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Safari & Gold Chains?

F

Fishers Ghost

New member
I purchased a Safari a couple of weeks back and with the standard 11 DD the detector is unresponsive to 18k gold chains between 2 & 7g.
Is there a small coil that will enable the safari to find small gold chain?
I have an XLT and old Vsat that are excellent on chain with the Vsat being a real killer on the small stuff in dry sand at the beach.
I was expecting the safari to be good on gold chain considering that it transmits up to 100khz but that appears to be not the case.
Other than the gold chain issue I find the safari to be excellent when hunting coins in wet and dry salt beach sand.
I am not a fan of the melody of tones that the machine produces but that is something I will get used to. .
 
Nothing new, as all FBS & BBS Machines never do good on Micro Jewelry.

All the hard core Beach hunters don't care, because hunting for micro jewelry is a pain

especially in a salt environment. yes there's many less expensive detectors

that will run circles around the Safari's - etrac's - CTX's. Now take those other detectors to a salt water beach

they will go nuts on you.

My Safari will hit on small Charms & Rings as i find them all the time on the sports fields & tot lots.

Also all the Micro jewerly hits in the conductive salt range, so a gold detector would be your best bet.

But one must be willing to dig ALL The Low Numbers.
 
I cant add a thing to Rob's post but I would like to say that theres a wealth of information in that melody of tones. But as you said, it does take some getting used to.
 
If you thought you had to dig a lot of trash for gold rings, brace yourself.

In order to hit gold chains, you are entering Dante's Ninth Level of Trash Hell. Truly, I am not exaggerating. Gold chains will frequently fall even into the "IRON" id zone.

Because an FBS detector has to cycle through so many frequencies, your only, best option to find smaller gold would be to swing your coil painfully slow.

Perhaps even a 10-15 second swing, and even then, no guarantees.

A dedicated high frequency detector set for hitting low conductors is your best bet.

Good luck.
 
It seems unless there is a big enough clasp or some kind of pendant, charm or something other than just the chain itself, (talking about small gold chains) the Safari won't pick it up. I don't know if anyone has done a test with a range of very small/micro chains ranging up in size to see which size of chain the Safari would actually start registering a tone/VDI. That would be interesting to see the results!!
I for one still haven't really been 'sold' on the 1kHz-100kHz feature on the Safari.
As I understand it, the machine has 3 'segments' in that feature that it tries to group a target in. My memory is really rusty on this so......sorry for any description mistakes! So in answer to the question about the ability to pick up micro gold chains with that wide of a KHz spectrum, it seems not to have that ability just like many other non gold dedicated detectors. Other than that, the Safari is an amazing machine that still is my most favorite metal detector!!!
 
Thanks for the replies .

I am finding the Safari to be an excellent beach metal detector. It is a keeper.
It is very stable and rarely emits a sound unless it is a target. I intend to try a 5 x 8 inch DD to find out if that is any better on small chains.

Prior to the safari I have worked my way through 58 different metal detectors since 1960 with the Sov XS, Infinium and Sand Shark being my prime salt beach machines.
None of these is particularly good on small gold chain in the 2g to 8g range although the Sov has found a vast qty of rings n things.
The Safari delivers a lot of target info and seems to detect deeper than the Sov in wet beach sand
I had a Gold Bug Pro for a short time until it was stolen from my car. This detector is also very good on the beaches from dry sand to the waterline. It is excellent for small jewellery items and I have found Aussie 20 cent coins at two foot down in the sand while using an 11 inch elipticl DD.

The safari is a breeze to use and set up. Switch it on, select the mode you want and away you go.
Disc, Notch and Sensitivity setting is as easy as it gets or just run in Auto.
 
HI kschae4.

No big finds with the Safari yet. Opportunities to get out have been few except for a short stint with an SDC 2300 at a nearby beach.
Nice detector and worked fine over wet or dry salt sand. This detector will find very small gold chains etc but is much more suited for gold field work in high iron mineralisation.

For me the Safari is a detector you can take anywhere as a coin, relic and treasure hunter. It really is a no hassles pleasure to use, although if you want to detect close in around metal play ground structures then a small coil would be a better option to the standard DD coil.
 
Fishers Ghost, if you don't mind a slight thread hijack (we can start a new one if youd like), can you say a few words about using a SDC 2300 on US south/east coast beaches that are appropriate for a PI machine? I have been considering one for that use + some hobby western nugget shooting when vacation time allows but its hard to find someone who uses that machine as I would.
 
I can not comment reliably re your USA beaches because I do not know the mineralisation involved. (I am in Australia).

Remember that this detector (SDC 2300) has been designed to very portable, and locate gram to sub gram gold at shallow to medium depth in iron mineralised gold field conditions and it is very good at that task.

The SDC 2300 is an expensive metal detector and could be a bit of an overkill for beach work, but maybe like myself once you have tried one at the beach you will probably put your other detectors in the closet.
If you have a Gold Bug Pro with an 11 inch DD coil then this detector will find almost everything that the 2300 can find in normal salt beaches. I used one of these detectors for a while and it literally replaced my Infinium over the wet and dry sand. The Infinium was then used for in water detecting until the GB was stolen from my car.

The SDC 2300 is fairly new to me but it has proven to be very good over normal salt beaches with exceptional sensitivity to small gold chains.
The detector has a Normal Mode & a Salt Mode with several sensitivity settings in each mode.
In the Normal mode the detector will generate some ground noise from the wet salty sand, dry is fine. In the Salt mode at max sensitivity, ground noise is near on non existent and the detector has very good sensitivity and depth capability for coins rings and chains likely to be found on beaches.
I think that if your beaches contain a significant amount of iron mineral plus salt then you may have to tolerate some ground noise which is what happens on some of our dry salt lakes in the Western Australian gold fields.

Like most PI metal detectors the 2300 likes iron and will find steel bottle caps at two foot depth in wet or dry sand. Small coins like our 5 cent piece were detected at near on 18 inches at max sensitivity in the salt Mode.
If you are a dig everything detectorist then you will like the 2300. It will not miss very much at the beach or in the gold fields but remember one thing. It is not a depth monster on large gold from 10 oz upwards. The GPX 4500, 5000 and the GPZ 7000 will go deeper, due mainly to the fact that the SDC2300 has just one coil, an 8 inch and this limits the depth.

My 2300 was purchased second hand and at a very nice price. I would not have paid full RTL for this detector if I was only going to use it at the beach.
The detector is much more sensitive to small gold items than The Infinium, Sand Shark, Dual Field, Safari, Excal The Sov and other BBs and FBS metal detectors.

Hope this is of some help to you. These are my opinions of the SDC2300. I am sure that others may have differing opinions re this detector.
 
[size=small](Sorry, I didn't realize that you are in Australia.)[/size]
Thank You, FishersGhost. That is Very helpful. Just the kind of info I was looking for. The native gold sites I will use it for aren't going to have anything in the 10oz range. I am strictly a hobbyist and would like to add a machine suitable for small gold + a water resistant PI machine suitable for nontrashy salt beaches. I am thinking that the SDC2300 would suit both of those needs in a compact detector. Value is more important to me than price. Thanks again!
 
If it is small gold you want then you will love the SDC2300.
One other thing is that best results will come with a very slow sweep speed, especially in regards to small gold (gram to sub gram).
The detector operates on 4 x C cells. You will need 4500 mah alkaline or NiMh or higher to get a good run time (8 hours +) out of this machine.
Good qual Alkalines seem to run the 2300 very well but will drain your pocket fairly fast.
Get a C cell charger that can be run from the car cig lighter socket as well as line power..
Some operators here in Aust have fitted 2 x 18650, 3700 mah Lithium Ion Batteries fitted into C Cell adaptors and these run the SDC2300 for a couple of days detecting.
 
I finally tried a 5 x 8 DD on the safari.
It was a dud and only worked during bench Testing. Put it within 6 inches of the ground and the detector sounded off like Hillary Clinton having a go at Donald Trump.

I returned the coil to the seller and am now waiting for a 9.5 x 5.5 Cors DD.
Aside from that the safari has been performing very well and I am becoming accustomed to the melody of tones. At the beach the slightest tone or multiple tone indicates a target that should not be ignored if it is gold jewellery you want to find.
 
I received the 9.5 x 5.5 Cors elliptical DD and although it does work, I find that the sensitivity to small chains is no better than the standard 11 DD plus only approx 80 % of the Safari max sensitivity can be used. Any higher than about 16 will cause false signals and lots of ground noise, even from quiet ground.

Have I got another dud coil or is this normal for the safari?
 
Something I noticed yesterday re the safari is that in combo with the 9.5 x 5.5 DD it can find and correctly ID gold down to 0.15g to 7cm in lightly mineralised ground. That was a surprise.
The safari seems to do better (runs quieter) on salt beaches than over mineralised ground. Also it is noisy over granite whereas my Sov XS, a similar machine is not bothered by this type of rock.
This Safari detector is a curious beast.
 
I am still trying to work out if my Safari is faulty??

The Safari is noisy in mineralised ground. Is this normal? Whereas my Sov Xs can handle the same tough ground mineralisation much better no matter which coil I use. on it.
 
Put a Nell Tornado 13 inch DD on the safari.
This a great coil and goes very deep on coins . A very impressive coil although I have to turn the detector sensitivity down to around 14 - 16 or run in Auto to get stability. It is at least as good as my 15 inch WOT on the Sov XS.
Itching to try this coil at the beach
 
Well I seem to be talking to myself here but that is fine. I talk to myself a lot these days. :crazy:......And I get answers sometimes, that nobody else can hear. :wacko:.

Even though I have made some negative comments re the Safari, that does not detract from the fact that it is an extremely good metal detector when used for the prime purpose it was designed for which is coin, jewellery and relic hunting in quiet ground.

The Safari is right up there with my top of the heap keepers like my Infinium, Sov XS, XLT, SDC2300 and Lobo ST.
 
FG, I have been reading your posts, but don't have the experience necessary to comment on highly mineralized ground or different coils. The only coil I have put on my Safari is the SEF5x8. I did run into a guy at the beach who's Safari wasn't functioning properly after putting on a new brownish coil. But he was unable to say if the coil was made to fit a Safari or not, so I suspect the coil was his problem.
 
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