Minelab CTX 3030 for Gold Nuggets

[Jonathan Porter]

Gloves are sold in hardware stores for builders and are fingerless on thumb and first two fingers which makes it much easier to pick up tiny little nuggets in a scoop during retrieval. Those are my favourite pair but generally these gloves only last about 2 months before they start to fall apart, although two months for me is an awful lot of detecting compared to most other people.

The main reason I wear them is to cut back on the amount of sun getting to the tops of my hands, sun screen wears off way to quickly to be practical in our hot sweaty environment, after doing this professionally for 21 years the tops of my hands are starting to look a little worse for wear, also the reason why I don't wear baseball caps anymore because the tips of my ears were going down the same path.

JP

[deathray]

I hear ya JP....been roofing for 25 years,my ears are jacked,lol.

[Ron (CA)]

Good Strategy!!  All this came from one area of heavy iron.   We probably pulled 15 nuggets with the CTX STOCK coil (6 grains to 2.5 oz.)

Pulled another 50+ nuggets with PIs and the place is still loaded with iron.  So there is plenty more gold but a ton of iron to dig to get it!

Just picked up the 5x10 "Joey" coil and air tested it a bit and took it to an iron infested relic site for a couple hours last night.

Seemed a bit heavy and when I weighed it later I saw that it is 3.5 ounces heavier than the stock 11" coil.  I could feel it right way.

The coil ran smooth and IDed very similar to the Minelab coils  I found that the high conductive items (Silver Dimes- Silver Halves) with the Coiltek read one number lower on the Conductive side.  Not really an issue for relics, gold or even coin shooting as it is still in the range you have to dig if you are deep turf hunting for silver  (44 vs 45  or 45 vs 46 etc).

I will give this coil a try and also let my buddy Mark use it to get his opinion on it.  I am actually looking for a relic coil for heavy iron  and also to gain an little more ground coverage and depth vs the 6"

The Joey gives up 15-22% in the depth department vs the Stock coil.  (this was on coins: Silver dime-16%, wheat penny-16%, Silver Qtr-15%, Silver Half-21%, Silver Dollar-22% and V nickel-15.5%.

The Joey vs the 6" Minelab has interesting results as it was significantly deeper on a silver dime, V Nickel and Silver Qtr (15-22%)  but on the Silver Half and Silver Dollar the advantage dropped to 8-11%.  The Joey had a depth increase of 1.5 inches from the Silver Dime to the Silver Dollar while the 6" coil and stock coil both had a difference of 2.5"  So the Joey is not as hot on the bigger silver coins.  But still deeper than the 6" .

I need to do some testing on the Joey for small nuggets.   I air tested a couple small nuggets just to see where they read on the VDI 

Fly speck 1 grain --ZERO Reading
8 grn/.6 gram  Reading around 12/9 on the VDI and getting it close to 4 - 4 1/2 inches
1.1 dwt/1.8 gram nugget  Reading 12/10 on the VID and  around 6"
8 dwt nugget  reading at 12/19 and about 9"
It will hear a 5 grain nugget at about 2"  and read 12/1 on the VDI  

But a lot of that will be wiped out once you put things in the ground.

I just to air test to give me a general idea of what the coil may be able to do.  I don't take an air test too seriously.    I will take the same test nuggets with me and bury them and see if I can even hear them!!

Plus it is raining so it gives me something to geek around with!!

[Steve Herschbach]

Great post Ron, thanks! I moved a few around to put all the CTX related stuff back on this thread. Very interesting, the Coiltek weighs more than the stock coil? So the question is, how does the stock coil do on the 5 grain nugget?

Have you ever tried hunting with the CTX trigger locked in the pinpoint mode?

[Ron (CA)]

Stock coil will hear a 5 grain nugget: 12/01 at about 1-1.5"

Never have locked the pinpoint and hunted. If I want to hear everything I run a combined mode with a wide open screen. But the ground will grunt from time to time so I run a couple lines of discrimination with a "manual" ground balance.

I prefer Ground Coin Mode but will also use High trash from time to time. I find a get a better ground balance with the Ground Coin mode and better signal response in my areas. But using some discrimination.

If you run a combined Program with Zero discrimination then High Trash is the quietest mode.

I don't think one will outshine the other but that is just my opinion.And if you are hunting for gold with the CTX (smaller gold) then it is a pretty slow sweep speed machines which is typical for Minelab machines.

From the Manual

Ground-Coin

Ground-Coin improves Target ID stability of coin type targets in areas with high ground mineralization. Ground with high mineralization would normally spread the Target ID over a wide area of the detect screen, with the potential to misidentify targets. This setting uses advanced signal processing techniques to minimize the blending of ground and coin signals. The improvement in Target ID stability allows you the best opportunity to correctly identify the good target.

High Trash

The High Trash setting can identify weak accepted target signals among rejected targets even if the rejected target signals are stronger. The advanced signal processing takes the best accepted target signal and ignores all the rejected target signals no matter how strong they are. When High Trash is used, the Target ID is less stable, therefore a larger edit frame will be required in order to accept or reject specific targets. High Trash can also be used with a slightly faster sweep speed, making it suitable for areas where fast ground coverage is important, such as during competition hunts. The High Trash setting also offers improved target ID stability in highly mineralized ground conditions.

[Steve Herschbach]

Really great stuff - thanks again Ron.

It would seem to me the main advantage of the Coiltek coil is simply the solid bottom and elongated shape. Nothing to hang up and better for getting into nooks and crannies with the nose of the coil. I guess an alternative would be to make a solid bottom scuff cover for the Minelab coils.

[Steve Herschbach]

So JP, any more news about your CTX 3030? I have been staying near home this last month, writing and selling used detectors. I am heading to New Orleans in a week for the Minelab Conference. I have not had any time yet to get my CTX out in the field looking for gold. My real prospecting will start in March.

Some Details on Find Made in Video

CTX 3030 Finds Gold Near Palmer River, Australia

[Jonathan Porter]

Hi Steve, been pretty flat out building boosters (Still not got yours ready to ship, but the curly cords turned up yesterday so once boxed up they'll be good to go... please PM me your mailing address).

I've been out a few times in the last week or so reworking some old ground between the thunderstorms, very humid and sticky but 9 and 8 gram pieces have made it worth while. 

Would have loved to come over for the New Orleans gig but just could not justify the expense for only a few days visit, especially this time of year where the kids have just gone back to school (expensive), say Hi to everyone for me will you?

The CTX is sitting in the cupboard for now and for good reason, there are better things to do at present. :-) But I've still got some oversize piles that are full of trash that I want to check out, once the weather cools I'll give it another shot.

JP

[Gold Hound]

I've been using the CTX for finding gold nuggets in trash areas like tailings oversize piles, old diggers camps, ect here in Australia since its release.

I have easily found over 10oz doing this.

I spent alot of time building my discrimination patterns and audio to suit and playing with the settings.

When I was building the pattern I scanned over 1000 different nuggets from .2g to 32oz.

Here in aus our ground varies alot from heavy mineralization to low mineralization so I built 3 different modes that cover these all with minimal adjustment's.

Once you learn the CTX and how it operates under different soil conditions and get to know the target trace it is a weapon in any area that has a lot of trash particularly iron.

The target separation and discriminator is the best I have ever used for this type of work.

And all of the audio options availabe I just love it!