Finding Small Gold with The GPX

[steve herschbach]

One big goal I have this summer is to better learn how to find small gold with my GPX 5000. I will admit that until now I simply did not care. When my brain said small gold, I grabbed my Gold Bug 2. When I grab my GPX, I shift to big nugget hunting. Fact is however that in mineralized ground the GPX is a very capable small gold detector and so I am going to put some major time into using the Minelab Commander 8" mono coil and Sensitive Extra timings to find the smallest gold I can this summer with my GPX. I even have a Coiltek 1" pinpointer to play with in deeper crevices. Should be a lot of fun - I like sniping for small gold.

 

[iron bark]

Hi Steve
with the 5000 on samll gold point ones can be found with the 11'' commander n/f 14x7 ,14x9 12 round and 12 /10 elliptical n/f when i take people i tell them you are all ways looking for the small gold.The reason being is that looking for small gold requires concentration and that the name of the game a small noise can turn into a good nugget at a depth

 

[steve herschbach]

Well the coil is part of it of course. I usually have an 18" round Nugget Finder Advantage on these days. I think we can agree this is not the best coil for small gold. The main reason I am going 8" mono is I will be working shallow bedrock so depth on larger gold is not an issue. And I will be in brushy terrain, so getting in tight locations is also important. Here is where I will be hunting in Alaska:

[attachment 264029 40m.jpg]

 

[filternozzle]

With the GPX the choice of coils is pretty wide. Coiltek do a nice 10"x5" - could be handy for getting in tight areas.

 

[Smigo]

For small, small gold the Nugget Finder 8" elliptical Sadie is nuts!

 

[steve herschbach]

I thought hard about getting a Sadie but since I already have the 8" Commander I could not convince myself the difference if any would be worth the extra expenditure.

 

[Smigo]

Hi Steve. Here's some little stuff found with a 5000 using a 12 NF. 11 bits for just half a g. Finds them easy, these were from real hot ground too.

 

[steve herschbach]

Small but certainly chunky little nuggets. Nice work, and thanks for posting!

 

[MTgoldpan]

Hello, I am new to this forum and also to the Minelab 500, I picked up a used one last summer and have done pretty good in an area that has been hit hard for years. Most nuggets found in the area are around 1gram or less. Last year I was using the factory 11" mono and found several. I swiched to the 8"sadi this year and it seems like I am wasting more time digging old iron shavings. I have read the 5000 isn't that good for shallow small gold, but it has worked for me, but I want to be better. My questing is, using the 11" mono is there any trick settings to finding .1 gram pickers? Or should I learn to use the Sadie? Thanks for any help.

 

[iron bark]

:ausflag :Hi Steve I think I would run in find gold and set the audio to quiet then give it a bit more gain ,using the 8 inch M/L or even 10 NF elliptical ,the Sadie's are good on small gold but the detector has to be set up correctly to get them running quiet ,with the other 2 coils they will get a bit more depth as you would be aware of regards john

 

[utahshovelhead]

Hi Steve,
Great pics on this thread. I love that quartz rock your showin.

I have a question for ya about the GPX 5000. I am not after nuggets but after gold rings and want to hunt in basically a burnt down ghost town, smothered in iron remains of the building and on the beach of the Great Salt lake. The ground is highly mineralized with lots of black sand, salt, & iron pipes n junk everywhere ( literally the coins will come out stuck to black iron solid chuncks, but the gold tends to be relatively free of the chunks) I do pretty fair with an E track and a 14 inch SEF but am wondering what your thoughts are with the GPX amidst all that iron. I would not be able to use a coil much larger than 14 inches as the iron is really infested here. But I need to get deeper and find finer gold at the same time.

Im wondering if you would recommend the GPX or another machine to get a little deeper and be able to hit the smaller thin band gold with, than the E track in that type of area. Lets forget for a moment that there is a learning curve for any machine and just put the few facts on the table that I've given you, I'm just curios what you might suggest trying.

Any reply would be appreciated as id just like to get your thoughts on the matter with your experience in gold.

Thanks,
Shovelhead

 

[steve herschbach]

That sounds like the worst possible place possible to use a GPX or any PI. All you are going to do is dig a ton of iron junk. Best to stick with a VLF.

 

[Fletch88]

Hi Steve,
Great pics on this thread. I love that quartz rock your showin.

I have a question for ya about the GPX 5000. I am not after nuggets but after gold rings and want to hunt in basically a burnt down ghost town, smothered in iron remains of the building and on the beach of the Great Salt lake. The ground is highly mineralized with lots of black sand, salt, & iron pipes n junk everywhere ( literally the coins will come out stuck to black iron solid chuncks, but the gold tends to be relatively free of the chunks) I do pretty fair with an E track and a 14 inch SEF but am wondering what your thoughts are with the GPX amidst all that iron. I would not be able to use a coil much larger than 14 inches as the iron is really infested here. But I need to get deeper and find finer gold at the same time.

Im wondering if you would recommend the GPX or another machine to get a little deeper and be able to hit the smaller thin band gold with, than the E track in that type of area. Lets forget for a moment that there is a learning curve for any machine and just put the few facts on the table that I've given you, I'm just curios what you might suggest trying.

Any reply would be appreciated as id just like to get your thoughts on the matter with your experience in gold.

Thanks,
Shovelhead

I'll PM a link to a guy who claims he can pick targets out of junk iron. I haven't really tried it, but he claims he has been very successful.