nuggethunting

Hello Grubstake, Yes, I received the email and PM. Sorry I haven't gotten back with you. Been overwhelmed lately with the business and other stuff. What did Doc say? PM me back with the details. Talk with you later, Rob Allison

Hello Montana Bob, Well, that's one hell of a run of gold you found there with the new GPX-4000! It took me about one minute to realize after I turned it on the machine it was much quieter than the GP3500. I was running across one of the pushes at Rich Hill that contained that fresh, nasty red clay. When the red clay is damp or freshy cut it's nasty on a detector, but after some time when it dries out and hardens it's not as bad. I ran the GP3500 across this same ground for a few hours and found a couple nuggets. However, I had to balance the detector often. The GPX-4000 was much quieter on this ground than the GP3500. I was running the GPX-4000 in Fixed, Sensitive, Mono, Volume Maxed, Gain 13 ... Will have to check what esle I was running. I'm really impressed with what I seen so far on the GPX. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Grubstake, Kind of interesting knowing you could actually just purchase a new GP3500 Handle for less and clip the end off if you know what wires go where! I can't see how he has his connected to the box .... Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Skipperbill, I've used the Commander 8-inch and 11-inch round, but didn't care much for the 15x12 Commander. It was too heavy in my opinion. As for performance, I'm sure if you compared equal sizes they would do the same as the Coiltek and Nuggetfinder coils. Coiltek and Nuggetfinder just make a much bigger selection of coils and different configurations. Hope this helps, Rob Allison

Hello Russ, It's always fun having a debate with you. First off I trust you like a Brother, or even a Nephew! Working at "that area" it's not uncommon to miss nuggets due to the extreme mineralization. Yep, you did find some nuggets behind me, I know I can't even get them all if I really tried. I'm just razzing you when I said you left nuggets, you guys didn't leave anything of size to talk about. I would agree that the GP's find smaller gold at depth over the SD's. I would also agree that the SD2100 does really well with big gold at depth in mineralized ground. How the GPX-4000 will fit in this mix is still up in the air. Would be interesting to see how it performs at the patch. P.S. I know both you and your Brother are deadly hunters with the modded SD's. I know you have shown me nuggets that never were posted or displayed on the Internet. Have you ever thought about going back to LHC? Talk with you later, Rob Allison

Hello Uncle Ron and Nephew Russ, There will always be debate if the GP series can keep up with the "Super Duper SD Mod" in hot ground. I havent' done enough testing to see what the GPX-4000 can really do. Right now I'm confident enough from what I seen so far that I will find more nuggets in old patches. Will it just be smaller nuggets at depth, or maybe some larger ones is still the questions? I know for a fact, cause I've looked my my own personal collection, that at least 200, if not more, gold nuggets were found behind the SD. Yes, most of them were smaller, but I'm not talking 2-3 grainers. Many of them were 1-3 Dwt's at depth. Heck, if you take 200 nuggets at just a 1 Dwt average weight, that is 200 Dwts or 10 ounces of gold. Heck, that alone paid for just about all my GP detectors if you think about it. Russ, I'm sure we both would agree there are a lot more smaller nuggets (pieces under 2-3 Dwt's) vs. multi-ounce pieces. Out of all the nuggets I have found with the SD/GP series, only 0.5 - 1.0% of them have been big boys. Logically, the "beans and bacon" of electronic prospecting is really the smaller nuggets and smaller nuggets at depth. Not to razz you, but what about all the nuggets you left in those side gullies and even the 3-4 Dwter in the red spot near 18 ounce wash? I think I have close to 2 ounces that you guys left behind? You mentioned both you and Scott hunted them hard during the original discovery. Just curious if you give the GP3500 credit for those finds or its it just my amazing touch with a detector? LOL Always fun to talk with you Russ. You're really a special friend even though you're swinging a "Dino-Detector!" Rob Allison

Hello arahi666, Over the years Ken Roberts of Finders and I have had some heated debates. There has been a lot of talk about the "Super Fix," some good and bad. Like all products, someone will hate it, while others love it to death. Personally, no one that I know uses it here in the US due to our soil types vs. Australia. There are places where it's pretty nasty, but for the most part the mineralization is moderate at worst. Good to hear the "Super Fix" worked well for you. However, hard to believe you couldn't find a single nugget with the GP3500 over there. The GP3500 is an animal of a detector and I'm pretty confident I can find a nugget with it anywhere gold is hiding within detector range. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Dennis, Received your email tonight. Get back with me when you read the email about what you asked about. Also, when you arrive in Stanton in December make sure you look me up. I can show you some places around the Hill. Also, I would highly encourage you to join the 24K Gold Hunters Club. Since the Super Pushes there has been over 100 gold nuggets found, most of them by Minelab users. Talk with you soon, Rob Allison

Hello Grubstake, DOH ... I just knew it was going to be a matter of time and we would see some more nice nuggets come from the patch. I was hoping at least one of them would have been yours, but I know your "BIG" one is just around the corner. I've seen you take a lot of guys out and allow them to find gold in your patches. Just remember, good things happen to good people! On another note, what coil was Shep using this time? Where the nuggets found at depth or fairly shallow? P.S. Doc and I are ready to come out! Congrats to Shep on the finds. Hope next time it's you Grubstake. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Russ, There really are no dumb questions in my book. I try to do my best to explain the best I can over the forums and Internet. I'm a very visual/spacial person, so I love to explain things hands-on. It's much easier to show someone in person in my book. There's no doubt that a monoloop coils gets better overall performance than a conventional DD coil. I love monoloops and will use them whenever possible. Since the GPX-4000 is configured better for the use of mono coils, I'm going to really like it. Like I mentioned, the GPX-4000 with a mono coil just purred across the nasty red clay at Rich Hill without a single peep! Earlier in the day with the GP3500 I had to ground balance about a half dozen times to keep the ground balance smooth. I'm really impressed with what I seen so far on the GPX. After I get a few more hours on it I will hit a few old patches and see what I can turn up. I'm pretty confident what I seen so far my old patches will produce some more gold, hopefully some larger chunks. I'll head over to "18" and see how it runs and report back to you! P.S. I'm down to just a couple more GPX-4000's in stock. I have another batch on the way, but uncertain when it will arrive. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Larry, Well it couldn't have happened to a better person. We both know why you found that nugget, it was meant to be from the "Creator Upstairs." Heck, it might have been a sign that your Father is thinking about you and wanted to let you he's safe and wishing you a great season at Stanton. When you told me about how you customized your quad for your Father, it really hit me in the heart. I had to really hold that tear back my friend. You're a great person and I hope we can spend some time hunting down some gold this season. Lets keep in touch, Rob Allison

Hello Uncle Ron, Like always it's great to get a bunch of people that are interested in the same hobby together. I'm afraid some day someone will try to stop this great hobby of "gold prospecting!" You just never know when you get one of those faint, deep targets. You almost hate to leave them knowing Rich Hill is one place where a pound nugget is very possible. I think all of us worked on the target for at least a good hour taking turns digging. We even tried to use a quad wench, but that wouldn't even budge one of the partially buried rocks. As you can see, I pretty much stood back and supervised the diggings! Well unfortunately it was just a piece of iron rubbish, but you almost have to dig them out. Just imagine if you left it behind and someone else dug that big nugget out ... Ron, glad to see you scored your second nugget from the Hill. The more time you spend up there the more you're going to find. I know you had a rough start, but it might be all down hill now. Always great to see you and "Thanks" a million for the new maps. P.S. Anyone looking for some great custom maps needs to contact Uncle Ron (Ron Long). He can pretty much make a custom map of anywhere in the state, but also has some great map packages that cover most of the major gold bearing areas with marked out club claims. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Goldstudmuffin, Well first off, I doubt anyone would want to run just factory default settings in my honest opinion. The default settings might be ok for Aussie ground, but here to get the optimal performance you're going to want to experiment around and find what you can fine tune. In area with very low to moderate mineralization you're going to be able to tweak the settings more to get greater gains in performance. In areas where the ground is very nasty (extreme mineralization) you're going to be able to lower the settings to adjust. Unlike the previous GP series detectors, you pretty much have to use what Minelab gave you. On the new GPX-4000 you can actually use a mono coil over nasty ground and adjust the settings to get a smooth balance. On prior GP's you might not be able to work with a mono and would have to resort to a DD coil and then with the stock settings. Now you have the ability to choose the coil (preferably mono) and adjust all the settings to match the ground you're working. If the ground is constantly changing you can adjust the tracking speeds or change the ground balance modes. There are a couple of modes on the new GPX-4000 that work very well on extremely iron mineralization and over volcanics such as basalts. However, I have yet to test those modes, but will in the near future. Hope this helps a bit, Rob Allison

Hello Everyone, Sorry I didn't post much information last night, but it was a long day yesterday at the Rich Hill pushes. Had to delivery a lot of products to customers and stayed up late Friday trying to get everything organized to take Saturday morning. For the people that are still considering the 24K Gold Hunters Club, more than 25 nuggets were found on push 2 Saturday. I heard a few more were found after I left, so the count might be as high as 30 gold nuggets found Saturday. I can only count one nugget that was found with a VLF (Kitty! ), all other nuggets were found with Minelab PI's (SD and GP series). Ok, onto what I know now about the new Minelab GPX-4000. (1) The very first thing I noticed when I turned the new detector on was how "Quiet" the detector was! My first thought was something was wrong or the coil was not connected. The detector was super quiet even when I pointed the coil outwards or up in the air. With the prior SD/GP models the minute you brought the coil off the ground the detector would go nuts. This made it very difficult to hunt hills, banks and other spots where you might need to lift your coil off the ground. The GPX-4000 is much more immune to EM interference. (2) The ability of the GPX-4000 to hunt across very mineralized ground with a mono coil. Using the GP3500 the first part of the day there was several zones where I had to re-balance the detector & coil to hunt the red clay patches and even some of the metamorphic bedrock zones. I actually kept a mental note on these spots and later returned with the GPX-4000 and the stock coil. I ran across them all with just the "factory presets" and then later with my own "tweaked settings" and I couldn't even get the detector to make a sound over those zones the GP3500 talked on! There is no doubt I can now hunt places with a mono coil where with prior detectors it gave me a problem. (3) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Screen is awesome! The ability to go in and "tweak or edit" the factory presets is great. It's amazing on how many features you can change, from the ground balance setting, volume, signal, gain, sensitivity, tune and a bunch more. You can now tweak the settings up or down to get the best adjustment for certain ground conditions. The use of the LCD and the two knobs is very simple to understand, but can sound confusing when someone tries to explain it on the net. (4) Manual Tune to adjust other detectors out. Saturday at the Rich Hill pushes I waited until later in the day to hunt with the GPX-4000. However, even later in the day there was at least 5-6 PI's still working the push, but with the GPX-4000 I was able to "manual tune" them right out. I was so impressed with this feature that I even had to show my hunting partner how it worked. There was a guy using a GP3500 really close to me and the machine was getting very noise. All I did was turn the manual tune adjustment to clicks (from 8 to 6) and the other detector was completely eliminated. I actually had to do this a couple of times, but it was slick, just a couple of clicks and the other guys were gone! (5) The fact you can use all aftermarket searchcoils with this detector. All the previous searchcoils (aftermarket and Minelab) should work with no problem. However, at this time you can't use any aftermarket battery system with the GPX-4000. You must use the stock Li-Ion battery and power cord. Overall, I was very impressed with the new GPX-4000. Just the detector being quieter than previous machines will equal better performance. I'm hoping to get more time with the new GPX here soon and report back more of my findings. Heck, within just an hour I found several nuggets with the new GPX-4000! If you would like more information on this new detector, feel free to contact me at - (623) 362-1459 (business line) or (602) 909-9008 (cellular), email - auplacers@yahoo.com or Private Message through the forums. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Karl, I really love the Minelab GP3500, but after testing the GPX-4000 for just an hour or so I'm really impressed!~ I can't wait to get some more time with it so I can hit a few old patches. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello All, I will elaborate more on my first GPX-4000 field test later, but to sum it up to only a few words, I'M VERY IMPRESSED!" I can see this detector being a real winner with all the functions/settings you can edit. I ran a monoloop coil across the nasty Rich Hill clay and the machine just purred like a kitten! Will post more in the morning. Rob Allison

Hello Dutchman and All, Push 2 was pretty productive today. There were 25-30 nuggets found off this push just today. Several people including myself found (4) and many others had several apiece. Nothing huge was found, most of the bigger nuggets were 1-2 Dwt's and the bulk of them being 1/2 Dwter's. I'm sure a couple more nuggets were found when I left, so the nugget count might be as high as 35 nuggets from just today. Done some testing with the new GPX-4000 and I'm very impressed with the results! For all the guys going up Sunday, hope you do well. Rob Allison

Hello Karl, The last couple of times Minelab discontinued the previous detector once the new one came out. However, from what they told me the GP3500 will not be discontinued. I guess we have to wait and see .... Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Dennis, Welcome to the nuggethuting.com forums. The GP3500 is still the best detector in my opinion until I can prove out the new GPX-4000. The GPX-4000 does have a lot of functions, so I'm sure once you master the settings you will be able to fine tune the detector to specific ground conditions. Since the GPX-4000 just got released and will only be in limited quanties for the time being, most will not be bundling this detector as of yet. P.S. The GP3500 is still listed on the Minelab website. Minelab stated they have no plans to discontinue this detector. Hope this helps a bit, Rob Allison

Hello Guys, There will always be debates when it comes to comparing the various Minelab PI's. There are too many variables to compare. Both machines are great, but in my opinion the GP series is far more superior. It gets more depth, especially on smaller nuggets and is much more sensitive. I haven't seen a modded SD2100 that can find a nugget under a grain in size. You have to use what fits your comfort level and this might not even be a Minelab PI for some. Uncle Ron - The middle channel on the SD2100 is the "Search mode" or both channels working together. The Channel 1 and Channel 2 are for small and deep gold. I think the Channel 1 (up position) is for deep gold, but you loose some sensitivity. This is the channel I used when the mineralization was very nasty, but I could still use a monoloop coil. Hope this helps a bit. You should be able to use both channels in most areas here in Arizona. Oh, let me know the GPS cord of that nugget! Rob Allison

Hello Bunk, The LR2000 is layman's terms is a BLM Program for mineral claims. You can research claims online now with the LR2000 by setting up different parameters. You can research claims by name, claim owner(s) or even by geographic area (Township, Range, Section). Pretty slick program once you figure it out. It's used to be more difficult to use, but the BLM have made it a bit more user friendly. You might also consider my buddy Gary's Research CD Program called Hystware. Find and locate mining sites where Gold, Silver, Gems and other PM's have been found in the past. The most comprehensive research tool available for finding the location of historically recorded mines and mineral deposits in the United States and Alaska. Here is the link - http://www.hystware.com/ Great talking with you the other night. Rob Allison

Hello Uncle Ron, Well congrats on your first "Hill Nugget!" What, I pointed a finger .... Hey, good things come full circle, so I'm always glad to help a friend out. Your nugget does have some great character. Why are my always those ugly slugs? Congrats, Rob Allison

Hello All, Some of you might already know, but my good friend Larry Crook from Colorado just arrived at the LDMA camp a week or so ago and found a very nice nugget today. He was only his 6th hole dug of the day and ended up being a 39 Gram solid nugget!!! Larry was using a Minelab GP3500 that he purchased from me about 2 months ago and a NF 14-inch elliptical searchcoil. Larry said the target was very clear and was down approx. 8 inches underneath a dead cactus. He was so excited that he said he couldn't even yell over at Jerry (Pondmn) when he found it. I will let Larry tell where he found it, but it was on a club claim. Congrats Larry! Rob Allison

Hello Uncle Ron, Please print me up (3) copies of the new Rich Hill map and bring them with you to the club claims Saturday if you're there. I highly recommend anyone that is hunting the Rich Hill area to get at least one of Ron's Custom Maps. They are very slick and worth the money! No more worrying about where you are, the claims are marked very well on the topo map. Take care, Rob Allison

Hello Ron and Bob, They are opening push 2 this weekend if everything goes well. I didn't know about Angel's dozer being down, but it just might be. If that is the case, there might not be a push this weekend. It's very expensive to rent and transport a dozer down to Rich Hill. Hopefully they will have something this weekend. If not, maybe Uncle Ron can show us some patches! Take care, Rob Allison