Thank You Garrett Electronics & My 1 Year Axiom Thoughts

[Gerry in Idaho]

Let me start off by saying, I normally do not mention other brands and or models of detectors when I'm giving kudos to those who have earned it.  But at the same time, I also realized I've been giving the same kudos for years to those other brands and detector models my staff/I prefer and or use.  So I'll stuff the rock in my mouth now and get it out of the way.

1 year this month is how long it's been and boy what a blast and fun my team/I has had.  Funny, how they are just now (a yr later) getting into customers hands. Better to wait a little and get it right than piss off the world..

1^st off a big thanks to Garrett Electronics and their distribution center for getting the Axiom out to my customers in time as some of them are already in their hands and I’ve been told of some Thanksgiving detecting going on.

As many of you follow on DP, my staff/I were selected to work behind the scene and help make this detector even better.   Being a US Military Veteran, I was also very adamant about Garrett offering a 15% military discount, which they have never offered in all the yrs I've been selling their products.  On a side note, I was one of the most vocal dealers to talk Minelab into the same thing yrs back. I heard a few dealers are not offering it (it is voluntary) but here at Gerry's Detectors, I most certainly will do so.  One of the things about the new man in charge at Garrett, he is a thinker, but most importantly, he listens.  No, I didn't get everything my way, but I feel what changes have been made are all better for, end users of the Axiom, dealers who sell it and even Garrett themselves.  Back/forth open discussion is critical for new releases, the longevity of our hobby and the manufactures who build them.  Hopefully other manufactures do the same.

My Field Staff and I have spent hundreds of hrs on the new PI technology using/testing/comparing and making judgment of this new detector while finding gold in 3 different states.  We even shared it for a bit at the last Rye Patch NV Field Training class and watched Lunk pull a small nugget some of the other big machines missed.  No, it doesn't have the same raw depth/power of $8500 detectors but at the cost of only $4000 ($3400 with VET discount), you sure are getting 85% to 95% of it, depending on soil conditions and kind of gold.  Why do I say kind of gold?  Because some types of Au rocks and nuggets, the Axiom has greater depth/sensitivity.

I've been swinging a variety of detectors for 45+ yrs with the last 25+ in the pursuit of the heavy metal.  I'll admit the majority of top performing detectors for my Au tasks were not from the Garrett brand.  In my opinion, they and the other manufactures just could not put a complete machine design to my liking for the styles of my hunts.  I've owned Infinium, AT Gold and even the ATX.  They are nice machines with a couple good features and their price points are what you would expect.  But the bottom line, I would always going back to the well-known brand for most situations….until now.

Thank you Garrett Electronics (and all the people involved with the making of this fine detector) for providing a PI detector option at a reasonable price that actually performs extremely well for a variety of conditions and on many different styles and kinds of gold.  My Field Staff and I (each one of us) are more than pleased and actually quite blown away that you could come out of nowhere and produce a detector of such caliber.  My guys and I are used to running the best of the best and we’re willing to pay whatever the price to do such.  So when I told them about said machine and they selecting my team to test it, they (my guys) just played along and said sure.  It was as if them telling me.  We’ve been down this road before Gerry and we’re pretty sure of the results. Well to be honest, I couldn’t blame them for be so…so.. ok we’ll do it…but as soon as it’s over, we’re back to what gets us the gold and the machines we prefer. 

Not so fast my friends….

Things didn’t play out the way we expected.  My guys are totally on board and eager and wanting to get back out there with this Axiom.  They’ve pounded the ground, sweated the heats, broken the frost and still happily swinging the Axioms.  Why you say.  Cause the results are golden and they pokes have been overflowing this year.  Folks, I say this as FACT and no bullshit here.  This last year 3 of us found more gold than we did the previous year.  We attribute the success to the Axiom and the way it runs, the features it has and the overall performance for the areas we detected.

Garrett has made a detector that will provide so many people the ability to enjoy it’s benefits of a PI.  PI’s of past are just that, the past.  Prime example, why so many people in the US go from a GPZ-7000 to a GPX-6000, when the 7000 is still the deepest big gold detector out there?  I’m guessing here, but a big % of my customers was the weight and ergonomics.  Those who waited to see and hear the results soon found out so much of the big gold had already played out in the US.  But still the GPX-6000 was finding small gold and specimens better than the 7.  So for many, the switch was a no brainer.  Now we get another option from another player and this one has features the other 2 mentioned do not.  This one has better coil selection the other 2 do not.  This one is priced much better and more affordable for more people.  This one, the Axiom.. is a great detector to be thankful for.  I'm not saying it beats the others in every way, never have, never will.  But the overall capabilities and fun factor...let it shine let it shine.

Again Garrett, your complete family and also Steve H. (yes you had more to do than many realize), I thank you all for giving us the gold detecting, beach hunting, and CW Relic era detectorists an amazing option to use in the field and have fun doing what we enjoy.  You really built a detector that has impressed me and most of all my Field Staff, way way way more than what we initially expected.

Cools digs..

 

We are lucky to live in a country that allows us to enjoy a variety of hobbies, allows us to speak our mind and allows us to have a little fun and laughter.

If you are not smiling, choking on a chunk of Au or getting a laugh with friends while out enjoying the Hunt, then I ask you to please grab your detector and go make some memories.  Finding the gold is just part of the fun.

Thank You All and Happy Thanksgiving.  (some new pics many of you have not seen).

Gerry at Gerry's Detectors in Boise, Idaho.

[Steve Herschbach]

And thank you Gerry for being open to being a part of this, as you and your team have been critical in helping make this all happen. We both were skeptics, that’s no lie. We both have heard too many promises for too long from various companies. Some of them are now gone, because they simply would not listen to what we tried hard to tell them. Thankfully, their demise woke Garrett up, as they decided they did not want to suffer the same fate.

There are many people at Garrett who deserve thanks here also. But I’ll just mention one specifically. The many hours I had speaking with Steve Novakovich when we were shooting the 24K videos convinced me that it was worth one last try at working with a U.S. company. Garrett is the last one that seems to really be serious about staying in the game, as I hope Axiom shows. It’s just the first of what I hope will be many other new models, as the company remakes itself as a serious competitor in the 21st century. That’s the promise and the hope at least. Fingers crossed they don’t let us down.

[Norvic]

On ya Gerry top gobstopper

[phrunt]

I am really glad Garrett have done this, a world without competition is a world we don't want to be in, even the die hard fans of the competition's detectors will benefit from this even if they never intend to buy one, yes competition, it's so cool to say there is competition in the PI market. We already pay astronomical prices for gold detectors because of the lack of competition, and thankfully Garrett in the PI's so far and other manufacturers in the VLF's have taken on the task of trying to resolve this for us, the customers.

Thanks Garrett, and thanks everyone involved in making it happen.

For US customers the Axiom is very much worth consideration and for those that have held off buying a high end gold detector because of the pricing the Garrett at least in the US really helps to get that high end performance at a better price, and possibly with a better build quality too.

Good work Garrett, and good work to everyone involved in making it happen.

[Steve Herschbach]

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

possibly with a better build quality too

I’m sure there will be people who have issues of one sort or another. I’m also even more sure that U.S. customers will be dealing direct with the factory on those problems, and that Garrett will give them their typical 110% top notch service.

[Smigo]

Hoping the Garrett is a goody production wise. Looks great👍👍

Always cringe when I see people put gold in their mouths. Used to do it. Once ended up in hospital on a drip, oxygen and in isolation on cocktail of antibiotics and who knows what else. Turned out was some virus from the ground. Last thing id done the day before being admitted, virtually on life support was putting several bits of gold in my mouth. The day I did that was driving home and felt ultra sick. Dr confirmed it was a virus common in the ground. Id ingested it. Took me 12 months to fully recover. Never again. 😖

[phrunt]

Australia, where even the soil tries to kill you 🙂

 

[Northeast]

18 minutes ago, Smigo said:

Dr confirmed it was a virus common in the ground. Id ingested it.

Brother in law advised he saw a vid of a bloke warning the same thing.  Got a bacterial infection that ate away a lot of his mouth/cheek.  Good practice to avoid.  

[Smigo]

5 minutes ago, Northeast said:

Brother in law advised he saw a vid of a bloke warning the same thing.  Got a bacterial infection that ate away a lot of his mouth/cheek.  Good practice to avoid.  

Yes, you are correct, wasn't virus, was bacteria. I call everything I get sick from Virus.

Damn ill tell you what. For that 12 months I struggled to even add things up in my head. Before that I could do it within seconds. After I really had to think about it.

[GR Guy]

Gerry - Great post, why do you think the Axiom has a better coil selection than the GPX 6000 which when NF released will have 9 coil sizes.