Minelab Gold Monster Large Or Small Coil

[Brocstar]

Hello All, 

I am an absolute greenhorn... I just bought the Gold Monster 1000 on plans to test ground and do some prospecting..  I live in Southern California desert, where a lot of gold has been found by past and current gold operations.  Our land is I believe quite mineralized and there is a lot of granite. My friend an I ran one quart bag of soil of an area and came out with some nice flecks of gold. This was a blind test but tomorrow I am taking the GM 1000 out to the same area to do some more testing. Planning on running the GM on some washes and rocky gravely areas to take some sample for the sluice. If I find some granite or bedrock I will plan on running the GM over it and seeing if I can find a nuggets. My question is do I use the large or small coil?  From my understanding the small coil will be more useful for finding small flecks?  Is the small coil more sensitive or just more of a concentrated read?  Should I use the discriminatory function or not?  I guess I am just asking for some guidance and I am open to all conversations and willing/excited to learn this new hobby at age 45 yrs old. One of my friends made a comment saying, 'Dude your not 80 yr".. I like to learn all aspects of everything.  So being this age I feel I have years to learn from you all, hopefully. 

Thanks again and happy hunting...

 

[phrunt]

The 5" coil is more sensitive to very small gold, the 10x5" covers more ground, it's a trade-off and you have to decide which is more important.  

The discrimination features on the GM1000 are very rudimentary, certainly don't rely on it, if it slams hard left you can be pretty confident its some junk but if it's flicking between ferrous and non-ferrous, you're going to have to dig it.   Even if it just flicks one to non-ferrous after multiple passes, I'd be digging it.  Very small gold at depth cannot even register on the non-ferrous side at all and just sit just into the ferrous zone.

Don't use the disc function to completely block out ferrous, not only do you lose a lot of depth it's just outright risky of missing gold.

Use the pump the coil method by just raising the coil and lowering it a few times until you quieten down the ground quite regularly, it can take up to ten times to get it quiet sometimes, it's better than relying on its rather slow tracking.

[Zoomie97]

Brocstar,

I started gold prospecting around 45 as well. I figured I would need something todo once retired. 
 

I was in Ventura CA and went to Randsburg & Barstow a lot with my GM1000. I did find some nuggets but only with the small coil. 

Expect to pick up 99 pieces of trash for the 1 small piece of gold you will find.  I recommend watching YouTube videos. Nugget Shooter from AZ shows how to work the Gold Monster, and dig targets. 
 

Best of luck….I finally had to leave the crazy of CA behind and life is great. 

[Brocstar]

18 minutes ago, phrunt said:

The 5" coil is more sensitive to very small gold, the 10x5" covers more ground, it's a trade-off and you have to decide which is more important.  

The discrimination features on the GM1000 are very rudimentary, certainly don't rely on it, if it slams hard left you can be pretty confident its some junk but if it's flicking between ferrous and non-ferrous, you're going to have to dig it.   Even if it just flicks one to non-ferrous after multiple passes, I'd be digging it.  Very small gold at depth cannot even register on the non-ferrous side at all and just sit just into the ferrous zone.

Don't use the disc function to completely block out ferrous, not only do you lose a lot of depth it's just outright risky of missing gold.

Use the pump the coil method by just raising the coil and lowering it a few times until you quieten down the ground quite regularly, it can take up to ten times to get it quiet sometimes, it's better than relying on its rather slow tracking.

Thank you so much.  This probably sounds like a stupid question but the disc function is an automatic feature for detecting ferrous and non-ferrous plus automatic sensitivity adjustment?  I notice that at one right before max sensitivity the center goes black, (auto sensitivity? Then full sensitivity with center blacked out is what? 

Thanks for all the help.. 

[Steve Herschbach]

 

[Brocstar]

23 minutes ago, Zoomie97 said:

Brocstar,

I started gold prospecting around 45 as well. I figured I would need something todo once retired. 
 

I was in Ventura CA and went to Randsburg & Barstow a lot with my GM1000. I did find some nuggets but only with the small coil. 

Expect to pick up 99 pieces of trash for the 1 small piece of gold you will find.  I recommend watching YouTube videos. Nugget Shooter from AZ shows how to work the Gold Monster, and dig targets. 
 

Best of luck….I finally had to leave the crazy of CA behind and life is great. 

Yeah man, I hear you with the crazy CA.  These politicians really destoyred the state I love and grew up in .  We are very close to AZ and have looked at making trip but my wife and her work cannot leave. Another 10 yrs and we are good.  Thanks for the tips 

[phrunt]

The meter at the top marked (1) is when I was talking about the ferrous / non ferrous meter, if it slams hard left where the picture of the nail is, it's highly likely junk, if it flicks a little left, a notch or three yet sometimes flicks to the right side with the gold bar, it's worth digging, sometimes very small gold may never flick onto the gold side of the meter, and just stay just to the left of centre on every pass.    I dig everything that doesn't slam hard to the left.
 

The button (2) is the discrimination button, you'll notice they show on it that if you use it you will get less depth, it blanks out the iron target sounds and signals to make a quiet running detector, but will miss gold, only use it if you have to, leave it on full depth mode where both segments are enabled.

Sensitivity as a starting point perhaps run Auto, or Auto+, they're the two highest settings on number (3) on the screen, the first 10 segments are the manual modes with manual 10 being the highest.  If running in manual try get it as high as you can while remaining stable.   Auto is probably best until you get used to it.

(4) is obviously just volume control.

Here is the manual

 

[Brocstar]

3 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

 

I actually read this article the other day and just couldn't remember where I found it.  I guess I found out where.  Thank you for sharing. I am printing it now to keep on hand while out in the field . 

[Brocstar]

6 minutes ago, phrunt said:

The meter at the top marked (1) is when I was talking about the ferrous / non ferrous meter, if it slams hard left where the picture of the nail is, it's highly likely junk, if it flicks a little left, a notch or three yet sometimes flicks to the right side with the gold bar, it's worth digging, sometimes very small gold may never flick onto the gold side of the meter, and just stay just to the left of centre on every pass.    I dig everything that doesn't slam hard to the left.
 

The button (2) is the discrimination button, you'll notice they show on it that if you use it you will get less depth, it blanks out the iron target sounds and signals to make a quiet running detector, but will miss gold, only use it if you have to, leave it on full depth mode where both segments are enabled.

Sensitivity as a starting point perhaps run Auto, or Auto+, they're the two highest settings on number (3) on the screen, the first 10 segments are the manual modes with manual 10 being the highest.  If running in manual try get it as high as you can while remaining stable.   Auto is probably best until you get used to it.

(4) is obviously just volume control.

Here is the manual

 

Thanks again man. You're a life saver. I was wondering where I could get the Manual. Thanks again for all the tips it's been very helpful. 

[geof_junk]

Over lap your coil, don't discriminate till you have found at least an ounce of gold with a minium of 20 bits combined. At that time you will have a bit of experience to make up your decision on discrimination benefits.