Overlapping Coil Selections


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I'm running a 3500 with a Joey mono, Wallaby mono and the standard Minelab 11" DD and could use some advice on my next coil choice. Which of the big round mono's would slightly overlap into the Wallaby's effective range and deeper? Although gold would be it's primary use, I'd like to dip my toes into some relic and cache hunting too, so I'm looking for as deep a reach as possible without leaving a gap between the others. In other words, something that will pick-up where the Wallaby leaves off.

-Joe

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Hey Toad,

You have some great coils, but you will probably need to get a large Round to get more depth than the Wallaby Mono. I found pounds of gold with the Wallaby Searchcoils here in Arizona, California, Nevada & Alaska combined over the years.

I would look into the new Coiltek Goldstalker Rounds such as the 16 or 18-inch round. Larger coils are available, but I hate to hunt with anything over a 18-inch round. You get too much interference in most spots plus the gold size must really jump up in size to justify using such a large coil. Many seem to believe on average size gold nuggets they are getting much greater depth with 20-inch plus coils, but my testing has show just the opposite.

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob Allison

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Hey Toad,

You have some great coils, but you will probably need to get a large Round to get more depth than the Wallaby Mono. I found pounds of gold with the Wallaby Searchcoils here in Arizona, California, Nevada & Alaska combined over the years.

I would look into the new Coiltek Goldstalker Rounds such as the 16 or 18-inch round. Larger coils are available, but I hate to hunt with anything over a 18-inch round. You get too much interference in most spots plus the gold size must really jump up in size to justify using such a large coil. Many seem to believe on average size gold nuggets they are getting much greater depth with 20-inch plus coils, but my testing has show just the opposite.

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob Allison

Thanks Rob (and Chris), that does help.

-Joe

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Many seem to believe on average size gold nuggets they are getting much greater depth with 20-inch plus coils, but my testing has show just the opposite.

Thats an interesting statement Rob, what size are average size nuggets over there?

Not about to argue with your findings, I did some creek bank testing with a 16" mono and didn't find much difference with a 20".

But, on the other hand, I have found a couple of natural in ground nuggets with a 20" that I could not get a signal on with a 18"

and the same with 16" and 18"

I agree you will find more small bits with the smaller coil's, But you can still pick up quite small nuggets with a 16" round

and still be in with a chance of not missing the larger deeper bits, that would be my pick.

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Hi Inhere,

I thought someone might question me on those comments. For the most part the majority of the gold nuggets are under 1/4 ounce in size. We have larger, but overall you find a bunch of DWT or Gram sized nuggets. On this size gold there is no advantage using 20+ inch coils. We have a lot of EMI here in Arizona, some too bad for even the GPX-4500 to balance out. A larger searchcoil is like a large antenna and receives more EMI.

With the added EMI you're not hearing that extra 1/2 - 1 inch in depth you might gain using a larger coil in my opinion.

For the most part I think a 14-inch coil (elliptical or round) is best for general prospecting. When I find an area that might have larger gold I will use a 16-18inch coil, but no larger.

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob Allison

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Hey Inhere,

This last weekend I was out nuggethunting and one day the EMI was very bad, but the following day in the same spot the EMI was minimal. The biggest coil I can use in most places is a Coiltek 18-inch round or elliptical, anything larger and the EMI is too bad to hunt with.

Talk with you later,

Rob Allison

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