? 4 The Scorpion King

[Rebel1]

John-E, you seem to have really good luck and a lot of good to say about the Scorpion. In fact, you are one of the few who have nice things to say about it. I hear lots of bad things about them. So questions. Do you ever nugget hunt with yours? If so, just how small of gold will it find, and at what depths. I have heard a lot of bad about how hard they are to keep ground balanced. Do you find that to be true? Do you think you just lucked out and got a good one, or, and i figure it is this, did you just take the time to REALLY learn the machine. Any info appreciated.

 

[Bugar In. USA]

I'm not John= But I have 2 Scorpions= MY favorite detectors OF ALL TIME, but I only been detecting since 1975, so mebbe I'm a newbie on detectors, used em in sevral states, no problems on ground balancing, But If you notice, Charles Garrett says you need 100 hours to LEARN any detector, i do 100 hours on any detector i get, if at the end I don't like the way it operates, it's down the road.
Gold nuggetts, never been anyplace to hunt for any (I'm in Indiana), use it for relics and coins, and anything else, They must be good detectors, cause they been around for MANY MANY years, I got no complaints of any kind, the way it works, weight, battery life, suits me just fine, mebbe someone else has another take on this, but this is MINE=you know what they say about opinions theyr'e just like --------, everyone has one. and now I turn you over to other people and my friend John in Edmonton

 

[Rebel1]

Thanks for the input Bugar. Sounds like you really like your Scorpion. Good to hear some good things about them. I have heard they are hard to keep balanced in highly mineralized ground where most of the nugget hunting takes place. But who knows till you try it yourself. Take care.

 

[metalhead]

I'm not John eitherbut I can tell you that the Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger is the most underrated(and least expensive) nugget detector available. I've owned and used several different nugget detectors over the years including the White's MXT and Tesoro Lobo Super Trac(which are both very good machines)but I've always come back to my Scorp because I've found more and smaller nuggets with it than the others.
It seems to me that all the negative comments regarding the Scorpion are made by people who are not willing to take the time to learn the machine. I, myself, prefer having manual ground balance capabilities because the machines with auto ground balance have a tendancy to "track out" tinier nuggets. It is SO easy to ground balance the Scorpion. The instructional DVD has a very good demonstration on ground balancing perfomed by the man himself, Charles Garrett.
I'm not tryin' to say that any one machine is better than the other. It's just a personal preferance. There are many very good gold machines out there and the Scorpion definately ranks up there with the rest. Happy Hunting!

 

[Rebel1]

Thanks to you too Metalhead. So when you talk about Small nuggets, just how small will the Scorp detect and at what depths? I am not looking for, or wanting one that will pick up every little speck of flour gold as it would be going off constantly where i go. Just need to find the picker size, .25 gram or so ones.

 

[moondog2000]

I'm not John but I have to put my 2 cents in. when my wife & I started prospecting about 4 years ago I bought 2 scorps to detect with. It took about 2 solid days to master ground balancing. once you are balanced you check it by giving it a pump , if its off raise your thumb & tweak the dial then press the re tune button & go, no problem. I carry 3 sizes of test nuggets to bury & check & the only one i have trouble with is the small flake on the poker chip & that might be me not wearing headphones. at Quartzsite snakes are active year round and they have mo-greens plus I see a lot of mountain lion track so i need my hearing to protect my wife & I. my wife has a lot of trouble ground balancing so i bought her and I a whites GMT because the owner at pro mach in QZ finds a lot of gold . well we have not found a nugget yet but that is because we have not passed over one yet. It seems something always comes up like heavy rain, 65 mph wind , lack of time, food poisoning, drywasher is producing a lot of flake. With the scorp I have dug tons of targets like 22 bullets, 22 casings, iron, tin cans,boot tacks. the scorp finds this junk down to 12" on occasion probably due to halo effect. the GMT seems to be in the 4-6" range and I have not found much with it. took the scorp to the beach this summer and in the camp ground their were 3 other guys with detectors just working the beach daily. well the scorp really shined finding lots of clad in the 10-12" range which the other guys could not see. the scorps best is about 22" on a 1"&one quarter water pipe up at east fork ,azusa canyon across from heaton flat. I don't make these figures up, my rock pick handle is 12" long so I always have some thing to measure with. I admit I still do not under stand some stuff on the the scorp like the auto button and the tr mode but I am learning. when I get to the gold fields I always take the scorp out first hoping to find a nugget with it , The scorp I believe will find me my first nugget and then I will let all those who have bad mouthed the scorp know that in the future they need to start their scorp stories off with once upon a time. well that's my 2 cents worth. Mike

 

[Rebel1]

Well MD2000, sounds like we have another Scorpion advocate. Good to hear that at least some folks like them. I am still trying to decide whether to hang on to the Eldorado and learn to hunt with it, or sell it and get a real Nugget machine. And then if i do i need to decide between the Scorpion, Gold Bug Pro and Lobo Super Trac.

 

[Sven]

If your new to the hobby, you never experienced the VLF/TR disc detectors we has back in the 70-80's.
You learned to GB your detector, once you learned it, it never left you. I grew up using the Garrett Master Hunter
Deepseeker and Groundhog series. The Scorpion is basically a old circuit design based on the Groundhog with an updated PC
board and smaller housing. When we went prospecting for silver in Northern Canada, we hunted the mine tailings which
were loaded with silver nuggets. Many were pretty small, BB size or smaller. The 15khz Groundhog was the better Garrett to use,
it would pick up those small nuggets.....I believe the problems people are having tuning the Scorp is caused by the
mineralization in the ground. In mild ground the Scorp should be a super detector, in bad ground could be a challenge.

I think the last Groundhog I had air tested a small 1/8" gold nugget at about 3".
One thing you'll notice that all the older VLF/TR Groundhog units get snapped up pretty fast when up for sale.
From what I understand they still use them in Australia.

The older VLF/TR machines were non-motion, so you could sweep the coil as slow as you wanted to fully analyze
the signal before digging. You can slow down and smell the roses....The smaller sniper coil works very well for prospecting.

I have the Eldorado myself, it's a great detector finds really small stuff. But, I prefer a non-motion machine with normal,
automatic and slow auto modes. So I naturally gravitate back to the oldies.



Now TR disc. mode, you need to keep the coil a constant height off the ground and tune it for that height. Or every height change will
result in a tone increase. Not good for rough uneven grounds. Switching to auto mode helps out as well as slow auto. In a nutshell
turns it into a super slow motion machine, no fast sweeping needed. And when you place the detector down to dig, the auto feature will
retune the threshold to where it was set to.

This tip is for you using the Eldo, it does not have a pinpoint button with a detuning feature, to narrow the signal. But, it can be done
by stopping the coil center over the target for a second, let the Eldo retune on it's own, Move the coil off the ctr just a tad, then move it
back over the target. You will find the target narrows after several passes to pinpoint it precisely. This method works well using the stock
coil when there are multiple targets that sound like one. This way of detuning takes about the same amount of time as detuning on
older machines using the toggle or push buttons.

It's amazing how an older designed detectors can still keep up with modern ones.

I will shortly revise my website that will include Garrett detectors from 1973 thru the 1980's.
TreasureLinx detectors from the past

 

[Rebel1]

Thanks Sven. I am completely New to nugget hunting with a detector. I have the older, original metal box Eldorado, so no pin point button. But it is No motion in All Metal. I tried it for a while at the river where i sluice yesterday. I had heard about Hot Rocks, but didn't know we had many, or any, here. Man was i wrong. They are all over at the river. I got a signal that sounded good so i started digging under the edge of a rock. Kept getting a signal so dug some more. Thne placed the Pro Pointer in the hole and still a signal, but nothing there. Took me a minute to figure out it was the Big Rock that was producing the signal. After that i started checking and a lot of the rocks were Hot. So how do you deal with them? Is there any detector that will Ignore the Hot Rocks and black sand and still find the Gold?

 

[Sven]

Adjust the ground balance in all metal mode until the hotrock doesn't make any sound when passing over it.
Then test your detector using a small nugget next to the hotrock, see what happens. Since I never owned a
big box Eldo, not sure if your going to lose any depth, if you have to crank up the sensitivity after the hot rock
adjustment. You'll have to experiment for the best setting.
I have hot rocks here at one park I was hunting in the woods.

 

[Rebel1]

Thanks Sven. Now all i have to do is figure out how to Accurately adjust the Ground Balance. Still learning that part as this is the first machine i have used with manual balance. Guess i need to bring some of those Hot Rock home to practice with.

 

[John-Edmonton]

I haven't nugget hunted with mine, however, I have used it to find the higher concentration of iron oxides, where flour gold exists in the river running through Edmonton. But what I really like about the Scorpion is it's ability to find rings, and really bang hard on them, including gold rings. It has paid for itself time and time again. It uses those pesky 9 volt batteries, so I purchased some recharge-ables and have just about finished my 3rd year using them. They are starting to show some some shorter operating times, but three years on a set works for me.

Another good feature that works for me using the Scorp is it's ability to also hit Canadian clad real hard. Digging up those extra one and two dollar coins really makes a difference on the years totals.

Below are last years rings found with just the Scorpion. I also found a bunch of other rings with my Infinium.

 

[bearkat4160]

Hi Rebel,

I use a Scorpion here in Oregon and California to get some nuggies. I didnt even want to get this machine for many years because i thought the ground balance would be a pain. Finally got me one and glad i did because it is EASY once you learn it and even though you got to re-adjust it sometimes while searching is not a problem. So far I got a very small .05 gram nugget and a .1 gram with it. Those are small. First was at 1 inch the other at 2 inches. I almost didnt hear the tiny one...I rebalanced the Scorp it it rang out a little louder, and there it was locked in decomposed bedrock. Its all about balancing it correctly in hotter ground, or any ground for that matter. My Infinium would not hit these tiny nuggets, I tested it on them where they lay.

The TR mode helps with hot rocks...watch Mr. Garrett's video he shows ya how to do it. If ya want a machine that ignors black sand and hot rocks you need a pulse induction detector (PI) like the Garrett Infinium LS, Whites TDI or the Minelab GPX series.

Good Luck!

Alan

 

[Rebel1]

Hey Alan, where you located in Oregon. If close enough maybe we could get together some time. I am in Roseburg.

 

[James02]

My 2 cents - I use a GB II, Minelab X17000 and the Scorpion for nugget shooting. These are all older technology machines. They operate at frequencies from 71 - 15 MHz, I have found gold with each one. Depending on conditions the GB II will detect gold so small it can be hard to find in the scoop. The Scorpion will find 2 grain size gold, again depending on soil conditions (smallest I've found with it). I've found that the key to all of these machines is learning to ground balance and to remember to recheck. I balance slightly positive. If you find you need to re-balance, check more frequently. I think the Scorpion is more stable in hotter soil than the GB II and is definitely more versatile.

The short answer to your post is: Scorpion will find gold about as small as you can see. Depth depends on conditions and the size of the nugget. It does take time to learn any machine. I had a problem going from the GB II to the Scorpion, just me, Work hard and you will find gold.