Garrett Axioms Maiden Voyage In New Zealand

[phrunt]

With the very generous help of Steve H I'm now the proud owner of an Axiom, I've had it a week or so now but because I've got 3 broken ribs from a fall on some ice I haven't been able to use it, I wasn't really meant to go use it today either but I couldn't resist any longer, it's like putting me in front of a bucket of KFC chicken and saying just sniff it, it's not going to happen.  I was careful and didn't do too much, kept digging to a minimum and tried not to bend over too much and managed to last long enough to give the Axiom a good turn.

What a well-designed light weight housing, no twisting shaft, not going to happen, light and well balanced and a very obvious high-quality build.  I'm very impressed with the overall design of the detector.  The screen is nice and easy to read too and simple to navigate and adjust settings, very easy to use.   I liked the squared off back on the coils, not once did it fall over onto its side all day even on my uneven ground.  I would have liked a typical rounded front on the coil though that you normally see on elliptical coils, I like to poke that into places.

I started the day using the 11x7" FC-DD coil, I felt right at home using this coil, it felt similar to using the Concentric coils on the GPZ with the hot center and made it very easy to pinpoint tiny targets like pellets.  I'm not overly clued up on settings so I did my usual of maxing out the sensitivity, a noise cancel, left it in fine mode of course and off I went, I didn't need to ground balance for the ground I was in other than when I started to get hot rock issues and the ground balance was able to get rid of almost all hot rocks except two types, the highly magnetic basalt dark heavy ones that stick to a magnet so hard they don't come off easily and the green type schist ones I have problems with on almost all detectors, the 7000 and Algoforce tend to handle the green schist stuff the best out of all the detectors I've tried.

I experimented a little with threshold on some in ground pellets as I was finding them and I thought the threshold being up a little higher than default tended to give a better signal on these small targets so I left it up, I'm sure I'd read somewhere to keep it quite low so you only just hear it breaking through and I was trying that but it didn't seem right to me when the signals always seemed better with it up higher.

I was with JW, he contacted me in the morning and mentioned he might go for a detect so I said I'd come along.  It was good to have a catch up as I don't see him much over winter as I'm too busy with skiing.  It wasn't even 20 minutes and he was onto his first suspected nugget, deep down in bedrock, I went over with the Axiom and compared the signal to the 6000 and the 6000 did have a louder target signal but both picked it up, this was prior to me fiddling with the threshold too so I may have had a better signal after adjusting that off default.  It turned out a tiny bit of gold but it seemed too deep down for the size, we think as he was breaking the bedrock away with his hammer and chisel it was falling down deeper and he had to keep chasing it, he was at it for what felt like 30 minutes to get it out, it's not easy getting gold out of the schist bedrock, luck was on his side too, he ended up finding a second one in the hole after recovering the first.

I found my first Axiom nugget shortly after, it was a little small piece but it had a reasonably good signal, not loud but an obvious target.  I was expecting a pellet but it did get down to the bedrock before recovering so gave me some hope and thankfully it was a nugget, sorry Reg, a flake.

My first ever Axiom gold.

It's former home.

Down to the right front of the coil is where it came from, this aerial view is because its on a downhill slope with layers of schist sticking up, you can see where I was digging out a trench along one of the layers, that was due to that area having a few pellets in it which I kept recovering hoping for gold.  This was a productive area on this little slope in the past, many bits recovered with the GPZ and VLF's, the 6000's had a good going over it too, so I was happy to get a piece.  I get annoyed when I hear the flogged ground line but this area has had a lot of work done to it, it's very near to my best ever patch but just goes to show with both of us getting some gold within the first hour it's hard to get it all.  The conditions today were good, nice damp soil that here at least seems to liven up the little gold.

A couple of hours passed and I'd switched over to the 11x7" Mono on the Axiom to try it out, I didn't really notice much of a performance difference on tiny targets like pellets, in fact I think I prefer the 11x7" Focused Core DD with its concentric like behaviour but the Mono has the edge sensitivity which would benefit me in this sort of ground.

I had my 6000 and 10x5" Coitlek with me also and was doing a lot of comparisons for my own benefit just to see how the Axiom performed on various targets, mostly many pellets and I was very happy with just how close the Axiom is to the 6000 on these small targets, really not much in it but the 6000 coming out on top, really not by much though, it's close, a slightly smaller coil for the Axiom like a 10x5" that I had on the 6000 and who knows.  I really hope more coils come in the future, especially from the aftermarket people, I will be nagging for them 😛

My next nugget (flake) was from my old patch spot, I used to break down the soil off the ledge onto the ground, flatten it out and detect it and almost every load of broke off I would find a bit of two of gold, that stopped last time I did it probably a year or more ago now so I gave that another try with the Axiom, I did spend an hour or more doing it but did manage one little piece.  It's a bit unusual; it looks like its old discarded stacked rocks and then a bunch of top soil dumped over top.  The gold tends to be down where it's got the big rocks.

You can see the underground rocks in this photo, they have lots of air gaps around them like old rock piles in the area, only difference being they've been buried.  My biggest nugget from this spot was 4.2 grams in the past and probably 30 grams came from it all up.

Lots of the rocks are hot rocks of various sizes so using a VLF doing this is quite difficult as its nutting off all over the place, the GPZ even struggled on many of them, as does the 6000 and the Axiom was hearing some too, many balanced out but not all.

And here it is, my first gold with the Axiom mono coil.

I'd pretty much given up at that point as I was getting too sore so I did a little video demonstrating the green schist hot rocks as I'm always complaining about them so I thought I'd show just how bad they are, they're next to impossible to balance out, although the Algoforce seems to be the best for balancing it.  The problem is it comes in all sizes and when buried sounds exactly like a little bit of gold, this big bit in the video started off as a faint pellet like signal until it became a screamer.  I don't know what it's called, looks like our typical schist except its green.

I look forward to healing up from the ribs so I can go use the Axiom properly and see how I go when I can put full effort into digging.

My junk. with my sore ribs I didn't recover any near to surface pellets, I had to think they were likely gold before recovering any.  If it moved on a scrape, it was left behind for another day.

[stupot]

Absolutely brilliant! Its always really exciting to try new equipment in areas you know really well and what youve found before.

Finding those bits in that spot just shows that even after many visits, theres always something left.

Great to read and thanks from a non prospector, even thougn there are many similarities to beachcombing!

Thanks again, i share your enthaisiasm.

[Steve Herschbach]

Great first outing report Simon - and gold first time!

Some notes:

I ALWAYS do a full factory reset when swapping coils. Yeah, you have to put custom settings back but once used to it takes like one minute.

Critical adjustment is always run Speed in SLOW, will significantly smooth the threshold.

Another critical change is in the tone, at least for me. I go to 30 normally and have even gone to zero as of late. Helps with high frequency hearing loss. Do not overlook trying the ATX audio option. Many people hate it but some really prefer it. abenson for example, prefers the alternative audio mode.

Threshold I have been running as high as 20. You may need to lower volume to compensate. Too low causes audio drop outs or uneven threshold. I recommend running as high as needed to keep it smooth... but no higher.

Engaging the ground balance window will balance out most any hot rock and even nails, but at some cost in stability. I tend not to do it but worth experimenting with if you have a really pesky hot rock.

Good going getting gold first time out! And yes, as I have said 100 times, Axiom is better than it gets credit for. 

[mn90403]

Congratulations on a couple of pieces of gold.

Thanks Simon.  I'm glad to see you out with JW.  Thanks to Steve for getting one in your hands so we can get your reports.

The Axiom really is a good feeling machine.  I can remember my only time with it quite clearly.  I've just never pulled the trigger on a purchase because of all my other toys.

Your love for skiing really does cut into your detecting time.  And those injuries ... that is why I'll not ski.  If there were only nugget patches on the ski slopes, then you'd be on to new places you'd get to before JW!  haha  It's time to crank up your AI and have it suggest some new places to detect.  

Hopefully there will be some gold still left when I come back for a more serious detect in a few years.  I doubt there will be any left at the golf course.  (I just had a slip and called it a gold course!)

[phrunt]

I haven't yet found my scales to weigh the little bits, I don't know what I've done with them.

I fell over walking going to the cafe, there was a lot of ice on the ground as snow melted and turned to ice on the concrete, it was at the ski field though.  When I slipped my legs went in the air and I landed on my elbow with it digging into my ribs.  I was just trying to get some food 🙂

I've very much still got my training wheels on with the Axiom, but the configuration side of it is simple though, very easy to navigate and understand.

I forgot all about the ground balance window, I knew it had it but forgot at the time, I'll try it out.  I recall trying it out on my AT Gold years ago, those green rocks have always been a nightmare, they just sound so good when the right size green rock is at the right depth, they get you excited.

I found it ran fine for me in maximum sensitivity in general and the threshold was good, no complaints there.

After having used one now the detector is a bargain for USA people with the lite package, and it even gets regular further discounts with sales going on, the headphones aren't necessary, the speaker is good but really, a cheap Bluetooth transmitter and some Bluetooth headphones most already have and you're done.  No electronics in the back box for the transmitter to mess with either so should be able to put it anywhere, I'll try next time with that so I can use my Torus I was using with the 6000 as its speaker is pitiful.

By the way, JW ended up finding 4, two ahead of me, not unusual at all and he was clearly able to put more effort into digging and searching than me hobbling around. 🙂

[beatup]

good on you simon

[Mountaineer Matt]

Great report, thanks for sharing. It really is a great machine and I've also been surprised how closely it holds up to the 6000. It might just be bad luck, but myself and almost everyone I know has had some sort of quality issue with their Axiom. Mostly with the coils and shaft clips. I've had to send my machine in, as well as my coils, and I have another that needs to be sent in now.

Regardless, it's an incredible machine for the price (at least in the US. I'm not sure if they dropped the price elsewhere, like the did in the states.) I look forward to reading your future reports once you have some more time with the machine.

[mn90403]

3 hours ago, phrunt said:

I haven't yet found my scales to weigh the little bits, I don't know what I've done with them.

Simon,

These are things old detectorists do.  Get out and detect now before you forget where to go!!!!

[Aureous]

1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

Simon,

These are things old detectorists do.  Get out and detect now before you forget where to go!!!!

After 4+ decades of detecting ,Ive kept every set of scales Ive ever owned....think I got 7 now, including 2 sets of brass pan scales that weighed over a hundred ounces each. The 'tough weigh' type clamshell electronic scales are small enough to fit in the glovebox and just keep working. Lesson learned, always have redundancy spares for everything! Ive done exactly what Simon is experiencing now, 'where's my Fkn scales!!!!'....only to find them in some insane spot much later.....old age sucks