Todd Pickens

Welcome to the real world. Better start trying to get ahead on your sleep. The bottles, the dirty diapers, the crying (from baby and wife), the money, the money, the money. Its all good. I would not trade one minute for all the gold in the desert. That first smile will make you forget everything. Our prayers are with your family. Congratulations

I cant speek for the GPX 45k but a SD 2100v2 or SD 2200v2 with a Coiltek Pocket Rocket and a Gold screamer amp and an after market coil, will hold its own on gold bigger than a gram+ as long as you are out away from any EMI. If you have any EMI noise or the gold gets small the GPX4k will smoke the other 2 units. It also has alot to do with the opperators ability. Just look at Unc. Ron and his Baboo. There are other mods you can do to the other 2 units that will make them compete with the GPX's on small gold, but you will have to deal with the EMI. The size and type of gold also has a lot to do with it. The SD unit have probably pulled more Oz's of the yellow stuff outa the ground than all the latter model combined. For the price you cant beet the SD units.

I would recomend getting a Coiltek Pocket Rocket battery system. It only wieghs 14 oz. and it will clip right to the arm cuff on your detector. Call Rob or Doc

Grubstake is a Glock man. I new I voted for the right man. All kidding aside Besides metal detecting I do alot of Bow hunting in Texas and New Mexico. I pack in to remote areas as far away from people as I can get. I have had coyoties, foxes and bears come into my camps, but never a mountain lion. I have never had to shoot anything that woke me during the night. My gun is what lets me get a good night sleep when I am camping or when I am detecting. It is a safety net for an insecure male ego. My recomendations would be to get whatever gun makes you feel safe learn how to use it and carry it and then forget about bad people, moutain lions, bears, snakes ect. and concentrate on detecting. KILLER BEE'S man I hate BEE"S gun's aint no good on bee's. Now I will have to find a flame thrower

I like the 40 cal. I carry a glock 22 and 3/15 rd mags. 3.5 lb trigger, extended mag release, straight 8 seights. simple and reliable. Or I would carry betty. Betty is a belt fed m60. Betty is a real bi*$& to detect with but I do feel safe.

Thanks Ron, Thats the best guess I have had so far. Everyone around here wants to try and make it a silver nugget, but it doesnt look like our native silver we have here in Texas. The little chunk was found about 200 yards from an old 1860 home site. That would make sence for something around an old home. Thanks

I found this while I was out with my E-Trac the other day. Its a nugget of something but I dont know what. It weighs 5.5 grams, It is soft, but hardder that lead, It has a slight black coating on it, but its not rust, The nugget is metalic and has a silvery grey steak when we streak tested it, as far as I can tell its not magnetic, but it is highly conductive. One side is smooth like a river washed nugget and the other side has little dimples in it with little peices of quarts in it. It gave a reading of 11/30 on the E-Trac. Any guesses?

Got GLOCK

Chuck, I dont have the book you mentioned, but I would like to see it. I have dredged most of the creeks in the area, and I have property on the Llano River. Most of what we find is flower gold 50 to 100 mesh, but occasionally you will find some bigger flakes and some small nuggets. One of the spanish mine that I went to was on a dome of quarts that covered about 40 acres. The spanish had cut trenches 30 ft deep and 200 ft long through the mountain. There were bolders of white quarts as big as a truck. You can see that mine from google earth it is exactly 9 mile SE of Llano in an old comunity called Gainsville. Your right about the black sand we got so much we bag it up and ship it to Nome Alaska for them to put out on the beaches I have been to about 20 Spanish mines in the area, and I used to have good videos and pics of them, but they all burned up with my house in 06. Here lately I have been trying to get back to some of those mines.

Greetings Chuck, I have been to 4 spanish diggings all within about a mile of this one. The spanish smelter is about 2 miles away on top of the highest hill in the area. There are also about 9 mines on that hill. Its all private property, no chance of getting back up there to check them out. In 1999 the Texas geological society mapped one of the mines and founds some artifacts. Some of these mines are just little tunnels like this one and some have extensive diggings going straight down 100 ft with several drifts. They had to have been finding something to be doing all this digging.

Hey Vini, There are several little mines in the area and an old spanish smelter. I did go in about 6 ft. just to see what I could see. It turned to the right and opened up a good bit. There is a vain of quarts on the left side of the opening and another on the cealing. There is no sign of tailing piles because it is right on the edge of a small river. I have panned gold out of the river just a little down stream from the mine. I probably would have gone in just a little farther if it wasnt so close to rattler denning season. I hope to get permission to go back and take some samples.

I am not happy with the results, but I am glad its over. I guess we will see if the sun is going to come up tommarrow or not. I am a small buisness owner, I own a small metal detecting store and I just bought an AC company. While I dont make $250,000.00 yet, I do think that this mans policy is going to affect my buisness. I guess I am "SELFISH" becsause I dont want to do my "PATRIOTIC" and "NEIGHBORLY" duty of giving away what is mine. I guess its spred the wealth time in America.

I got to go out and do some exploring today and this is what I found. Looks like someone was here before me. The sad part is that I cant detect around it. Still it was an awsome find. The location is Llano County Texas. Looks like a contact zone on a fault. Lots of quartz stringers running everywhere with a blueish,grey marble on top of the hill. I dont know what the pictagraphs garding the mine mean, but I aint going in.

I havent tried it in a real gold bearing area but I have tested it on gold nuggets. It doesnt do to bad on nuggets down to about 10 grains or so. I have used it in some prety mineralised areas. I was running it in all metal with the sensitivity in auto. The sensitivity would drop down to about 8 in areas with heavy black sand on top of some prety hot granite. I always carry a little test nugget with me and even with the sensitvity down that low it will still pick up that nugget at 2 or 3 inches. It wouldnt be my first choice for a nugget machine, but I wouldnt be afraid of using it. If you cant find coins with this machine its time to give it up and take up butterfly collecting. This thing is amazing on coins and small jewlery. I got one for the store about 4 weeks ago and it hasnt left my truck since then. I take it out to the local swimming hole just about every day and it just keeps finding coins. I am out here in Texas were its Garret Green country. I see these guys out on the same swimming area and I wonder if they are leaving these coins just for me or are they realy missing them I dont run the factory preset coin setting. I prefer to make my own using our coins from wheats all the way up to morgans. I usualy run mine in auto sens. +3, deep on, fast on,trash high,ground difficult, and 4 tones or multi. Its hard for a prospector to do but you have to trust the auto sens. If the smart find shows anything close to fe 12 co 30 to 40+ dig it.

I got my new price list with my E-Trac order and there wasnt an increase on any detector on the list. That doesnt mean anything, news travels slow here in Texas.