Gold Strike, Damn', did I fall on my sword?

[silversmith]

Yea, I couldn't find a GB2 any where. All the dealers said maybe after the 30th. I couldn't find even a used one......even on E-bay. But I did find a Fisher Gold Strike. Ugly thing! No knobs, just push buttons. You know, like just about everything else we buy, these days "microprocessor based" I read lotsa write-ups about it. It's 'sposed ta be a really cool detector for gold , but wasn't made long just like it's brother the Coin Strike. And wouldn't you know, swear ta God, 10 minutes after the bidding closed, a dealer called with a GB2 for sale. Doesn't it seem to always go that way? Somewhere under a bush, a little Munchkin is giggling!

My question, anyone out there ever own a Gold Strike or Coin Strike? They must be very similar.
Please let me know what you think/thought about so I'll know what to expect. Thanks, Ron.

 

[Elton]

It loved old Indian Cents.and I liked the ground tracking..Sorry I never have been on a gold hunt.. For coins it was a much underated detector..had some decent depth too.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Ron,
I've had two of them and found them decent performing machines. They are not really sub-grain size gold finders like the GoldBug II, but they do well on the rest.
I think the main reason the GoldStrike didn't catch on was because it's a silent search unit. You are not focused on monitering a threshold tone like most all of the other dedicated prospecting machines before it. Most all the others on the market required the threshold to maintain a ground balance as well as finding targets. The GoldStrike doesn't require it. The tracking system is probably the best around, and the computer assisted manual ground balance is tight. When not using the tracking feature you can tell by the ground noise (or lack of it) when it's time to rebalance. It does real well in high mineralization.

Probably the hardest part is getting used to the dual tone system. It works but it requires a little time to get used to. You also have to be careful not to overdrive it for the ground conditions (like any other machine). The iron id is good, though I did find small round oxidized pieces of steel shot would fool it. The hot rock id worked really well for my area.

Here are a couple of tips. Run low sens and keep the threshold as close to 0 as you can. Only turn down the threshold if the ground noise makes you. '
When in hot noisy ground, you can either lower the threshold setting or run a very high positive threshold setting (+3). You'll loose the smaller targets along with the ground noise but the everything else will come through.

I think if you spend some time with it you may come to like it.
Good luck.
Mike

 

[silversmith]

Thanks Mike. I believe the Gold Strike comes with a 10" coil where-as the "Bugs" have a 6" coil which might explain the difference. I picked this one up off of E-bay, it comes with both a 6 and 10 coil setup.
Not too many folks must have owned them, 'cause I've gotten little response. Most detectors I've owned are multi-tone I'd so hopefully the Strike wont be to difficult. Again, thanks for your response, Ron.