Garrett GTI2500 or Whites DFX?(looking for gold}

[Johnnytuinalf66s]

Well i was thinking of getting the Garrett 2500 Pro at $879 but I would like to take the machine when i go away on vacation to Calif and seach for gold in the northern parts of calif.So I am looking for a detector thats good on the beach and looking for coins on the east coast but want it if i want to look for nuggets...
Woman on the phone from KellyCo.com told me that i am better off getting the Whites DFX because its a dual coil and it also has a program in it to seach for Gold where the garrett does not and it also goes a bit deeper as the people from Kellyco says....
So maybe now i am leaning with the whites unless some of yea good folks tell me different...
Thought the whites would be bad taking it to a beach and getting sand in it and mosture because its made out of metal as where the garrett is plastic...JohnnyT

 

[Uncle Willy]

You can hunt for gold with a 2500 but you should really have a gold detector if you're serious about nuggetshooting. You can't really rely on what some dealers tell you as it depends on what detector they are pushing at any given time. There are no universal detectors that are perfect for everything.

The 2500 has true all metal with manual ground balance - what one needs for nuggetshooting.

Bill

 

[Johnnytuinalf66s]

Hummmm when i called KellyCo.com and they are saying the the whites DFX has a program just for GOLD on the detector....Hate to buy 2 machines and just wondering what one will be better for Gold nuggets...Maybe the garrett 2500 because of the all metal mode?Thanks JohnnyT

 

[willy]

Did some testing with the GTI 2000 I recieved in the mail today. This is just in the air, but there will be some in-ground tests done tomorrow. The upshot is, it will pick up a 3 grain nugget in 0 disc. at 1/2" with both the 9.5" & 5x10" coils. In all-metal it would pick it up at 2.5" with both coils. Tomorrow I'll dig out my 1 grain nugget and if that's detected (at any distance) the detector would then make for a pretty good nuggetshooter. Even getting the 3 grainer is pretty impressive. My GMT (Whites' top of the line nugget detector) will see that same nugget at around 3". ...Willy.

 

[DavHut]

You sound like a casual user, so I'd go with the Garrett, because of the auto-tracked all metal and it's ease of use. Plus the fact that Garrett most likely incorporated features that make a better nugget shooter. Garrett considers that you would maybe use their detectors for such things. That's not White's forte.

However, I'll suggest you consider buying TWO two detectors. Find a nice used or new 1350 and a nice used Garret Scorpion Gold Stinger! For finding gold nuggets, a nugget detector is the way to go.

But, the Scorpion offers the ability to hunt in DISC mode, unlike most dedicated nugget detectors.

Here's an excerpt from the Lost Treasure Online field test of this unit, found at http://www.losttreasure.com/fieldtests/xArchiveView.cfm?ID=LT19910108

"Since the Scorpion is marketed as a Garrett's electronic-prospecting detector, I started by checking its response to some natural gold I have. Surprisingly, a vial containing a few grains of flour gold produced a definite response at two to three inches from the coil. A vial containing some small nuggets gave an even stronger response, and also produced a response in the motion discriminate mode as well. I tried other targets including coins, jewelry, and small military artifacts and the depth at which they could be detected was first-rate."

I'd consider this option, in your case.

David

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[willy]

I think that you might be responding to the original poster but, if not, here's my response. I'm far from a casual user, deriving a significant part of my income from metal detecting. I've been detecting now for about 20 yrs. I had a Scorpion & while it's sensitive enough, got rid of it. It has one of the most gawdawful battery change schemes going. Aside from the fact that it uses 3 (expensive) 9v batteries, you have to literally take the detector apart to change them. A Tesoro Lobo Supertrac or an MXT would be a better overall unit. ...Willy.

 

[willy]

If a detector can't find a piece of gold in the air, it sure as hell won't find it in the ground. ..Willy.

 

[Ralph Bryant]

....."Plus the fact that Garrett most likely incorporated features that make a better nugget shooter. Garrett considers that you would maybe use their detectors for such things. That's not White's forte. ".........

Are you kidding ? White's has made some of the workhorses of the industry where gold detectors are concerned.....Goldmaster II, vSat, GM3, 4b, GMT, and one of the best multi-purpose/gold detectors ever in the form of the MXT. Not White's forte ?

Ralph

 

[Ralph Bryant]

n/t

 

[Johnnytuinalf66s]

Sounds like i should get the Garrett GTI2500 and maybe look on ebay and find a cheap goldbug or something to use if and when I go to Calif...Thanks JohnnyT

 

[Uncle Willy]

Or anywhere else.

Bill

 

[Waterdog]

I would look for a good used metal detector Made to find Gold.
I tried once to find gold with a multi purpose metal detector. The metal detector totally shut down in the gold fields. The ground where others was finding gold was so Hot I could not even find a coin I had just dropped ON THE GROUND!
I think if you look after the Holidays you will find a Flood of them.
HH

 

[Uncle Willy]

HI Ralphie,
Boy that brought you out of the woodwork. Good to see you. Virtually everybody makes decent to good gold detectors. While we are discussing gold detectors let's not forget Garrett's humble Infinium.

Bill

 

[Uncle Willy]

Yeah that's why they make "gold" detectors as they are designed specifically for that purpose. The soil in many gold bearing areas is pure hell to a standard detector. You can hunt for gold with a multi-purpose machine but if you are serious about it like the lady who found the nuggets in the pics you go for a machine designed specifically for that task.

Bill

 

[willy]

The first time I went prospecting up in Ak I only had a Cz6a to use. Got a lotta laughs.. that is until I started popping out the gold. Turns out that due to the mineralization &, possibly, the high levels of arsenic in the water (tasted good, so who cares) all the other detectors (Gold Bug 1, Au52, Goldmaster 4) were almost totally inoperable.. with the exception of the 2 ML SD2200d's. Getting anywhere near the water caused the detectors to exhibit massive overshoot responses that continued no matter what adjustments were made. The same happened with the CZ.. until I flipped the toggle over into salt mode. Night & day!! It ran smooth as silk & gave the minelab PI's a real run for the money. Ended up pulling out over $7000 in a few days with it. I've come across a few other places since then that couldn't be hunted with a conventional nugget detector, which posed little problem for a coin machine. It's all got to do, I suppose, with the ultra high gain levels used in many gol detectors, along with the higher frequency. I'm not saying that this holds true with all coin detectors.. just some. I think that people are too quick to pidgeonhole things, detectors, as being either this or that. Sometime, if one can think outside of the box it can prove to be very rewarding. ..Willy.

 

[Ralph Bryant]

Hi Ya Bill......

Are those the chunks I heard about being recently found near Stanton ? That larger smoother one looks familiar....

Anyway, not bashing Garrett by any means. I just couldn't figure out why anyone would say that gold machines are not White's "forte", since they've made some of the best. And you're right, most all of the major manufacturers have made good ones, from the Diablos and LST to the Gold Bugs, Goldmasters, SDs, GPs, Stingers, Infinium, etc. I still have my trusty old GM-3 and doubt I will ever part with it. That was the last of the workhorse classic Goldmasters in my opinion as I never did warm up to the later designs with all that plastic and automatic this and that added. Give me a good old manual machine any day.....

Ralph

 

[Chris1]

and feel its the most flexible machine in the industry. Not trying to upset anybody, but with its programs and adjust ability I have never found a place that gave me trouble and my finds have been incredible (seated, large cents, gold rings and just about every thing in between). I have hunted from North Carolina to Iowa and although it took me awhile to understand it I still manged to find goodies with the factory pre-set programs, but after I learned how to tweak it and make adjustments I was amazed of the coins that came out of hunted out parks and fair grounds. This is not only my opinion but my experience.

 

[DavHut]

I knew that someone would pipe in when I said that. Recall that the original post was around the fact that the guy, who isnt a devotee, might only have one detector - and nugget hunting wasnt to be it's primary task, more of an afterthought.

Now, we all know Whites makes excellent detectors; I've owned some, I own one now and expect to own more. Their nugget detectors are considered by some to be standards of the model.

I appreciate what you are saying and I think we could get more to the point if it's said that I feel Charles Garrett expects that users of his machines might only have[/] one machine and that they might be used for ANY sort of detecting, including nuggetshooting. Under these conditions, the machine should also be easy to use for the neophyte, without alot of fuss.

Having used Whites machines in the past and present, I dont get the sense that they are designed with such a philosophy foremost, although thye have gotten easier to use. These are merely my feelings and I did not intend to step on anyones individual or collective toes.

Besides, heres this poor cat, who may not know the first thing about such things, out there in the worst sort of detecting conditions, expecting to find nugeets galore. Whats needed is a test of real nuggets, just a few grains, a bit of flour gold and some work over black/mineralized sand with. Bill did it already with his 2500. Can anyone do it with their DFX?

In the end, though, I think a used LOBO would be a better choice all around for the nugget hunting

David

 

[Ralph Bryant]

No offense taken......really. Maybe I just misunderstood your original intent. Still, Dave Johnson's "baby" (The MXT) was specifically designed to do just what you are describing as more of a multi-purpose machine, and is especially good at nugget hunting as has been proven time and again due to its high gain operation. I'm sure there are other capable all-purpose type machines out there on the market that can handle some degree of nugget hunting, but all of them have their limitations. You mention "flour gold" for instance, and I can assure you, there are no VLF detectors on the market that are going to detect gold that fine. Even in amounts that you might think would be detectable in total, there is just not enough "conductive continuity" present in the flour gold itself to be detectable. In such cases where folks think they are detecting flour gold, it more likely is a case of detecting the ferrous black sands that are associated with it. And even when you start considering some degree of greater solid mass, few non-gold specific machine designs are capable of detecting anything less than several grains in weight, while some of the gold-specific machines can detect "sub-grain" particles.......not that I'd be interested in trying to dig and recover anything that small.

In this regard, I think the MXT or LST are probably two of the best performing "all-purpose" detectors out there for actually putting to use in the goldfields. Both are Dave Johnson designs, as are the Diablos and both Gold Bug models. The ground phase feature of the MXT is excellent for locating and following black sand concentrations that can lead to the flour gold , not to mention having separate and well thought out relic and coinshooting modes. I've never ran a 2500 in those types of conditions, but the DFX would be well down the list of candidates in comparison to the two mentioned. Even on the Garrett side, I think the Gold Stinger would offer more possibilities for use as both a coin and nugget machine if a person wanted to own just a single detector.

Ralph