Introducing The Minelab Profind 40

[Aureous]

....as a side note, has anyone seen any ML reference to this product in their FY 23/24 literature? I know its only a minor product in their line-up, but it goes to show that not everything they bring to market has a multi-month 'unveil' period. We're all still waiting on the GPZ replacement of course.....but thats gonna be a big woohoo 'whole shebang' type song and dance show when that happens. Waiting on the FY 23/24 report to be released to the public. Supposedly next month.

[Doc Bach]

Can you say Garrett Carrot? Simple, dependable and flawless.

[Redz]

I am not sure I want a super deep pinpointer. Sensitive, I like that for the smaller bits, but in fact I like it quite shallow as no sound tells me it is safe to keep using my pick to excavate. For depth I have my detector.

 

[phrunt]

2 hours ago, Redz said:

I am not sure I want a super deep pinpointer. Sensitive, I like that for the smaller bits, but in fact I like it quite shallow as no sound tells me it is safe to keep using my pick to excavate. For depth I have my detector.

 

yes, for prospecting the sensitivity to small gold is the important bit for me, however for coins in parks where you are not able to use digging tools and want to use a probe or screw driver to pop coins out the depth is vital.

[jasong]

Depth is vital to prospecting usage too. I use them primarily for bedrock cracks that can be 2"+ deep or where I have to chisel through hard stuff like caliche, to save time/chiseling. Also when I have a big coil on, it saves the time carrying a 2nd detector with me, so again depth is important. Once you get 2+ft, it gets real hard to keep widening the hole with a 17"-25" coil, and you want to dig just to the target and nothing more than that in hardpack like cement. It's also exponentially easier to nick a nugget that deep without a pointer too as you flail around with a pick trying to loosen stuff up however the pick can fit in the hole. 

I can't believe no one has made a deep one for prospecting like 10 years back already. The purists were against them for a long time is partially why I think, but they save a ton of time if you use them in the right places. I can find and recover a nugget in about 50% the time usually as someone detecting the same spot without a pointer, unless the dirt is soft and easy to dig like in NNV. 

[schoolofhardNox]

14 minutes ago, jasong said:

Depth is vital to prospecting usage too. I use them primarily for bedrock cracks that can be 2"+ deep or where I have to chisel through hard stuff like caliche, to save time/chiseling. Also when I have a big coil on, it saves the time carrying a 2nd detector with me, so again depth is important. Once you get 2+ft, it gets real hard to keep widening the hole with a 17"-25" coil, and you want to dig just to the target and nothing more than that in hardpack like cement. It's also exponentially easier to nick a nugget that deep without a pointer too as you flail around with a pick trying to loosen stuff up however the pick can fit in the hole. 

I can't believe no one has made a deep one for prospecting like 10 years back already. The purists were against them for a long time is partially why I think, but they save a ton of time if you use them in the right places. I can find and recover a nugget in about 50% the time usually as someone detecting the same spot without a pointer, unless the dirt is soft and easy to dig like in NNV. 

The same principle holds true for us beach hunters as well. Once you are down 15", you really need a pinpointer to keep you on track. Plus in damper sands, the hole starts to collapse onto itself, so locating a target just before collapse, saves a lot of digging. If I get into situations where the soil is too mineralized, I can always use a lower sensitivity setting on the pin pointer.

[strick]

The only way I would consider a minelab pin-pointer is if they redesigned the whole thing. You need to be able to reach for the pinpointer and grab it without having to fumble around looking for the button to turn it on... in other words without taking your eyes off the location of the target...kinda like having a pistol if your going to shoot a bad guy you know where the trigger is already...watch how this guy does it! 

 

[Redz]

20 hours ago, jasong said:

I use them primarily for bedrock cracks that can be 2"+ deep or where I have to chisel through hard stuff like caliche, to save time/chiseling.

I use them for this too. Surely, however, a deeper pinpointer may be less productive as it will sound off on nuggets further away from all sides. I.e. less precise

[jasong]

4 hours ago, Redz said:

I use them for this too. Surely, however, a deeper pinpointer may be less productive as it will sound off on nuggets further away from all sides. I.e. less precise

Never been a problem for me, in the cases I need less sensitivity I just turn it down. But that's almost never while prospecting anyways, I turn it down occasionally when I'm detecting yards.

For cracks/caliche I want as much depth as possible since I'm not usually able to get the pinpointer into anything and I'm just scanning the flat top of bedrock trying to find where to start chiseling. Often I put the Carrot on it's side to get it into a crack a slight bit, and it's slightly more sensitive on it's side. 

Side of holes don't matter to me when prospecting since the holes I'm digging are pretty big compared to what they dig in the parks/yards (Most mine using a 17" coil start off about 24" wide compared to a small hole like 5" wide in a yard. I'm trying to think of the last time I had a nugget in the side of the hole, but it just doesn't seem to happen for me since I generally get a good rough pinpoint with the coil prior to digging. I can recall a few time when I was a using a little 8" coil and a nugget ended up slightly to the side, but when I'm using small coils I almost never use a pinpointer since the edge of the coil works better and usually the holes are much shallower so I can often just widen the hole quickly to see if the target got out. 

[Redz]

I was not refering to the sides of the hole, but rather the sides of the pinpointer, but I appreciate the description of how you use the pinpointer.