Manticore For Gold Prospecting: Tips And Tricks

[Gold Catcher]

Disclaimer: long read. I spent several hours with the Manticore in the goldfields in the high Sierras and thought to provide some insights and impressions. First of all, the purpose of the Manticore for me is the ability to hunt for gold nuggets in really trashy mine sites. As you know, the Sierra Nevada has been visited by a few gold prospectors before (🤣), and prospecting at popular mine sites without any form of discrimination, that is based on target IDs, is pretty much hopeless. Sometimes, digging up everything with PI/ZVT is possible if you take on a really submissive mindset, but it is for the most part highly unproductive and will make your day nothing else but miserable. I tested the Manticore with the sole purpose of finding gold in trashy and highly mineralized mine sites, and by using various test nuggets ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 g. What ended up working best for me was: Gold Field mode with Prospecting audio theme, treshold 17, pitch 22, volume 14, sensitivity 16, revovery speed 6. The 0.1 nugget gave IDs between 8 and 12 and the 0.4g nuget around 22. Of note, the y axis on the screen( ferreous potential) is pretty much useless for detecting small nuggets, and both nuggets consistantly showed up at the upper and lower boundaries, unless right under the coil (then also in middle). So, don't trust the ferreous paramter when you hunt for small gold. When you detect a repeatable target, swing over it several times from different angles with short swing range and slow speed. In particular with the 11 inch coil, the target ID can be all over the place if the coil picks up too much ground signal as you move over the target of interest. So, make sure your "drill down" swings are tight. This should get better with the smaller coils, but for the 11 inch coil you need to be tight. Despite auto tracking on, I have not noticed that targets were tracked out. So, it's ok to take your time and examine a target from various angles with several swings. Importantly, the IDs should remain tight when you do that, like.+/- 3. Too much of variations can indicate hot rocks, which generally showed up for me in the 27 range, but can also be as low as 2. Often, the hotrocks give a slightly elongated trace in the very upper ferreous region of the 2D screen. This was pretty consistant, but might depend on the hotrock composition of the area. Again, don't look at the ferreous indicator when you suspect a nugget, it may or may not work and will fool you often. By far the most impactful parameters are sensitivity and recovery speed. In mineralized ground, the 16/6 setting worked the best for me. Anything above sensitivity 16, or max 17, or recovery speeds below 6 made the machine totally unstable and practically useless. If your ground is alot milder, you might be able to dial up the gain (or dial down the recovery speed), but this will highly depend on your conditions. I can just say that if some sort of ID is important to you, then you MUST tame the machine down, in particular in hot ground, otherwise all benefits of target ID will go away quickly. Under these conditions, the depth is only modest with the 0.1 nugget disappearing beyond 1-1.5 inch depth. To be able to detect at the edge, you need to keep the treshold on and listen for slight wispers (often without any ID dispalyed). This is absolutely essential to get some sort of depth, and this has not changed since the earlier VLF days, despite all the modern advancements.  For the "full bore enthusiasts", this might work for PIs if your brain can handle it, but will NOT work for the Manticore, or any other VLF that I have used for that matter. If sensitivity is too high, you will not hear a nugget even when it is directly under the coil. So, be warned, as the Manticore has alot of power to offer. Do frequent GB and noise cancel, this helps, albeit not as much as for the 6000. I actually like the pinpointer feature, but the hotspot is at the tip of the coil, not at the center which I believe the manual says. Overall, the Manticore is a great machine for my purpose, but you need to find the sweet spot in settings to maximize the target ID quality for digging less trash, and to have a chance for a succesful day at a mine site. The depth and sensitivity under these conditions are modest at best, with depths detectable down to 2-3 inches for the 0.4 g nugget and about 1 inch for the 0.1 nugget. However, then with mostly reliable and consistant target ID numbers. There is absolutely no comparison to the 6000, which in this soil and under these conditions beats the Manticore by a huge margin, as expected. In mild soil this difference could shrink, but for sure not where I hunt. However, the 6000 is totally unproductive in highly trashy areas and the Manticore can save the day. So, gold can be recovered at super trashy sites with the Manticore, but expectations need to be managed.

GC

[Gold Ryder]

Good read.  We mine primarily with the 6000s. But one of our claims has ALOT of trash in the form of nails and tin on its lower end in some old timer workings. And it its rough with the 6000. So I just picked up a manticore to weed through it.  And to use on the shoulder season near town where the EMI is too much for the 6000. 

[Jeff McClendon]

Thank you for writing up your report and for your excellent testing!!!

Your Manticore 16 sensitivity, 6 recovery speed is very similar to what I use on the Equinox 800, 900 and Nokta Legend even with their smaller coils at most of the gold prospecting sites I hunt that have lots of manmade iron trash and magnetite pebbles. I can usually go no higher than 18 on the 800 and Legend and maybe 19 or 20 on the 900 with recovery speed at 5. Any higher sensitivity and the background noise gets unbearable. Same with recovery speed below 5. Iron bias on 0 for sure too with all targets accepted using their Gold modes.

[geof_junk]

Gold Catcher  as most areas here in Victoria have been hit hard my many detectorist and the only areas left are mainly heavily polluted with junk, I have passed your post on to my 25 year-old grandson. He has got a Manitor and gets to his other grandparents area in the golden triangle and your information will help him a lot as the ground is very hot and will give him a good starting point to tune his detector. 

 

[Gold Catcher]

5 hours ago, geof_junk said:

Gold Catcher  as most areas here in Victoria have been hit hard my many detectorist and the only areas left are mainly heavily polluted with junk, I have passed your post on to my 25 year-old grandson. He has got a Manitor and gets to his other grandparents area in the golden triangle and your information will help him a lot as the ground is very hot and will give him a good starting point to tune his detector. 

Thanks, GOJ. It would be interesting to know what works best for him in his grounds, and whether my observations/suggestions track there as well when hunting for gold with the Manticore. Perhaps you could post his feedback? It would be a good learning for all.

Thanks

GC

[Gerry in Idaho]

Gold Catcher,  Fantastic article and read as I too am a big fan of VLF's (with identification) in trashy areas.  Your soils are a little more hot that a couple of my Eastern Oregon sites as I try to get GAIN around 18/19.  Also, when the smaller coil comes out, I think this will help us a little.

Keep up the great reports my friend and may the next big signal produce one of those monster specimens in all that trash.