Sandshark for gold nuggets

[rjsupersonic]

I have used my Sandshark for a couple of years now and would never part with it. The other day I took it to the desert to see how it would do nuggetshooting and was surprised actually on how well it did. No gold, but many small lead shots and bullet fragments, which tells me it will find nuggets. I wanted to know if anyone else has used the shark for nuggets? Since it is pulse induction the heavy mineral laden ground posed no issues.

 

[SpiritRelic]

I bet it is another good tool to find gold in highly mineralized ground.I think this is a new experimental trend now.To use pi detectors for nugget hunting.But think about this,Is the shark set up sensitive to very small nuggets?This may be a factor.The shark is designed for jewelry.Not a nugget detector,But it might work? :O

 

[Sven]

Not sensitive enough to find very small nuggets, pulse delay cannot go as low enough to make it useful for nugget hunting.
You need to have a delay that will drop to 10us or 8us and specially made fast search coils. Sand Shark delay is set at 22us.
You will only find 8us on custom made machines.
Sand Shark is a general purpose PI. Tesoro already knows it's in dire need of a new PI to compete with machines that run at 15us
delay. The Tesoro Lobo and a few other in the Tesoro VLF line using a 5.75" coil might be a better choice for prospecting.

For those who want to learn about PI's and gold, this link will take you to an excellent read:
http://www.nuggetshooter.com/articles/UnderstandingPIdetector.html

 

[rjsupersonic]

Good link on PI detectors. thanks! It would be great if Tesoro came out with a high end PI detector to compete with Minelab.

 

[Arizona Slim]

Not sensitive enough to find very small nuggets, pulse delay cannot go as low enough to make it useful for nugget hunting.
You need to have a delay that will drop to 10us or 8us and specially made fast search coils. Sand Shark delay is set at 22us.
You will only find 8us on custom made machines.
Sand Shark is a general purpose PI. Tesoro already knows it's in dire need of a new PI to compete with machines that run at 15us
delay. The Tesoro Lobo and a few other in the Tesoro VLF line using a 5.75" coil might be a better choice for prospecting.

For those who want to learn about PI's and gold, this link will take you to an excellent read:
http://www.nuggetshooter.com/articles/UnderstandingPIdetector.html

I agree with Sven, that the Sand Shark is not the right machine for gold nugget shooting. I have experimented with it in Central Arizona, in both the Weaver and Bradshaw Mountains. I did find a 5.2gram nugget near Cow Creek with it in the Bradshaws, but a Garrett Ace 250 would have found that honker as well. I have used Minelab SD and GPX machines since the late 1990s, and honestly, no other machine can touch the GPX 5000 for gold prospecting of relic hunting. With its new soil timings (pulse delays), filters and noise reduction it is THE Mac Daddy. The Sand Shark is the best PI beach machine on the market today when you consider value, depth, ease of use and warranty, but it is not a gold nugget hunter.

 

[allcav]

I would like to add to this. 98.5% of the nuggets in the United States are 4 to 7 grain. The 5000 doesn't really do a good job on this small nuggets. Its great for large deep target but not the small stuff that is mostly found in the lower 48. There are still good size nuggets out there. I will challenge anybody who says they find a nugget every time they go out with a metal detector. I would like to see them do it. I am a prospector and been doing for some time.
I am not trying to be a Debby Downer, but this is facts. According to a friend of mine and if I am correct, Arizona Slim knows him as well, he has a 13 acre claim at the bottom of Rich hill. I meet him in March of last year during a documentary we did for the History channel and worked on his claim. He has had his claim at that time for 4.5 years and found 33 nuggets at that time. That's a nugget every 1.6 months. He has been using a VLF machine and works with Chris Gholson who is one of the greatest nugget hunter out there.
I am not adding my signature because these are my opinion's and my experiences not Tesoro's.