Keep it for a decade or more. There is a lot to be said about being 110% proficient with an older detector, then half assed with the latest and greatest. Personally, I’m about ready to settle in and get off the new machine of the week merry go round myself, and am currently weeding out, and selling, half my current stable of eight detectors. And then hopefully just going out and using what’s left, without getting distracted by the latest shiny new model.

I know men and women who seem to have similar old model issues with spouses, and thank my lucky stars I’m not one of them! 

I totally get your perspective Steve, I remember in one of your old post you mentioned how you enjoy the latest new tech, be they detectors, computers, and such. I understand why you would want to get rid of some of the older detectors and get this new one. I have a spouse and 3 children and my first priority is my family, although I have been serious about the search for gold for well over 30 years and have had some darn good success at it. I think I have found my find of a lifetime 3 X  and joined the pound club to boot.  The future may give me a 2 pounder, we are always chasing that next thing that will find us our retirement nugget, and if that means buying the next and possibly the greatest new detector to keep that dream and hope alive , then its worth it. 

[GR Guy]

To be honest I think there is a lot of patriotism at the moment. While I like the ergonomics of the Axoim nothing else has wowed me. Unfortunately it’s priced like a game changer in Oz and until there is multiple side by side comparisons on test patches and live ground showing conclusive results people here still are still shy post the ATX.