Garrett Axiom First Official Gold Prospecting Trip

[Jeff McClendon]

I had planned a trip to Arizona to get to know the Garrett Axiom for the first full week of November. Of course, I got sick and was still sick when I finally left Denver on Monday November 13th. I did make it to Phoenix and got into the area I was hunting by midday on Tuesday.

I got in about 18 hours of detecting time with the Axiom and even though I was tired from being sick, I enjoyed using it very much.

The area I was hunting is not known for large nuggets. The largest that I have found in this area is 6 grams and I wasn't expecting anything like that. 1 gram sized or smaller gold was fine with me.

The ground in this area is moderately iron mineralized with lots of dark gray quartzite looking hot rocks that are full of magnetite, lots of hot rock caliche, basalt, tuft, porphyry, andesite, schists, and other benign metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. This place was super dry. They really need some rain in this area of central Arizona. 

I committed to dig every possible target each session until I got too tired to safely dig which happened after about 6 hours in 85 degrees Fahrenheit heat.

Since it was still pretty hot and rattlesnakes and a pack of ornery wild mules were still in the area, I used Aukey B80 wireless earbuds with a Bluetooth transmitter plugged into the headphone jack instead of over the ear wireless headphones.

I only used the 11X7" Mono coil with the Axiom since bedrock is not very deep at this location and I wanted to really see how small a target the Axiom could handle.

I was running the latest available update and did a full reset before getting started. As Steve H. suggested in one of his posts, I kept the Axiom's sensitivity at 4. I tried 5 for a bit but there was really no point in doing that. Sensitivity 4 out of 8 was plenty sensitive. I was using the Fine timing, Slow speed, threshold on 14, volume on 8, and the Axiom usually ground balanced around 48/25 with ground tracking OFF. I did try the more advanced ground balance window a couple of times when the prevalent hot rocks were getting overwhelming but I would eventually come back to the original ground balance. So basically these were very close to default settings. There was enough EMI and ground noise in this area near Phoenix to cause the occasional warble which never fully went away even after frequency shifts. However, compared to the sometimes unstable SDC 2300 and GPX 6000 when I've used them in this area, the Axiom was very quiet and predictable as far as the non-target warbles that it sometimes produced.

The photos show the targets that I recovered. I did not keep any of the pesky hot rocks that were unavoidable. The smaller plate has a 0.32 gram flat nugget and a 0.12 gram rice kernel shaped nugget. There are several wire targets on that smaller plate that do not register a weight on my cheap gram scales which go to 0.00 grams. Several lead shards give their weight as 0.01 grams. 

Both of the small nuggets were around 4" deep as were many of the targets on the smaller plate. Some of the targets on the larger plate were easily detected at 8+" deep using the full  length of my Garrett ProPointer AT pinpointer as a ruler.

As far as I am concerned the Axiom is extremely sensitive to small sub gram targets just the way it is and it's 16 hour battery life, great ergonomics, well organized display, excellent features and overall performance are really amazing.

[phrunt]

Sounding very promising Jeff, I was just looking at Axiom pricing in the USA currently as man it's a good price for what it is.  I found it on Kellyco for $3595 USD, and the military types can get an extra 15% off that, what a good deal.

As a direct translation to our currency, I'd have difficulty not buying one at that price, sadly that's not how it works.   I'm envious of your great price on what appears to be a very good detector.

You did some serious work digging all that trash, that would have wiped me out.

 

[Jeff McClendon]

18 hours ago, phrunt said:

You did some serious work digging all that trash, that would have wiped me out.

Digging all of that trash was the best way for me to get to know the Axiom and what it can potentially do at least in that area using its smaller 11X7" mono coil. I will probably do the same thing next time I am there with the 11X7" DD at least for a few hours.

I am not getting any younger, so knowing a detector as best I can as fast as I can is important to me. Everyday that I can still detect in rough terrain is a blessing and I want to take advantage of that when I can. The Axiom's ergonomics and just the right amount of features for me have made that easier. Its performance capabilities combined with my skill level with the Axiom, (which was pretty low) were what I was trying to find out. I am very confident with the Axiom and with me now after using it. 

Now I need to take it to a site with deeper bedrock and possible deeper and larger nuggets. I got the version with the 13X11" mono coil so that should be fun.

How much 12+" trash can I dig in 6 hours??????

[abenson]

Thanks for your report on the Axiom Jeff. Really appreciate the writes up you do when you go out. Congrats on the gold, it's always nice to find gold when you go out. Makes digging all that trash worth the effort.

[Jeff McClendon]

 

13 minutes ago, abenson said:

Thanks for your report on the Axiom Jeff. Really appreciate the writes up you do when you go out. Congrats on the gold, it's always nice to find gold when you go out. Makes digging all that trash worth the effort.

The latest version of the Axiom is definitely plenty sensitive on smaller stuff for my needs. Now I get to try for some deeper targets.

Thanks for your latest video of the Apex, Deus 2, Legend and Manticore gold prospecting

I don't have the M8 coil yet for the Manticore so I left it at home.

Deus 2 is much improved but the Legend easily beats it for hitting 0.1 and smaller stuff if that is what one is looking for.

Otherwise, Deus 2 does very well since it is really stable. Legend is a bit twitchy but really hot. Manticore looked even hotter in your latest video.

[Steve Herschbach]

Nice report Jeff, thanks. Just a reminder though…. I’m still undecided which does better on small gold, the 7x11 mono or the DD. The Garrett Focused Core DD challenges the traditional view that a mono is superior to a DD in that regard. I still lean mono due to the more even tone responses and ability to identify surface targets by the double blip they emit when crossing the coil edges. But I also like how the DD FC is hot in the center instead of the edges, and its superior EMI and ground handling capability. The DD will run in ground that the mono will refuse to ground balance on and so should always be in the kit for new areas. I can still read surface targets due to the tone reversals produced front to rear but it’s more complex than with the mono and takes getting used to. I’ll be interested in what you think about it. Most people I assume will still prefer the mono, but that little DD FC should not be overlooked. I suspect a wily user will discover subtle tricks with it.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/21780-a-video-explaining-the-garrett-focused-core-dd-coils/

 

[Jeff McClendon]

 

22 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The DD will run in ground that the mono will refuse to ground balance on and so should always be in the kit for new areas.

I have had a contrary experience on some really difficult ground where the Mono 11X7" ground balanced easily using Fine or Normal and the DD 11X7" would only ground balance using Normal.......... I have a lot more to learn using the 11x7 DD no doubt. That will be on the agenda for my next Arizona trip.

At this point I am looking for a kind of "Smooth" mode like the GPX 4000 had that some people went nuts over (both good and bad) for a couple of the places I visit too often that have way too many hot rocks. I know that I can use the advanced ground balancing procedure too which I need to practice a lot more and learn to trust.

[Steve Herschbach]

I'm immediately suspicious of your DD coil. Do a full reset after swapping coils just to be sure.

As far as a Smooth Mode, see this note from my post on Axiom Experimental Settings:

Minimum Threshold - this shows the most promise for developing a silent search “Bogenes Settings” methodology for the Axiom. -7 still has some audio break through. -9 is pretty much dead silent but seems too aggressive? I’ve settled on -8 so far as a preference, and was surprised at how well small nuggets jump out still, and with good depth. It also allows for a bit higher sensitivity setting, so I would highly encourage people to try these very low Threshold settings with either a normal or slightly boosted sensitivity setting. For some situations I’m thinking I might be employing this a lot. Super pleasant way to hunt for those that hate a threshold. I just wish there was more nuance as right now the jump between -7 to -8 to -9 is coarser than I’d like. I put it on my wish list for an update.

[Chase Goldman]

On 11/18/2023 at 11:34 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

I was running the latest available update and did a full reset before getting started. As Steve H. suggested in one of his posts, I kept the Axiom's sensitivity at 4. I tried 5 for a bit but there was really no point in doing that. Sensitivity 4 out of 8 was plenty sensitive. I was using the Fine timing, Slow speed, threshold on 14, volume on 8, and the Axiom usually ground balanced around 48/25 with ground tracking OFF

We're you really running Threshold at 14, Jeff?  That seems really high.  Especially in light of Steve's post above.  Even in really quiet conditions, I was dialing in Threshold at around -7 max during my most recent hot dirt Axiom relic hunt.

[Jeff McClendon]

 

37 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

We're you really running Threshold at 14, Jeff?  That seems really high.  Especially in light of Steve's post above.  Even in really quiet conditions, I was dialing in Threshold at around -7 max during my most recent hot dirt Axiom relic hunt.

I had a bad head cold, it was hot, I was using Aukey B80 wireless earbuds with a 1Mil transmitter (so definitely not very good exterior noise cancelling) and I left the master volume on the Axiom near default, lowered the volume on the Aukey B80s a lot, left the threshold pitch on default 50 and adjusted threshold level itself to where I could clearly hear my 0.1 gram lead test target which was between 10 and 14. With over the ear headphones that have good noise cancelling I would have been able to run the threshold and the general volume levels lower. There was some wind noise and some really loud braying mules. It was like being in a cattle stock yard sometimes! Wherever I went, those mules were not far behind me. What that means I have no clue. I was really concentrating on very small target signals that were just breaking the threshold so yeah I had it just below default 15.