Gold: Land vs Beach VLF Machines

I know that my Excalibur and CZ21 have a lot of trouble on small gold. My wife has some rings that wont even register on them and none of her bracelets/necklaces will. I find tons of small silver at the beach but pretty much most of my gold has always been men's wedding bans...So my question is, how much better do the land/fresh water detectors pick up this stuff (in air tests, ground, fresh water)?

I get frustrated knowing I am walking right over gold...

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Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

adamBomb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know that my Excalibur and CZ21 have a lot of
> trouble on small gold. My wife has some rings that
> wont even register on them and none of her
> bracelets/necklaces will. I find tons of small
> silver at the beach but pretty much most of my
> gold has always been men's wedding bans...So my
> question is, how much better do the land/fresh
> water detectors pick up this stuff (in air tests,
> ground, fresh water)?
>
> I get frustrated knowing I am walking right over
> gold...

There is a huge difference, For a start put a 10" DD on your machine and turn it up flat out and wave your bare hand in front of the coil and if it does not signal on it between 4 to 6 inches then it is not sensitive enough, Any machine in the 13 to 15 kHz range should be able to do that with ease, That is the simple way to give you a rough Idea if it will do the job,

give me a yell and let me know what your machines do,

take care,

John,



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2016 12:54PM by auminesweeper.

Try not to think of all the gold chains in the salt beach water,.... your eyes may start to water.

They ignore small gold for a reason. If they were to hit on small gold then they would also hit on salt water and black sand. You are not going to find any land detectors out there that you can take into the splash zone and find chains. The dry sand is another story. But then you dig the trash. I wish I had more time with the Racer 2 at the beach. A real quiet single frequency machine in the splash. I hunted with the NEL Hunter coil. I wish I would have tried the 5 x 10 to see if it was more sensitive to smaller targets in the surf or maybe even the 5 inch puck coil. But then I imagine the coverage would have driven me nuts. Hunt with the 5 inch puck to find small gold and give up coverage, or use a 13 inch coil for coverage and find large gold? The best detector I have ever used at the beach for smaller gold was the detector pro pulse unit. The one where all the controls and guts are in the headphones. It had an 8 inch coil, and was really a nice machine. I wish I would have kept it. It went through 9 volts very quickly. You got about 7 hrs out of a fresh set. What a pleasure to swing. I have the Whites dual field now with 12 inch coil I believe. It will hit the deep ones, but it really doesn't see the small stuff very well unless there is a bigger clasp.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2016 11:29AM by goodmore.

If you are running an Excal in Auto sens, it will not pick up tiny stuff.
Run it in manual and All Metal and get very interested in whispers.

I find if the wind is howling down the beach I don't dig near as much tiny stuff, you simply can't hear them.

On easy wind days, I dig lots of stuff with Excal that falls through the scoop time and time again, 8 mm holes.

Next step up is the SDC 2300,... for me at least,... small coil,... tunes to the salt,... and I dig lots of stuff that falls through my fine scoop, 6mm holes
But it digs lots and lots of stainless fishhooks,... that is what you want.

Don't loose any sleep about if,... short answer,... you need a sluice if you want to get the fine stuff at the beach.

HH
Johnb

Finding small targets that fall through the scoop can be maddening. It also eats up time looking for them. Coverage and time are huge factors for beach hunting. I agree about the wind. It can be a real handicap for hearing. I have a set of GG on my Excal. Good beach hunters stress the importance of good headphones. The stock yellows might be good for diving, but they are just bad when it comes to surf hunting. I know guys like OBN make their own headphones. In fact the world is still waiting for a better pair of water proof headphones. The GG are on the line as far as being good enough. But instead of making a better pair with louder volume they have gone with making a bluetooth pair so you can answer your phone.

ScoopJohn is right on. Manual and all metal is the way to go with the Excal. OBN moded my Excal with the all metal/discriminate switch in the handle and some of his headphones. All metal hits targets several inches deeper than descriminate does. Unfortunately OBN no longer does the headphone mod so I went with the GG amphibians when the OBN headphones played out and they sound terrible to me compared to the GG on my land machine. On my second Excal I replaced the OBN headphones with BlackWidows. Although not waterproof, I rarely get more than an occasional light splashing on them as I do not dive and only wade waist deep. The tiny targets are easily taken care of, for the most part, by attaching a rare earth magnet to the back of the scoop. Any wire and small junk jewelry will stick to it solid. Any gold or silver will not, so you will have to chase it, but there is far less of the precious metals dug than the junk.
There are pulse machine such as the TDI and Mirage that can run at 10 Us that can hit fine gold chains. But TDI is not waterproof and you will dig a lot of iron, so time becomes a major factor. The CTX 3030 is suppose to hit finer chains than the Excal so that could be a better option in the saltwater. I have never used one but hunt with several beach hunters who swear by them although there is always the worry that they might leak...Stuart

Thanks for the responses. So it appears the general opinion is that the single frequency land machines will hit smaller gold on the dry beach/land/fresh water...

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Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

Scoop.... u need some new phones with jell pad buddy. The Xcal hits on gold about .3 grams and right now its as good as it gets out there like goodmore said there is a trade off. But then there is a trade off to styles of hunting on the beach as well. U plan for the hunt.... single freq or multi. Each has its strength. Same with dirt machine.... freq and recovery matters there too. At then of the day most of us opt for an Xcal ..... id say the finds prove it. Takes a lot of patients to work a small portion of beach with a gold machine. Try it wit a PI awhile...... then look down the beach. The right machine for the days hunt is as important as having a fastrrecovery method.

Dew

adamBomb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the responses. So it appears the
> general opinion is that the single frequency land
> machines will hit smaller gold on the dry
> beach/land/fresh water...

That's right, where someone posted that the Excal will hit bits weighing 0.3 grams, A single frequency will hit bits 50 X Smaller, That's ( 50 times smaller ) and I am not talking about machines like the GMT or the GB II or the Gold Racer, use those Units and that's when things really get Tricky.

John.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2016 01:02PM by auminesweeper.

I need some new ears, 50% deaf in one and I can hear the wind blow even at night in my bed. Tinnitus :-)

That and the popular beaches, they like to burn fires, christmas tree burning, end off season bomfire, fireworks, etc, etc.
I'm always finding remnants of charcoal, the Excal just loves this stuff. The threshold gets upset and then it hits.

You dig down a scoop and hit a nice layer of charcoal. Big chuncks sound off with a Long Signal.

Anyhow I've got myself a Whites Dual Field, but I need more hours on it.
Not feeling real comfy at the moment :-)

dewcon4414 Wrote:
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> Scoop.... u need some new phones with jell pad
> buddy. The Xcal hits on gold about .3 grams and
> right now its as good as it gets out there like
> goodmore said there is a trade off. But then
> there is a trade off to styles of hunting on the
> beach as well. U plan for the hunt.... single
> freq or multi. Each has its strength. Same with
> dirt machine.... freq and recovery matters there
> too. At then of the day most of us opt for an
> Xcal ..... id say the finds prove it. Takes a lot
> of patients to work a small portion of beach with
> a gold machine. Try it wit a PI awhile...... then
> look down the beach. The right machine for the
> days hunt is as important as having a
> fastrrecovery method.
>
> Dew

HH
Johnb

John..... just swap out the pads for jell pads. I can barely here the kids now lol. Its more likely the Xcal is hitting melted alumnium. My experience has beet the MLs null on cinder.

There are much better machines for dry sand hunting..... but they wont transition on wet sand and in the water. Im to lazy to bring 2two machines. Most people are looking for recent drops on active beaches so depth isnt as important as u think. My style lets me cover a lot of beach in the time I alot..... and .3 grams is about $10 or less melt. Thats as acceptable to me as pattern hunting

I've converted the standard Excal phones to 3M Peltor headband and earmuff.
I'll have to see if I can get those gel pads from my parts guy :-)

Probably is that Aluminium stuff,... it sure likes to corrode and break up into shards, pieces.
Throw away BBQ's springs to mind.

I'll have a go on the dry sand with my X-terra 705 and 10.5 DD HF coil,... time permitting :-)

HH
Johnb