Some of my GPX-4000 Finds

[nuggethunting]

Hello All,

Here are some of my Minelab GPX-4000 gold nugget finds. Not all my nuggets are pictured, about 40 are absent from this picture. The gold nuggets in the picture weight right at 5 ounces total. Most of them are small, some very small. The biggest in the picture is just over 1/2 ounce and was found in California.

All these gold nuggets were found with either the Coiltek Joey 10x5 Mono or the Coiltek 14-inch Mono Round. Both of these searchcoils are awesome for finding small and large gold at depth.

I'm hoping to find some more sizeable nuggets this Winter season. Have a handful of spots in mind, just not enough time to check them out.

P.S. Believe I've found about 6.5 Troy Ounces to date with the GPX-4000. Not too shabby for only a weekend warrior.

Thought you might enjoy,

Rob Allison

[grubstake]

One thing about our gold out here Rob, is its very pretty, But then I'm spoiled on Mariposa Gold. Grubstake

[Guest goldstudmuffin]

Hi Rob,

Congrats, It looks like you've done very well with the new 4K, I guess that about pays for your new detector, plus some! Just out out of curiousity... do you think it's getting much more depth than the GP 3500? If so, where are all the big nuggets? You know I like the big ones!

[Uncle Ron]

Russ is right...It seems that the 4K can go in an rip up the 0.2 gram nuggest out of old patches but little or nothing large from depth...I keep thinking the good ol crude 2100 has an advantage...What do you all think? ...Cheers, Yer Unc in the Dubyah

[tool]

whey to go, i knew you were finding alot with the 4000 fromyour posts but didnt relize it totaled to that .thats great considering the time you have used it. it took me almost 6 years to get 9 ozs.and the bigest i ever beeped was1 grm. short of an oz.but id rather find a little every time than the once in awhile bigguy,but there was nothing better than the thrill i had findin the big one other than findin my first nug cant wait to trade up to the 4000. with your experience and ability to know your detecter we should call you nugget magnet!hope to meet you this winter. TooL

[~LARGO~]

Hi Rob,

That is INCREDIBLE!

Thanks for sharing your finds!

And you DO have my address where you can send my share...??

~LARGO~

[cop614]

WAY TO GO ROB

DENNIS HAS HELPED YOU ALOT (MAYBE) ?????????????????????????????????????????

KEEP IN TOUCH LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ON 24 K THIS FALL

JIM WADDILL

[Goldman]

Nice nuggets Rob!!! Don

[nuggethunting]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the comments. As for bigger gold, pretty much all the places I've been hunting have been new shallow spots, or old spots where majority of the bigger stuff has been plucked away. I have some spots I need to re-visit to see if the GPX-4000 can pluck some deeper nuggets that prior SD's & GP's have missed.

Also, the bigger nuggets are much more scarce, and maybe of them might be within normal detection range. There might only be a very small percentage of big nuggets that are within the GPX-4000 window that have been missed by prior detectors.

Russ is right...It seems that the 4K can go in an rip up the 0.2 gram nuggest out of old patches but little or nothing large from depth...I keep thinking the good ol crude 2100 has an advantage...What do you all think? ...Cheers, Yer Unc in the Dubyah

Ron, here is how I break that question down. I found many pounds of nuggets with the SD2100, some of them way over an ounce in size. However, I know for a fact the SD2100 will not find the smaller nuggets, nor the smaller nuggets at depth like the GPX-4000, but the GPX-4000 will get the same depth, if not more than the SD2100.

So the question I have for all you is -

"Why would I give up a couple hundred small nuggets per year using the SD2100?"

Talk with you all soon,

Rob Allison

[FlakMagnet]

Hi Ron,

I think Rob hit it on the head;

most of the known spots have been hit multiple times

by 'way more people than ever talk about it on these forums.

I don't know you, but count you as one of

the accomplished detectorists out there, and most of the

good ones I do know are very (very) tenacious and very through.

So it either comes down to new patches, or a new (4000?) detector.

I can't wait til you get yours, you'll have a blast with it.

Flak

[AZNuggetBob]

I agree Rob, Cant argue with success in old hard hit spots. Little ones is better than none? AzNuggetBob

[Dakota Slim]

C'mon Uncle Ron. I thought you were convinced after all the showdowns at the JoeNoSho patch. Did you forget already? I think you should come out with a new fall map special and use the proceeds to buy a GPX 4000 or maybe even a GPX 4500 if they are right around the corner.

BTW, I received the new map I won for picking the CA nugget out of that pile of AZ nuggets. Thank you very much. Your maps are the greatest.

[Jim P.]

Nice ones Rob, where did you buy those?

Congrats on being able to stay on top of the game with the schedule you have.

For those of you without a sense of humor, My first comment was a friendly poke at Rob and sort of an inside joke. You see, there are some people who can't accept the fact that Rob can consistently find nuggets, trip after trip.

Keep em' coming. Later...Jim P.

[way2cool]

Hi Rob,

So where did you buy those?? Just kidding. Very nice collection.

Rich

[nuggethunting]

Hello Guys,

I'm starting to believe it might be cheaper to buy the nuggets rather than going out and finding them! However, that would take all the fun out of it.

I forgot to tally in the Rich Hill nuggets I found with the GPX-4000. I actually went back through the forum archives and found a bunch of nuggets I forgot I found with the GPX-4000. I can add a good 2-3 ounces to that total, so I have well paid for the GPX-4000 in gold nuggets.

If the weather would cool off a bit, I would give some of those old patches that produced some 1+ ouncers a whirl. Will be interesting to see what the 4000 can turn up.

Take care,

Rob Allison

[kamikaze]

Nice poke Rob! Are the ones in the front Rich Hill nuggets? They sure are choice!

[nuggethunting]

Hello Gaine,

No, the Rich Hill nuggets I found with the GPX-4000 are not pictured. I know I found a 7.5 & 8 Dwt piece, and a bunch of 2 Dwt and smaller nuggets. I'm thinking about 3 ounces of Rich Hill gold not pictured and even some nuggets from the Goldstudmuffin Range that are not pictured.

The group of nuggets in front are from the Western Bradshaw's. A very old placer area, tons of old trash and rubbish, but nuggets can be found if you have the patience of the POPE!

Take care,

Rob Allison

[Guest goldstudmuffin]

Hi Rob,

I think the Goldstudmuffin Range is all hunted out Is that where all those dinks come from? Hehe!!! We need to do some digging you know where or hope for a new detector that goes deeper. When are you going to show me a few of your areas around there Rob?

[nuggethunting]

Hello Goldstudmuffin,

I seriously doubt that range is hunted out, nor the smaller ranges near it. A lot of country from a few guys to cover.

I'm sure digging will produce some more gold, but it's too damn hot to dig. I seen how you guys can trench out a hot spot in days, so I know this winter you will have it down to bedrock.

When it cools off a bit we will hit some of those spots. I think there is more potential, just way too hot to even imagine hunting there right now unless you want to get up at 2am.

Talk with you later,

Rob Allison

[montana]

If we read what experts on PIs tell us then it just may be that most of the larger deep nuggets may have already been picked from the old patches. Many argue that the old SD2000 will go just as deep on a large nugget as any PI since. I tend to agree and my deepest nugget to date has been with an SD2000. That being said, It flat ignored thousands of shallower ones that the SD2100 had no problem with and the SD2100 still got very impressive depth on the larger ones. And so on and so forth up until the present machine which seems to be able to pick up small nuggets that all the previous PIs would miss. So with 5 or 6 generations of Minelab PIs having gone over many of the old patches repeatedly and all getting roughly equal depth on a large nugget, Most of the old patches just may not have many large deep nuggets left that are within the realm of possibility with the technology available. Judging from what I've seen on all the forums , there aren't near the big nuggets over an ounce being found in the last few years as there were during the first years of the PIs . So where does that leave us ? Well we have a great new detector that will for some reason pick the smaller ones from these patches that have been pounded for years. Would I go back to the SD2000? Sure if I knew of a place with big nuggets 2 feet deep. I know where there WERE big nuggets 2 feet down but I'm pretty sure they are gone. So I'm happy as a clam digging small nuggets at an incredible rate. I can count on one hand the number of days that I've been skunked since I got my GPX4000 less than a year ago. I knew when I bought it that I wasn't going to fill a bucket with big nuggets right away, but I could see that the trend was toward finding the small gold more efficiently. That was the way the VLF technology evolved. It went from detectors that would only find larger nuggets to detectors that were capable of finding ever smaller ones with less difficulty until a dead end was reached and nothing much in the way of VLFs has come about since the GM3 or Goldbug2 that is much of an improvement. In fact I think that those detectors were the dead end for VLFs except for minor improvements in discriminators and ease of use with serious backsliding by some manufacturers. I think that there are still one or two more detectors coming in the PI category before a similar dead end is hit. By then there may be a breakthrough with a totally new type of technology. Another foot of depth would surely turn up some big nuggets, but I don't know how many 4 foot deep holes are left in this old body. Right now , a 10 " hole for a small nugget suits me just fine.----Bob