Field Testing The Nokta Gold Finder 2000 & Garrett Goldmaster 24K

[Bohemia Miner]

I finally made it to Southern California.  We came down for a family wedding, but I brought two Gold Detectors with me: the Nokta Gold Finder 2000 and the Garrett Goldmaster 24K.

My brother-in-law lives in the Mojave Desert not far from the many Dry Placer areas.  I called up an old Prospecting friend, and he was excited to get out and swing his Gold Bug 2.

Our first stop was a Club Claim just outside Randsburg, where I had found my first nugget with a Fisher Gold Bug Pro.  The weather was perfect, not too hot, and not much wind.

The first machine to be tested was the Gold Finder 2000.  I had set it up with the 5” D/D coil but after a few minutes realized that ground coverage wasn’t going to be great.  I went back to the truck and swapped it out for the larger Concentric Coil.  Rather than use the External Speaker with Headphones, I paired it with the Green 2.4 gHz Wireless.  Unfortunately, it did not turn off the External Speaker, and I heard it out of both.  Other times, it would switch between the two.  I finally decided to just run without them as I was in Snake Country.  The Mojave Green Rattlesnake is the most tenacious of the SoCal Vipers.  They have been known to chase vehicles.

I had to set the Sensitivity two notches from the top to avoid Ground Noise.  Even with the Ferro Check, this is pretty much a “dig-everything” proposition, which is the nature of Gold Prospecting with a Metal Detector.  The indicators were all there, Quartz, Epidote (Greenstone), and Magnetite (Hot Rocks), which to my amazement, it did not see.  While I didn’t find any gold, it did the job on Airgun pellets which read on both sides of the Ferro Check, plus bullet, and copper jacket shards.  I found a few iron items such as boot tacks but because they were rusty, they didn’t always peg to the left.  All in all, I would recommend this detector to anyone looking for a simple-to-operate Gold machine.  It’s 16 kHz higher than a Gold Monster 1000 and only 10 kHz lower than the GB2.  According to Dilek at Nokta, the speaker on the detector does not turn off when paired with external sources like the Wireless Module and Green Headphones.

Our second stop was the Coolgardie area north of Barstow.  The goal was to hunt Dry Washer Tailing Piles.  I was immediately reminded that where people work, there’s more TRASH!  I started with the GF2000 but changed over to the 24K with the 6” Concentric coil.  The ground coverage was good, but I was after depth on “Tailings”, so the Mono was a good choice.  My buddy brought a rake.  I should have borrowed one from my Brother-in-law.  I like the simplicity of the GF2K, but I’ve been swinging and selling detectors for over 20 years.  It’s a little “too easy” for my taste.  I love the features and adjustments on the 24K!  I set it up with the Garrett Z-Lynk Wireless Headphone System.  We had gotten a little disoriented so didn’t have as much time as we had at the other location.  However, my first target was a small piece of Birdshot.  I had it set up with Sensitivity at 2 and Volume at Boost 2.  This most likely will be my “go-to” VLF machine.

Here's the link to my Facebook album from the trip: 

(2) Facebook

Because we were pressed for time in Coolgardie, I didn’t take any photos of those Tailings.

The first blue pan is my finds from the Randsburg area with the GF2K.  The Terra Cotta pan is from Coolgardie with the GM24K.  The second blue pan is my trash which mostly came from north of Barstow.

 

[Matt4gold]

Seems like the GF 2K hit a lot of small targets, may have just been the location you were at.  Be interesting to run both at the same sites and check targets with both. 

[phrunt]

Thanks for the post, I had a friend who tried out the Gold Finder 2000 and was quite disappointed by its fine gold performance vs the GM1000 which he was more used to using, the 24k on the other hand is a beast!

 

[Bohemia Miner]

12 hours ago, Matt4gold said:

Seems like the GF 2K hit a lot of small targets, may have just been the location you were at.  Be interesting to run both at the same sites and check targets with both. 

We had at least twice the time at the first location.  That's why there were more targets found.

I wish I could have tested both at the same spot.  My Mining Buddy was supposed to take me out, but the water pump went out on his Jeep.  He has a Gold Finder 2000.  We really need to make it out to our claim in Northern Nevada.

Walt

[Bohemia Miner]

12 hours ago, phrunt said:

Thanks for the post, I had a friend who tried out the Gold Finder 2000 and was quite disappointed by its fine gold performance vs the GM1000 which he was more used to using, the 24k on the other hand is a beast!

 

I have a buddy that has both.  It would be interesting to run them on the same ground.  One would think that with the higher frequency, the GF2K would excel.

Walt

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, Bohemia Miner said:

I have a buddy that has both.  It would be interesting to run them on the same ground.  One would think that with the higher frequency, the GF2K would excel.

Walt

yup, that's the puzzle. 

[Bohemia Miner]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

yup, that's the puzzle. 

I know the GM1000 has an "Auto" Sensitivity setting and the GF2000 doesn't.  Maybe that's a significant difference.  As I said, I had to run it two notches down to keep it quiet.

Walt