What PI detector did you find you biggest nugget with?


Guest goldstudmuffin

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Guest goldstudmuffin

Hello all,

I know this has been talked about before but I think it's been a few years. After looking at Reno Chris' Minelab time-line chart I realized the old technology MPS 2000 - 2100 - 2200 SD's (excluding v-2) were only made about 6 years and the newer technology GP's have been made over 8 years now. A few people feel that the older SD machines will detect larger gold at greater depth than the GPX - GP 3000 - 3500 technology using DVT and new SETA technology series detectors the GPX 4000 and 4500. The latest Minlabes excell on small gold in heavy mineralization that could not be heard using the older SD models plus the GPX 4000 machines are quieter and more immune to interference.

My Brother and I hunt together and have found far more big nuggets over an ounce with the old 2100's than the GP 3000's or GPX 4000's in about the same amout of time. The ratio has been 10 to 1 in favor of the 2100's.

So are the new GPX 4000 & 4500 finding bigger nuggets? Love to hear your opinion. Isn't the internet fun?

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I posted a theory about this very subject here previously and, as expected, a few of you found my suggestion laughable. Heck, I even drew a diagram.

Here it is again, simplified.

I believe that the success of the SD units favoring the larger nuggets at depth is due in part to the preference of coils used. Having since spoken to some of the coil designers, it seems I might have been on the ball all along. The SD's preferable coil type is a Double-D (which is quieter on an SD - especially compared to a Monoloop). The GPX's preferred coil is the Monoloop (because these new detectors can generally use Monoloop coils in a more stable fashion than the GP/SDs can). Hence MOST GPX users are using monoloops.

But if we look back a few years to when the GP3000 was still the new kid on the block and the GPXs were yet to be invented, the DD coils were producing all the major large nuggets on record during that year in Australia. With no major recorded finds using the Monoloops for the same year. This has been explained to be (possibly) the result of the Double-D coils being able to penetrate dual layers of mineralized ground ... One on the surface and one in the wash-gravel below... if it is there. One of the Coil manufacturers wrote about this sometime back and suggested that Monoloops will penetrate the surface layer of mineralization but tend to get absorbed by any secondary layer below the surface, therefore not being able to penetrate it as efficiently as a Double-D coil. People with the new GPX models seem to overwhelmingly prefer to use a Monoloop on this detector and though more sensitive to smaller nuggets, the Monoloop is not going to give the stability of the Double-D. Hence all those GPXs are out there with noisier coils on them than is often necessary. I've seen the GPXs give up enormous gold in the last few years so we know they can find it.

I would suggest that this gives us a possibility worth exploring... that the Double-Ds are quieter and therefore more likely to reveal targets below or within layers of mineralized soil than the Monoloops. And that people using SDs tend to use Double-D coils as the preferred coil. And people using GPXs tend to be sticking Monoloops on them (probably because everyone else is doing it). Monoloops are more sensitive to smaller nuggets and the SETA timings are perfectly suited to smaller gold as well... so you'll porobably dig smaller gold with a GPX unless you change the settings on it to respond similar to an SD or GP.

Not everyone will agree but the evidence is there and even the coil makers are tending to agree with me on this. But please note that there will ALWAYS be times when a Monoloop is preferred and other times when a Double-D is all that can be used. So each coil-type will have it's niche.

/Waiting for Coiltek's rumored upcoming 'Goldstalker' Double-Ds myself.

Cheers,

Marco

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Hi all I generally prefer my modded 2100 on old patches over my 3500 but considering its modded its hard to use as an example. Im also using a Coiltek mono coil on the 2100 and a factory coil on the 3500 further making it difficult to make a comparison. point being there are many considerations when trying to tell what the advantges are? AzNuggetBob

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Guest Mike C...

heres what I think the SD's got most of the big ones and is the reason for mostly small ones being found with the Gpx's that were left over from the lack of sensitiity of the SD's ;) -Mike C... :ph34r:

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Hey Goldstudmuffin,

This has always been an interesting subject. For me I think it has been just the opposite, but I'm also here in the US, not Australia. I believe I only found 3-4 ounce plus gold nuggets with the SD's, but several dozen starting with the GP Extreme. I actually found larger gold nuggets over an ounce in size, also one of my largest solid ones (9 + ounces) with the GP Extreme. I was real amazed on what I left behind, especially at Rich Hill with the SD2100 and SD2200.

There has always been a debate about the SD vs. the GP/GPX series when it comes to outright depth. There is no question that the GP & GPX series find small gold and small gold at depth over the SD series (nuggets under 1/4 ounce).

Russ, could you have found those nuggets due to the fact you hunted the area first with the SD's and then might have not been at borderline depths? For example, if you hunted an area many times over and you found several ounce plus nuggets only 8-12 inches deep, is that fair to say you found more than you would with the GP or GPX? This same principle would apply for me and others that have hunted areas with the GP and GPX series, but never hunted them with the SD's (newer locations).

There are a lot of variables involved when it comes to depth. Some of them just off the top of my head would be - Detector, Detector Settings, Detector Battery Strength, Personal Hearing, Headphones, Signal Enhancer used or not, Coil Swing Speed, Coil Swing Height, Coil Size, Coil Configuration, Mineralization, EMI Present?, Windy or Noisy Day, Purity of Gold, Impurities in the Gold, Specimen or Solid Nugget, Flat or Dense Nugget, ect ..... Many more variables could be involved.

One of my old saying is "If you don't hear it, you never knew it was there!" You can worry yourself to no sleep wondering if you missed a big nugget at depth and you never heard it. :blush:

Be interesting to see what others have to say.

Mike C. - I think you're right on target with what you mentioned.

Nero - The Coiltek Goldstalker DD's are awesome! Been field testing one for some time now.

Rob Allison

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heres what I think the SD's got most of the big ones and is the reason for mostly small ones being found with the Gpx's that were left over from the lack of sensitiity of the SD's ;) -Mike C... :ph34r:

I like that suggestion... and you may very well be right! A lot of people spent a lot of time with the SDs cleaning up everything they could find - for years on end.

Even today though, I see a lot of people retaining their SDs, even when they upgrade. And they say they find a lot more of the big stuff with their older SD!

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I found more nuggets with my 2200sd, but I did find the biggest a 17+DWT with the 4000. As far as running smooth and deep, after running a 2200sd for years, a 3500 for a few months{the 3500} did not impress me. And the 4000 for a few months. I say the 4000, wins hands down, never had a 4500, only listened to Flaks at our patch once. It was stable and very quite. But I was flat out impressed with the 4000. Grubstake What I was so impressed with the 4000, was the ability to run mono coils, in a very mineralized area, with lots of em interference, almost constant. and it still ran sooo much quieter than my 2200 on a DD coil.

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Nero - The Coiltek Goldstalker DD's are awesome! Been field testing one for some time now.

Rob Allison

I suspected they would be. Word is that they'll be out in a matter of days. Am I allowed to ask which size you were testing - and was it 'round' in shape?

Can't wait to get one to complete my coil selection.

Cheers,

Marco

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Hey Nero,

No, sure wish I had a round to test. When Trev from Coiltek came down we done some hunting together. Trev left me and a few others the Coiltek Goldstalker Elliptical 18.5-inch DD. It's very stable on very hot ground. Heck, Trev found a very nice ounce plus nugget in a heavily mineralized iron coated wash.

Let me know how the new rounds work out for you in OZ, if you would.

Take care,

Rob Allison

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I'll happily consider an Elliptical although Trevor didn't say what shape he was producing the Double-D coils in and I didn't think to ask him what sizes they might be. If these DD coils start producing great results (as you've hinted already), perhaps we might see a wave of people hitting the old ground again with excellent results. Might even turn the SD-vs-GPX ratio tide a little.

Thanks again! Can't wait!

Cheers,

Marco

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Guest goldstudmuffin
Russ, could you have found those nuggets due to the fact you hunted the area first with the SD's and then might have not been at borderline depths? For example, if you hunted an area many times over and you found several ounce plus nuggets only 8-12 inches deep, is that fair to say you found more than you would with the GP or GPX? This same principle would apply for me and others that have hunted areas with the GP and GPX series, but never hunted them with the SD's (newer locations).

Rob Allison

Rob, it's hard to say, most of these nuggets were deep 18" - 22" in big washes. We hunted all the same areas with 3000s and 4000s and never found any big nuggets that were missed by the 2100s. It's impossible to tell how many big nuggets would have been found if the patches would have been discovered using the newer GP series detector. The only thing I'm sure of is that everyone says that there is still plenty of big gold out there to be found, we're just not finding it with the newer detectors.

With the GP 4000s there are so many different settings that it can be scarey, and if you are missing big deep nuggets. For instance the soil switch on the front panel; if you have it on sensitive you will miss some nuggets in the normal mode, and vica versa. That's fine, you can hunt a patch in both modes once you've discovered a patch, but if you're hunting in the wrong mode to start with you can sure miss gold.

Nero_design, we use monos 90% of the time, I think one of the big nuggets was found with a DD.

Mike, they claim that 90% of the gold on the earth's surface has not been found. I spend a lot of time hunting for new patches. So I expect to have found at least a little closer ratio than 10 to 1 on nuggets over an ounce.

Bob, I'd love to hear about your modds on the 2100.

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Goldstudmuffin I have posted some of my modds here if you look back you can find them but they were not generally received very well. I think because modding or component upgrades was

believed to be best left to Minelab. Now that minelab is not repairing older machines upgrading and parts repairs may become a little more popular subject. If I see more interest like yours I will be more than happy to post some easy repairs. BTW I think the older machines are well worth fixing. Thanks for your interest. AzNuggetBob

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Guest goldstudmuffin
Hey Goldstudmuffin,

I was real amazed on what I left behind, especially at Rich Hill with the SD2100 and SD2200.

Rob Allison

Rob, did you find any big nuggets over an ounce missed buy the SD's?

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My deepest was with an SD 2000 with the 18"garbage can lid mono, but it was far from the biggest. I got by far the most nuggets with the 2100 but I know that was because I hit some fantastic areas that had never seen a PI. It blew the 2000 away on the medium size nuggets at moderate depth. My best year since the extreme came out was this year as far as average size of nuggets goes with my 4500. My favorite PI ? the 4500. My least favorite? The GP extreme. The most pleasant to run? The 4500 by far. The best on crumbs? The 3500. My gut feeling is that the 2100 would find very little behind the 4500, but the 4500 has found me gold behind all the previous machines. The 4000 was also excellant and I don't find a lot of gold with the 4500 on places that have been worked hard with 4000. I wouldn't go back to any of the previous detectors willingly just because the 4500 is so smooth and EMI resistant, and handles any ground I come across much better than the others. I ran monos on all these detectors 99% of the time. I never thought I gained anything by running a DD with the exception of the NF-XP coil for certain situations.----Bob

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Guest goldstudmuffin
Goldstudmuffen I have posted some of my modds here if you look back you can find them but they were not generally received very well. I think because modding or component upgrades was

believed to be best left to Minelab. Now that minelab is not repairing older machines upgrading and parts repairs may become a little more popular subject. If I see more interest like yours I will be more than happy to post some easy repairs. BTW I think the older machines are well worth fixing. Thanks for your interest. AzNuggetBob

I saw the modds some time ago... but at the time my 2100 was a back-up to the 4000 so I didn't pay that much attention to them. I will try to find your old post. I'm afraid to push the voltage to far past 7.3v that the pocket rocket does now that Minelab won't repair them. I will be using the 2100 as my primary again finding those bigger nuggets and leaving the dinks for Rob! :rolleyes: Thanks!

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Guest goldstudmuffin
My deepest was with an SD 2000 with the 18"garbage can lid mono, but it was far from the biggest. I got by far the most nuggets with the 2100 but I know that was because I hit some fantastic areas that had never seen a PI. It blew the 2000 away on the medium size nuggets at moderate depth. My best year since the extreme came out was this year as far as average size of nuggets goes with my 4500. My favorite PI ? the 4500. My least favorite? The GP extreme. The most pleasant to run? The 4500 by far. The best on crumbs? The 3500. My gut feeling is that the 2100 would find very little behind the 4500, but the 4500 has found me gold behind all the previous machines. The 4000 was also excellant and I don't find a lot of gold with the 4500 on places that have been worked hard with 4000. I wouldn't go back to any of the previous detectors willingly just because the 4500 is so smooth and EMI resistant, and handles any ground I come across much better than the others. I ran monos on all these detectors 99% of the time. I never thought I gained anything by running a DD with the exception of the NF-XP coil for certain situations.----Bob

Montana Bob, do you think the larger mono coil 18" and bigger work better on the SD's than the GPX 4500's for big deep gold?

I totally agree how nice the newer 4000 detectors are to use, no question that you can concentrate a lot longer than the older SD models. I had to use my 2100 in Montana last summer when my 4000 broke the the first day, and I sure hard time getting use to it at first. But the 2100 did find some gold.

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I tested a Woody modified SD2100V2 against my GPX-4500.

Woody adds 3 new timings on the SD2100V2.

Timing 1.) 30% faster than original timing.

Timing 2.) 10% faster than original timing.

Timing 3.) 40% slower than original timing.

For small gold targets:

The first two timings give improved depth on small gold with timing 1 being the best on small targets.

In timing 1, I can get almost the same depth (in air) as the GPX-4500 running in Enhance on a 0.40 gram nugget for example.

For big gold targets: (ounces)

GPX-4500 in Sensitive Extra.....The Modified SD2100V2 beats it in all timings.

GPX-4500 in Enhance.....The Modified SD2100V2 almost matches it in Timing 1 & 2 and beats it in Timing 3 but the gold better be large.

GPX-4500 in Normal.......The Modified SD2100V2 only matches it in timing 3 but gets beat on timing 1 & 2.

Now, keep in mind that these are AIR tests. (With Mono coils as the stock 11" DD coil didn't produce the same results)

The GPX-4500 is less noisy on mineralized ground which is great for hunting small & medium pieces of gold.

The SD2100V2 is more fatiguing to listen to especially when running timing 1 with hot rocks.

Timing 2 ignores hot rocks almost as well as the GPX-4500 but loses the smaller gold targets.

Timing 3 almost completely ignores hot rocks/mineralization and goes about as deep as normal timings on large targets.

If you were always hunting big targets then timing 3 on the SD2100V2 would be superior because normal timings on the GPX-4500 can't handle high mineralization well.

Timing 3 might even go deeper than normal timings but I haven't tested it on gigantic nuggets. I don't have any of those to test.

Conclusion, the GPX-4500 is a more pleasurable to use general purpose machine. It is superior when looking for small & medium targets.

The modified SD2100V2 about matches the GPX-4500 on medium targets and matches or beats on larger targets (ounces) but is not quite as stable. (but close on the newer V2 machines)

Really, I think detecting is about time management. If you are walking around with a machine that hears all the small, medium, and large pieces of gold you

will spend your day digging those small, medium, and large targets. If you walk around with a machine that hears only the larger targets you will spend your

day digging only the bigger ones. (leaving the dinks for Rob) Given a choice I would choose the GPX-4500 running in Enhance in my area most of the time but feel I would find 100% of the medium & larger

GPX-4500 targets using the modified SD2100V2 in timing 2. Timing 3 is reserved for special occasions because as we all know huge nuggets are not very common in the USA. (at least for me)

I am going to try to use my SD2100V2 (which has been my backup machine) a little more from now on to see what happens.

Recently, I buried a flat medium sized 6 gram nugget in some extremely mineralized gravel and the SD2100V2 (timing 2) and GPX-4500 both heard the nugget just fine at depth.

(FYI: I am using a Goldscreamer Amp, Pocket Rocket, Black Widow headphones, and the machine has been modded on the SD2100V2. The mono coils used during testing were the 12" Round & 14x9" Advantage coils and

the Goldstalker 14x9" coil.)

Best Regards,

Don

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Doug It is an interesting concept. As I understand it having a surface cap as I call it, and as described by nero is the result of wind blown concentration not water concentration therefore it creates a high concentration of heavily mineralized soil concentration at the surface and can have a heavely water concentrated layer below from an earlyer period or specific event. It does occour here in the US for the most part from what Ive seen in the deserts such as Mohave, some areas in AZ and Nevada it is more rare than common. It requires long periods of wind blowing without any significent rains or flooding. as far as the pros and cons of dd coils on these formations dd"s always deal with these types of ground better than monos but monos can penitrate deeper in some hot grounds if you know how to deal with it.. AzNuggetBob

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My biggest nugget was actually a speciman of 1.5 kg (50 ozs) in weight that gave me 1.026 kg (34 ozs) of gold, dug from around 22" deep with a gp3000. The second biggest was with the same machine and was 20 ozs with 14 ozs of gold from a similar depth with the same machine. I had an SD 2000 and found it to be a noisy bloody thing in comparison, and the prime reason I upgraded was because of gold that I left behind on a patch I chained that was found by a GP Extreme just a week later.

The most notable find for me was a 41 gram solid dug from a measured 24" with a 4500 and a 20" NF mono using Enhance timings. An 18" NF coil would not signal on it until we dug about 8" of soil off the target. There are those that say it fell out of the side of the hole and wasn't that deep, but I know how to dig a hole and they are merely armchair experts. Cheers.

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