Random Thoughts Garrett Axiom, Minelab GPX 6000 Goldhawk Coil And XP Deus Recent Gold Hunt

[abenson]

Had the opportunity to meet up with Steve Herschbach and Steve (Condor) over the weekend and do some gold nugget hunting and testing of the new Garrett Axiom. I took along a few machines with some new updates and coils to try out on this trip and just wanted to give a few thoughts on what I experienced as well as share a video I did of the trip.

Unfortunately I missed out on the detector comparison and recovery of the big nugget Condor found. But was involved in the reburial of the nugget and testing of multiple machines and coils over it. You can read Condor's story below. The clear winner was the 7000 with the 17" concentric coil. Close behind at about and inch (maybe more) less depth was the 6000 running either the 11" or 13x17 mono coil seemed to make no difference. Axiom in this scenario was in third running either the 7x11 or 11x13 coils. 

While I was there Steve let me use the Axiom for about 15 or 20 minutes. Now obviously that's not enough time to become an expert by any means. But it did allow me to experience the Axiom first hand. I just used the settings Steve had loaded at the time and I'm not even sure what timing was being used. Garrett did a good job with the Axiom. It is very well balanced and one can easily swing it all day long with the 7x11 coil. Menu seems very straight forward and easy to navigate. The machine is well built and folds down to a very compact size for easy transport. Having used many PI's in the passed, I feel I could make an easy transition to the Axiom and do well with it. Two things I noticed in my limited time with the Axiom are, first, the threshold is very similar to the 6000 and has a little wavier in it. A good running 6000 has a small wavier in the threshold, unlike the 5000 which can have a rock solid threshold. Second, target response on the Axiom seemed to be a little sharper than either the 5000 or 6000. Not saying either is good or bad, it's just some observations I took away with me. Overall I'm excited to get one when they become available. Hopefully by the first week of November so I can take it relic hunting in Virginia.

XP Deus 2 running the 9" coil with the latest update allowing disc notch has greatly improved the machine in trash and hot rock strewn areas. I ran the D2 through a very trashy area with disc notched out up to 25 as most of your smaller shallow gold will ID in the 30's. I was able to pull a .40 gram nugget from the mess and was happy with it's performance in that scenario.

Finally, the new GoldHawk 5x10 mono coil is a really great coil IMO. It makes the threshold on the 6000 even smoother than it was before and handles bad ground well. In this particular area there is a lot of salt and red clay. With the 11" and bigger coils the 6000 moans and groans over this ground in areas. With the 5x10 there are very few places it has any trouble at all. I think this will allow a person to hear smaller and possibly deeper nuggets with the added stability. Sensitivity to small gold is also amazing. We buried a .10 gram nugget next to the big nugget Condor found and ran various coils over it on the 6000 and Axiom. I think it was about 1.5 inches deep and Steve commented that I was being a little optimistic about being able to detect it. The 5x10 GoldHawk coil picked it no problem and was easily the winner in this case. The next day I took it to an area I had pulled a few nuggets from in the past with the 11" mono on the 6000 and had gridded the area at least 2 times before. I was able to pull 7 nuggets from this same patch which really was amazing. Ended up with 2.4 grams for the trip. Video is below if any of you are interested in watching.

 

 

 

[oneguy]

good job on the gold and the video!!!   Drives me nuts to see that flat open ground down there, I wouldn't know how to act!

[phrunt]

Good to see the Axiom running in a video other than marketing videos.  Looks great!

You did well on the nuggets too.  I agree with your assessment of the Goldhawk 10x5".

 

[Norvic]

5 hours ago, oneguy said:

good job on the gold and the video!!!   Drives me nuts to see that flat open ground down there, I wouldn't know how to act!

Yeah oneguy I know where your coming from, my backyards not easy to work but the pro counteracts this con, few like working it. 

[GB_Amateur]

Thanks for the video, Andy.  Did the rain shower affect the detecting (activating the salt)?  Didn't look like your diggings showed the telltale red hue of damp soil.

You initially showed the ML Equinox with 5"x10" Coiltek NOX.  Did you end up doing any searching with that?

[abenson]

Yes Chuck the damp soil did cause problems and made the detectors more noisy. The rain didn't last long though so only the top 1/2 of soil was wet. However the GoldHawk coil handled it very well.

I only used the Equinox for about 30 minutes as the wet soil was really causing a lot of coil knock. The Deus 2 actually handled the salt better with the new update and 9" coil.

[Jeff McClendon]

Using Deus 2 ground notch in Goldfield, does one have to weigh the risk of missing legitimate targets within the notched range of target IDs?

At least where I often detect, the two notch areas are the absolute lowest target ID on Deus -6.4 and Equinox -9 for eliminating excessive ground noise and around the ferrous/non-ferrous tone break for some hot rocks. Those are two places where lots of nuggets ID due to size, depth and iron mineralization.

[Ridge Runner]

Thanks so much for the trouble you went through to have us along with you while nugget hunting.

 Great video!

 Chuck 

[abenson]

19 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Using Deus 2 ground notch in Goldfield, does one have to weigh the risk of missing legitimate targets within the notched range of target IDs?

At least where I often detect, the two notch areas are the absolute lowest target ID on Deus -6.4 and Equinox -9 for eliminating excessive ground noise and around the ferrous/non-ferrous tone break for some hot rocks. Those are two places where lots of nuggets ID due to size, depth and iron mineralization.

Yea definitely a risk in using notch in goldfield, especially for the really small nuggets. In that ground a .20 gram or smaller nugget is virtually invisible to any VLF I've used at 1". The response on the Equinox is in the negative numbers and on the Deus 2 anywhere from 00 to 11 or so. On one of my past videos I dug a .50 gram nugget with the D2 at about 3 inches and it really struggled to even tell there was something there. If one wants to dig everything they could score a few small ones. But to me it's not worth it. The 6000 will easily get the smaller nuggets at twice the depth as either the Equinox or D2.

When I use a V:LF in that particular area I accept the fact that the nuggets are going to have to be bigger and closer the the surface for me to detect them. So where the trash is unbearable that's were I'll pull out the VLF's. As you can see in this last video the .40 gram nugget I found in the trash was virtually on the surface.

[Jeff McClendon]

Thanks for the reply Andy and for the excellent video!!!!!