Minelab GM 1000 & Makro Gold Racer

[goldbrick]

Klunker, thanks for your answer. We need men like you in Congress.

Steve, All I can say is WOW! That was some reply. Thanks for all the time you spend helping us.

I am just looking to eke out some extra ground handling  capability in sites that a PI fears to tread due to massive amounts of trash. If they are that close in performance I will just keep my Gold Racer.

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Merton,

Sorry so long winded! I don't want to sound like I am avoiding a question but at the same time I am not a big fan of simple answers when reality can be a lot more nuanced. It may prove that the GM 1000 would be a worthwhile investment for you but it's not a slam dunk.

People are always going to have their favorites, but as far as I am concerned I can grab any detector running at over 30 kHz and do about as well. The detector will not matter to me much as the quality of the location. 

[auminesweeper]

That's a lot for us to take in so it's no wonder newbies keep asking the same question over and over, the choice of which IB machine to buy now boils down to which one suits the application along with the desired features.

One thing that impressed me with the GM-1000 was in Chris R's 2nd video with the way he changed to Disc mode and not only did the GM go quiet over that soil and Iron but most of all the way the hot rock vanished, Using VLF / LF machines I think we would put up with some junk but hot rocks will drive you nuts, But not with the GM-1000,

I like it..

John.

[DSMITH]

On 7/16/2017 at 7:09 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

The coil touch sensitivity has been mentioned before, though it is hard to get a grip on how bad it is machine to machine. kiwijw's issue in that regard seems more troubling than what I experience, but then again I rarely run the GM1000 at manual sensitivity 9-10. My go-to setting has been manual sensitivity 6, 7, or 8 plus auto sensitivity where needed and at those levels I get no touch sensitivity of note. At 9 I get a little touch sensitivity with both coils, and at 10 it is such that I have to use careful coil control to keep the machine tamed. I have been doing this so long I hardly notice I am doing it but my coil handling with any machine changes almost instantly to whatever the machine tells me keeps it happy. The Gold Racer has some touch sensitivity at max sensitivity also but it is fairly minor. The Gold Bug 2 is the spoiler because you can crank it all the way up and I swear you could play golf with the 6" coil and not get false signals. I use a Gold Bug 2 6" coil to mow dirt flat and push rocks out of the way. You can't do that with the GM1000 at max sensitivity as it will false as you bump and touch things.

Don't know if this will help others with the coil knock issue or not but I took a plastic zip tie and zip tied the coil cable to the shaft just above the coil and the coil knock issue seemed to go away for me I can now run in 9 or 10 sens in all metal and the coil knock is not an issue like I said I do not know if this will help on all the GM 1000s out there but on mine it did seem to

[PhaseTech]

On 7/17/2017 at 3:18 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

In keeping with my advice on dedicated versus general purpose I am therefore going to bet overall on the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 versus the Makro Gold Racer for extreme ground handling capability while gold prospecting. That's all it is however, a bet based on limited data points and so I could be wrong. I will know a heck of a lot more on the subject in about two months. Until then, maybe Nenad in Australia or somebody else that has both machines can enlighten both of us more on the subject.

 

Hi Steve, D&P-OR and all,

I have used both and they are both good, but different. 

The GM being a silent search has both its advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is to guys like me who have had a lot of experience with VLF gold machines over the years and all of them have had a threshold! Take that familiar hum away and I just get an uneasy feeling. The advantage of the silent threshold is that you can generally run the machine a little hotter than you normally would, due to low/marginal chatter occurring below the audible level. Also, when you hear a beep, and it repeats, you dig - there is no trying to decipher what to dig among threshold clatter. The fact that the Monster also has auto sensitivity means that a new user can switch on and start detecting with minimum fuss and minimum learning curve. The main thing to learn is where to swing the thing, but watch Chris Ralph's videos and that is covered pretty well! 

Ground handling of hot ground, and general performance really comes down to your Sensitivity setting. You can pretty much run both units as smooth or erratic as you want, and your sensitivity setting will dictate performance. The difference here is that the Gold Racer has 100 steps of adjustment, whereas the Monster has 10 steps. So the GM is a little more immediate, e.g. if you are using Sens 7 and the monster is playing up a little, you can drop it to Sens 6 and the noise will be gone. In this same scenario on the GR, you may need to drop the Sensitivity by 5 or 6 numbers, and possibly reset your iSat setting as well. So the GR isn't as immediate, but allows for finer tuning. So it really all comes down to the individual, their needs, and their expectations. I sell both, so I'm not biased in any way. When I get an inquiry about what detector they should buy, I probably go back to the customer with more questions than they asked me, to get a better idea of where and how they intend to use it, their experience level, experience with other detectors etc. Their answers will tell me which of the two units would be the better option, and perhaps another machine like a 705, Impact, or AU Gold Finder may be more suitable. 

But back to the GM Vs GR topic, here are a few differences that may be of interest:

Speaker placement - GM wins here. It is on the back of the display and is nice and loud. GR is on the bottom box under the armrest, so okay if coin/relic hunting on grass, but in the goldfield you really want to have the neoprene cover on. 

Wireless - GR has wireless capability built in so wins here. For the GM, you can buy a Deteknix WireFree system with 3.5mm plug.

Balance - Again GR wins here as it has the batteries under the armrest, but the GM with the supplied lithium pack is very light, and balance is better than you'd expect - even better if you use a GPX upper shaft and standard Minelab lower stem. 

Coil options - at this point the GR wins hands down in coil options. 5" round, 7.5x4" elliptical, 10x5" elliptical DD and Concentric, and 15.5x13" semi-elliptical. The GM only has the supplied two coils. 

Sensitivity - this is a tough one, but in hot changeable soils the Auto Sensitivity on the GM should be seen as an advantage, especially to inexperienced users. If using the GM in Auto I like to pump the coil up and down and sweep the coil side to side just to give it a change to set itself correctly. Not sure if this is necessary or not, but is a bit of a ritual for me whenever using any units with Auto functions, as you don't know what the last state of the unit was when you switch on. 

Build/robustness - this is a win for the GM. Both units have waterproof coils, but the GM control box is a little more rugged, and rated as being rain proof. 

Discrimination - the GM discrimination is really a ferrous/non-ferrous probability scale, and the only adjustment you have is to audibly ignore high iron probability targets. The Gold Racer has two discrimination modes (Fast & Boost), with the discrimination adjustable, and with a Target ID makes the GR the easy winner in this category. 

Audio - I like the audio in both the all-metal modes, and it would come down to personal preference. The GR does have an option of low or high tone whereas the GM tone is fixed, but is a nice choice that should suit most users, (same as the Nokta AU Finder). 

Hope that helps.

Cheers

[D&P-OR]

Gentlemen------Thanks to all of you that responded.------I've detected "forever" but not so much gold hunting.-----I'll read & re-read these responses, very good info here.-------Del

[Steve Herschbach]

Awesome write-up, thanks Nenad!

[canslawhero]

dang Steve, that post gives me brain freeze, don't know how you can juggle all of those!

I have enough with just 2, G2+ and Racer 2 but alas there's no gold here (except an occasional jewelry piece)

cheers