Manticore And Axiom At Prospecting/Relic Sites 10/10/2024

[Jeff McClendon]

I coach high school boys and girls golf and when the Fall season is over I like to celebrate by going to a couple of high altitude sites in the Colorado central Rockies that have been a fun place to go in the past at this time of year.

I started out with the Garrett Axiom at a gold prospecting site. It had been several months since I had used the Axiom for other than testing. What a super nice, easy to use and easy to swing pulse induction detector. The site I hunted is really trashy so I wasn't expecting much in the way of gold. Just too many targets and too little time. So finding no gold was not a big deal.

The targets on the left side of the photo were found with the Axiom. I was running the 11X7" Mono coil in Fine/Slow. Sensitivity 4 was too noisy, but sensitivity 3 was outstanding. Plenty of really small targets around 0.10 gram were found.

This area is full of green mantle type hot rocks and magnetite. The Axiom handled the magnetite fairly well and also only sounded off with characteristic longer wailing type responses on those hot rocks. Extremely hot ground.

I did fire up the Manticore with the M8 coil and Steve G's non conductive shaft at that site for a few minutes to test it. Absolutely no issues with the coil detecting the shaft. Thanks Steve G.!!!!!

I then went to an 1870s relic site not too far away to run the Manticore with M8 coil and Steve G. shaft on some similar hot ground that is also full of square nails, rusted tin and lots of other rusted iron artifacts. I have hunted this site with Deus 2, the Legend and the Equinox 800. Iron falsing has always been an issue and I know I am going to dig some iron. I basically feel lucky if I can find anything that isn't ferrous at this site.

I was in a 3 hour time crunch so I just ran the Manticore in 5 tone All Terrain General, sensitivity 23 which is where ground noise stopped being an issue, and bumped the recovery speed up to 6 and hunted with iron responses accepted. I didn't adjust anything else. 2 tones are what I have used in the past with other detectors and most people would recommend that. Yeah, it was a cacophony and very mentally taxing but I think I did OK. At least I had some idea about the conductivity. There are lots of tiny to small pieces of flat lead lying all over this site about as thick as a modern paper plate which can read from 05 up into the 30s depending on size. I could have disced them out but I wanted to hunt wide open since this really is a machine gun rapid fire, thick carpet of targets from surface to 6" deep site.

None of the non-ferrous targets that are in the photo were clean hits. They all had ferrous contaminated audio responses even though none were deeper than 6". The Manticore with M8 coil was awesome not only for target separation and for hot ground handling but also for navigating around the small boulders, gnarly sage bushes and young aspen trees that cover this site. Bigger coils, even 9" coils just can't handle this place.

The targets in the center and right side of the photo are from the 1870s relic site and are just the ones I kept. I left many, many other dug ferrous targets at the site.

Yes, those are US Seated Quarters.

[Steve Herschbach]

I found your post interesting Jeff for purely personal reasons. After over 50 years of metal detecting I have been making the shift from hardcore "I'm making money at this" metal detecting to casual "I'm doing this for fun" metal detecting. I admit this has been a struggle!

My main money making tactic was what I called "brute force detecting". Long hours, often unproductive, often digging huge amounts of junk, and then showing gold that people assumed I found in a few easy days. No, it was a week or two or even a solid month of 10-12 hour days. I hunted lots of tailing piles and that means deep trash. As gold depletes, people like to say "well, just find new patches". Yeah, well, been there done that, and I can tell you that often means a week or more with no good finds at all, just trash. To sum it all up, I did very well, but it is because I worked at it. I ran it as an actual for profit business and treated it much like I would any other job, with turning a profit after all genuine expenses were accounted for as the priority. It worked - I can honestly say my gold prospecting activities over the years bought me a house in Reno, NV.

However, after 50 years I must admit now I simply do not want to work that hard at it anymore. I folded up my 40 year old gold prospecting business a couple years ago as no longer being able to turn a profit without working even harder than I already was. Rather than double down my efforts I decided it was time to just give up that idea of paying for the trip and go detecting purely for the fun.

It was hard to let go. I even went so far as to pick up a GPZ 7000 last winter, to see if it could reignite the old fire by putting some deep gold in my pocket. What it did in actuality was convince me I had made the right decision. My last target with the GPZ 7000 was a beauty, just a perfect signal in an area where large gold lurks. Soft and sweet, getting better as I dug. But hard packed cobble ground, I hacked and chipped for over a half hours to get down a couple feet deep - for a broken square nail. I was exhausted and had a very distinct thought - "this is not fun!" I only found a couple small nuggets with the machine before deciding to take the hit and let it go. Maybe if that had been a two ounce nugget I'd feel different but I gave it a shot and it was what it was... not fun. I went ahead and sold it recently.

My last year and a half was a lot of floundering around with different detectors, GPZ 7000, Algoforce, Axiom, Deus 2, 24K, Manticore, even a spin with a Vortex. I hit the goldfields, the parks, and the beaches at Tahoe. And finally this year, not long ago, it all finally clicked. For what I am now doing, a variety of detecting, in water and out, with FUN as the main goal, the Axiom and Manticore have proven to be my perfect pairing. A good PI and a superb SMF. Between the two I can do any type of detecting that there is and do it very well. All for under 7 lbs total in a compact package together that will not break the bank. I am now retiring all my other detectors having settled on these two. Gotta say it's a relief to finally have a plan and a focus again.

If there is only one thing lacking it is that the Axiom is not submersible. I find the Manticore to be as near perfect as I could wish for in a VLF and so I need look no further there. The Axiom though might be replaced by another option if one comes along that weighs no more, performs as well or better, and is fully submersible. The PI equivalent of the Manticore. Until then though I know what I will be using for all my detecting, an almost perfect pair in my opinion (for me and my purposes) - The Axiom and Manticore. They even look good together! 

[Jeff McClendon]

Steve, you have done years and years of gold prospecting that I can only dream about. My gold prospecting time in comparison could be measured in a couple of months. 

I definitely do not have the physical stamina to hunt 10 to 12 hours at any gold prospecting sites especially ones that are at 12,000 feet elevation and my body lets me know later that day and the next day for sure. I am just glad that I can still walk into some of these sites and swing a detector and a pick for 8 hours.

I have to agree with you. The Manticore is just on another level entirely.

I thought the original Equinox models were fantastic even though they had plenty of physical flaws/weaknesses. My Equinox detectors are long gone but I keep two Legends for water hunting and for loaners and they detect a lot like a Nox 800 without all of the flaws. I haven't even scratched the surface on all that the Manticore can do and I have been using it constantly since February. It worked great for me right out of the box. I haven't even read the manual completely yet.

I have swung just about every super heavy PI out there except for the 7000 and I don't want to do that anymore. The Axiom gets the job done on sites where the gold is generally smaller and if there is something bigger lurking in the 18" depth or less depth range, it will hit it easily. Not using a harness and not constantly dealing with out of control EMI issues makes the Axiom really fun and relaxing to use.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

On 10/11/2024 at 9:21 AM, Jeff McClendon said:

I definitely do not have the physical stamina to hunt 10 to 12 hours at any gold prospecting sites especially ones that are at 12,000 feet elevation and my body lets me know later that day and the next day for sure. I am just glad that I can still walk into some of these sites and swing a detector and a pick for 8 hours.

I was one tough s.o.b. even just ten years ago. My program in Northern Nevada was park/camp on the site. No driving here and there each day, just camp and hunt one spot, typically for a week minimum, often two weeks. Since my focus was as much on costs as anything I considered things like driving as wasted time and money. Logistical cost control was key to making money by keeping expenses at a minimum. People who hunted with me will always remember me eating food cold out of a can - food as fuel, no time or energy for barbecues. I normally detected alone though as I find most people get bored quickly and like moving to new spots constantly, leaving gold to find gold as far as I’m concerned.

It was up before sunrise for coffee and breakfast so I could start detecting as soon as it was light enough. Then detect with nary a break except a maybe 15 minute lunch break, then on until it was too dark to see a nugget in a scoop. Rinse, repeat, day after day, methodically gridding my chosen location. And by way of being one of the first to hit the old patches around here with the GPZ, I did quite well. It really did bring old patches to life one last time, and as a prototype tester I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Mostly though it was just long patient hours of digging every target I could find. Me about 11 years ago out Sawtooth way with a proto GPZ (note the coil color), lean and mean….

Now it’s day trips, damn the expense, I’m sleeping in my bed at home. I need to walk my dogs twice a day. So it’s up, walk the dogs, drive an hour or two at most, detect maybe five hours max, then home again for another dog walk and dinner with my wife. I feel completely spoilt and am indeed having fun now. I’ve turned into an absolute homebody and hate doing even an overnighter anymore. Time with the wife and wiener dog herd have top priority and so finding a way to make my detecting fit around them, instead of the other way around, has proven to be the key to happiness in these latter days of my life. No complaints at all, as far as I’m concerned I’m living my very best life right now. 

Sorry to semi-hijack your thread. I’m glad you also are still getting out and making great finds. I find a lot of your posts quite inspiring Jeff, and the fact we converged on the same pair of detectors is interesting. Me for the gold, you more for the silver. I’m finding more gold with a VLF now than with my PI and that’s a big switch around, credit to the Manticore. Then the silver you have found with the Manticore is amazing, good old days type stuff! 

My prospecting and detecting diary

[abenson]

Nice bunch of finds Jeff! I especially like the 2 seated quarters as those are getting hard to come by these days.

I haven't posted much on the forum over the last few months. But I can't agree more with what's already been said about both the Garrett Axiom and Minelab Manticore, they are a great combination. In fact I just recently got rid of my GPX 6000 for a few reasons I won't go into great detail about, and kept the Axiom. But I just feel like the Garrett Axiom is a better fit for the sites I hunt. So when a PI is needed, I'll be using the Axiom from here on.

As has already been said, the Manticore is a fine VLF and I personally feel like it's the only one I need. Although, I will be keeping my D2. But, like Steve, I'm getting tired of all the work that goes into digging every target and when long drive times and short hunt times prevail, I've got to make every minute hunting count. So, Axiom when I need it, but most of the time I'll be using the Manticore for everything including gold nugget hunting.

[Valens Legacy]

Very nice hunt with some great seated silver coins, I could only hope to find them in my lifetime.

I always enjoy learning from this forum on what it takes to detect and how hard it is to locate what you are looking for. Since I have severe ringing in the ear I don't know if I can really distinguish the true tones that I hear.

I have to hear the tones and look at the ID numbers on the 800 to make sure I"m in the range of silver or gold and go from there.

Glad that Steve H. has this site for people like me, and people like you that tells how they done it.

[Jeff McClendon]

On 10/12/2024 at 12:58 AM, Valens Legacy said:

Very nice hunt with some great seated silver coins, I could only hope to find them in my lifetime.

I always enjoy learning from this forum on what it takes to detect and how hard it is to locate what you are looking for. Since I have severe ringing in the ear I don't know if I can really distinguish the true tones that I hear.

I have to hear the tones and look at the ID numbers on the 800 to make sure I"m in the range of silver or gold and go from there.

Glad that Steve H. has this site for people like me, and people like you that tells how they done it.

I have ringing in my left ear pretty bad. It is a super high C tone that basically never stops. I setup my Manticore, Legend and used to setup my Equinox 800 in 5 or 6 tones with tones that sounded really good and strong to my ears and corresponded with iron, small foil, US nickels, US zinc pennies and US high conductor coins. With the Legend I was able to add a copper penny/clad dime tone bin just below US quarters since it has 6 tones. As long as I hunted with those in a Multi setting, the target IDs were so good, even on deeper targets that targets that fit into those tone bins did not crossover into an adjacent tone bin so I knew what I was about to dig once I knew the targets that fit those IDs/tone bins. Makes it really easy if you are able to remember which tones go with which targets and is a lot easier than just 2 tones or full tones.

[Valens Legacy]

5 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I have ringing in my left ear pretty bad. It is a super high C tone that basically never stops. I setup my Manticore, Legend and used to setup my Equinox 800 in 5 or 6 tones with tones that sounded really good and strong to my ears and corresponded with iron, small foil, US nickels, US zinc pennies and US high conductor coins. With the Legend I was able to add a copper penny/clad dime tone bin just below US quarters since it has 6 tones. As long as I hunted with those in a Multi setting, the target IDs were so good, even on deeper targets that targets that fit into those tone bins did not crossover into an adjacent tone bin so I knew what I was about to dig once I knew the targets that fit those IDs/tone bins. Makes it really easy if you are able to remember which tones go with which targets and is a lot easier than just 2 tones or full tones.

Thank you, I will give it a try however I believe that there is to much damage with the ears.

 

[JCR]

Those are some good looking relics.  Glad you got out & had a good time.