Goldbug 2 5x10 Coil?

[Steve Herschbach]

You are overstating the issue Simon. You of all people should know there is such a thing as low mineral ground and ground relatively free of hot rocks. Other than being higher frequency the GB2 is just an IB detector and the issue with gold hidden by hot rocks exists for all of them. With thousands of hours on the machine myself I honestly have no idea what you are taking about with this “extremely slow recovery” statement. Masking yes, hot rocks or nails mask good targets. But slow recovery? That is a different beast and I’m not seeing it with the GB2. Get two nails put a nugget between them and put it in disc mode and make a video - I think you will find little evidence of slow recovery. In fact just the opposite.

Just like people saying the GB2 has poor depth on larger gold. That is only true in higher mineral soils. A simple air test will put the lie to that statement on larger nuggets in benign soils. And before anyone says no such places exist that’s flat out wrong also. 

Anybody that solely owns a GB2 and never owned or used another coil is just shooting themself in the foot. I’m surprised anyone would ever suggest differently. Coils are tools and experiences in one place are not applicable to all people and all circumstances worldwide. It’s like owning a socket wrench and saying because you have never needed a large socket that large sockets are useless and nobody will ever need one.

[phrunt]

2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

With thousands of hours on the machine myself I honestly have no idea what you are taking about with this “extremely slow recovery” statement. Masking yes, hot rocks or nails mask good targets. But slow recovery? That is a different beast and I’m not seeing it with the GB2. Get two nails put a nugget between them and put it in disc mode and make a video - I think you will find little evidence of slow recovery. In fact just the opposite.

Anybody that solely owns a GB2 and never owned or used another coil is just shooting themself in the foot. I’m surprised anyone would ever suggest differently. Coils are tools and experiences in one place are not applicable to all people and all circumstances worldwide. It’s like owning a socket wrench and saying because you have never needed a large socket that large sockets are useless and nobody will ever need one.

I will film a better video and show what I mean,  I did film one when I first noticed it when I first got the detector so I'll put that up here but this was too basic as you can space the gold and hot rock much further apart and still get the same problem, and the bigger the hot rock the worse it is, this was a tiny one, essentially when you go over a hot rock it does a "boing" sound, this sound goes for a while, and while the sound is playing nothing else under the coil is detected  If you go over a good target while the "Boing" is still going the target won't be reacted to.  Perhaps recovery was the wrong word, it's recovering from the "Boing" sound to then being able to respond to the next target, it doesn't cut off the "Boing" sound when another target sound is there.    With my 10x5" GB2 coil on, the problem is worse as the coils covering more ground so more missed ground on each hot rock.  Imagine going over ground with these little rocks scattered everywhere on and just below the ground, it's just endless "boings"

Many other detectors seem to work much better in the same situation,

Now that's just one little issue and not such a big deal unless in an area like many here full of the crazy little hot rocks.  My reasoning for him not needing the larger coil is he already has another similar detector with the 10x5" coil already, if it were his only detector of course, he'd benefit greatly from buying it if he wanted to cover some ground and get a bit more depth on bigger stuff.  For me personally I don't like taking the little coil off, as it's just so good, and where I see the Gb2 excelling over other detectors is with that little coil on it, at least that's how it is for me.

[phrunt]

Ok here is a better example, this is a 0.258 of a gram nugget too, so not insignificant.  It gets much worse with the smaller bits, but I wanted to demonstrate it with a reasonable size bit of gold.  So, obviously as the hot rocks get bigger the problem is worse, also, I was having the coil close to the gold, lift the coil up slightly to give the impression of some depth on the target and the hot rock signal over powers the gold even more.

My scales batteries are starting to go flat so the screens a bit hard to read.

In disc mode, you often get some chirps indicating a good target, although it can do these as falses with hot rocks too, although I think the discrimination on the GB2 is very good, and I'd always investigate those chirps further as I have a lot of faith in its discrimination.  If you're sweeping over the gold before the hot rock you'd find it, if it hits the hot rock first, all bets are off.  You'll see as I slightly raise the coil off the targets, the hot rock is detected and the gold isn't, even in disc mode the gold is gone, even when spaced out enough so they're both not under the coil at once.

Also, the bigger the coil you put on, the worse the problem gets too.  I wouldn't like to use the big 14" Gold Bug 2 coil on a tailings pile with hot rocks all through it, so much gold could potentially be missed.

This is where the Gold Bug Pro is an improvement as it also has a screen and you can see more what's going on with the screen, and it performs much better doing this same thing.

[Steve Herschbach]

The problem is accentuated when no tuning steps have been made to alleviate the hot rock responses. Set the 24K or Monster or GMT or any VLF up with a similar overdone response to a hot rock and the same issue will arise - it’s not something exceptional to the Gold Bug 2.

Whatever. The question was about the utility of accessory coils. I reject the idea that having more than one coil is not worthwhile on any detector unless a person is highly focused on a single task. You are a huge advocate for accessory coils on other detectors Simon and seem to be making an exception in the case of the Gold Bug 2, based purely on your own circumstances and ignoring that other people worldwide reading this stuff may not share your circumstances. In my opinion stating categorically that no coil but the 6” coil has any use in the Gold Bug 2 is just bad advice. There are pros and cons to everything. The good news is between the various posters including you on this thread both the pros and cons have been covered so I’ll leave it at that.

Detecting Small Gold at Crow Creek

Detecting Gold at Ganes Creek

Lode Gold at Hatcher Pass

Memorial Day at Ganes Creek

Detecting Micro Nuggets at Crow Creek

[phrunt]

That's true, for my needs the accessory coils are not suitable for the GB2, but for someone else they may very well be.  The prices for them are a lot more reasonable for someone in the US too, Going back in time a few months I was questioning if I should buy the 14" coil for the GB2 as it was on a clearance and I could have got it very cheap, and had a very good response from a guy that was using the 10 exclusively and loved it, he also wanted to buy the 14" coil.  I didn't buy it, have some regrets now.

 

[lobokai]

Depending on your location, of course, a smaller coil will get you into more cracks, crevices where gold migrates.

If the area is flat, wide open ground, a larger coil may bring some advantages. (e.g. Western Australia, or open desert areas in the US)

Save that $ for a trip to somewhere you KNOW gold has been found and enjoy the heck out of it.

I wish I had a Gold Bug, it's a keeper.

[lobokai]

Awesome finds!

Finding any one of those would make it impossible to leave the area, nice work and may you keep on finding.

[RONS DETECTORS MINELAB]

On 3/6/2024 at 9:20 AM, phrunt said:

I didn't buy it, have some regrets now.

I have owned all three coils and the 10” & 14” are no longer in my arsenal. Having a high frequency detector with a large coil is not the best option. The exception to this is if you only owned the one detector, then it would be good to have the 6” & 14” coils.

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

The exception to this is if you only owned the one detector, then it would be good to have the 6” & 14” coils.

Well, the original question was should he buy the GB2 10x5", and I saw he also has another high frequency VLF that comes stock with a 10x5" coil so didn't think he'd still much value for his purchase, although I'm not overly familiar with the other machine and its performance compared to the well tried, true and tested brilliant GB2,