Gold, Coin Detectors

G'day Cobber :)

You detect one you get the lot!
Did a little gold hunting a few years ago with a mine lab detector, good fun! You need to be in a nice setting with nice weather to enjoy it, at least thats how we see it. The die hards won't.
Cheers Lyndon

Cobber
I have a cheaper Garrett , Ace 250 , it finds coins , and other metals, it has settings for all metal, coins or Jewellry, but for Gold I guess you'll be looking at Minelab , I suppose they all find Nails, bottle tops, ring pulls, and screws.... but a screw now and then could be handy ,

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If you want a comprehensive list of all detectors Cobber, try this site:
http://www.findmall.com/ It has all the minor and major brands, bearing in mind that it is an American site, and there is a discussion board for each type of M.D. To my knowledge most of the brands on that site can be bought in Aus. Good luck with your research,
Sheila.

cobber if you are chasing coins and stuff the cheaper metal detectors will be fine. i do quite a bit of detecting and the dearer ones still find nails, bullets,wire, bottle tops the things that you have to dig up to keep you interested

Depends on what you want to do and for how long and how big your budget is.

general purpose for coin hunting etc. a Garret Ace 250 is a reasonable bet. A Minelab xTerra 70 is top of the range digital treasure hunting machine and is reasonable competent on small gold close to the surface in fairly shallow ground - New about $1400 with the additional prospecting coil.

For pure gold hunting you really need a pulse induction rather than the above VLF machines above - bottom of the range would be a Minelab SD 2100 manual tune - but a good reliable machine. Next up a SD2200 about $2400 (I have one and an XTerra 70) The very top of the range is the Mineland GPX 4500 at about $6400.

An SD 2200 tweaked with a 12v Lithium Iron battery regulated done to 7.3v and used with the latest coils is a pretty competent machine. The std battery is a dry cell 6v and the voltage starts degrading soon after you switch on. With the 12v set-up it will maintain 7.3 volts all day and will punch a bit deeper with more sensitivity that running at 6v.

Good 12v set-ups can be bought from Reeds Prospecting in Perth about $400. I have used Reeds for years and they are straight shooters. I have no affiliations with them at all.

Whatever you get success will only come with patience, experience, hard work and knowledge.

Cheers B-T
B-T

hi cobber,
ive been dabbling for years in prospecting for gold. Istarted with a g&c technologies VLF wildcat. Found plenty of rubbish. I now have a minelab GP 3500, still find rubbish, but have learned to do more homework on places to prospect.
If it sounds like a good target i dig. Lead sounds the same as gold so you will probably dig a lot of old bullets.
Practice,practice,practice.
Geoff