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Gold with the MXT Pro?

Yea, it works now....Apparently it was in sleep mode or something last night when I tried it.... Anyway, im finding the things I want!! That's a good start! Research always pays off in the end! I like reading what methods others are using and then trying them out myself!
 
Cool. Glad it's working for you now. :thumbup: Happy researching and HH, Nancy
 
Thanks for the kind words nancy & larry. I have been fortunate to have been in areas where nuggets can be found, there is no secret to finding them all you need is the right kind of detector, learn it very well,test test test with a small natural nugget and get your ground balance right and start covering as much ground as you can because its the amount of area(ground) you can get your coil over that will get you what you success, those whisper signals are usually what gets the most gold however sometimes you get a real blaster noise as i did on the 27 gram and the 16 gram (each of these were at the 10"+ mark, Btw I was using the 6x10DD on these. The little 4x6 got me many small pickers and large flakes in some crevices on exposed bedrock. I have used many detectors and the mxt ranks as my top vlf for nugget hunting but it is a killer at the beach also, this winter so far I have found 19 gold rings plus many my 1st spanish 2 reale coin.
 
Wow, with that I am ready to get out and prospect!!! Thanks for the motivation and i will have to buy a few pickers and such to test with in those EXTREMELY mineralized grounds in VA. With that being said, do you use the autotrac function? I've heard some people prefer to use it and other dont. I guess I've mostly heard from people who are looking for coins and relics though.
 
The question of autotrac is a good one, as for me I gr.bal. then lock because you can trac out whisper signals if your'e not careful in autotrac. I also do this for my beach and coin/relic hunting. I re-check gr. bal. every 30 mins or so. Listen for disruptive/extraneous noise in your threshold which could be a clue to re-balance then lock again. Experience is the best teacher so pay close attention to what your detector is doing and don't be afraid to try different settings just to see how you can make those little adjustments that can make a big difference in depth. The MXT and MXT Pro and M6 series of detectors are very capable gold machines.
 
Jimmy,

One would say you are living a metal detectorists dream. Congrats on your finds and I'm with you..... "mxt ranks as my top". Thanks again for all your wonderful input and pictures. HH, Nancy
 
[size=large]this has been the most positive filled thread on the gold finding abilities of the MXT i've seen to date. makes me even glader i own one. i've been happy with just the clad and other things but it's good to know about th tips on hunting for gold in relic and that the MXT is up to it.

HH[/size]
 
jimmy said:
The question of autotrac is a good one, as for me I gr.bal. then lock because you can trac out whisper signals if your'e not careful in autotrac. I also do this for my beach and coin/relic hunting. I re-check gr. bal. every 30 mins or so. Listen for disruptive/extraneous noise in your threshold which could be a clue to re-balance then lock again. Experience is the best teacher so pay close attention to what your detector is doing and don't be afraid to try different settings just to see how you can make those little adjustments that can make a big difference in depth. The MXT and MXT Pro and M6 series of detectors are very capable gold machines.
Click to expand...

I agree one shouldnt use the autotrac do to it tracking out the whisper signals... I tend to get quite a few whisper signals when im metal detecting but I generally use autotrac so that may be why my whisper signals diminish after a while. I read where someone else used a similiar technique that you do and found good results. Im glad you helped me determine whether to autotrac or not! Thanks for giving the detail of how you use your detector for finding gold!! I'll probably use a very similar technique when I go out prospecting this Friday! The gain may be bumped up to +3 with the crappy ground.

What if I dont have any spare gold lying around that's good enough to test with? Can I just use some lead shot? I heard it gives about the same signal as gold. I figured it's best to refer to someone like you who has probably been there done that with the MXT pro.
 
The best test target if you do not have a small natural nugget is a 22 cal. slug, it is about the size of a small nugget and the sound is just like a nugget. Glue the 22 slug to a colorful piece of plastic about 1"x1" or put it in a small film canister, also a nickel mimics the same sound and has the same qualities but of course is much bigger but gives you the sound of 8"-10" deep nugget, paint it red or yellow so you can find it easily after you tune your detector. I prefer the smaller of the two because you will find that the 22 cal. slug will be the most appropriate size for the natural gold you are searching for. Just so ya know, many small nuggets/pickers will read +2 - +30 range, I have never found a gold nugget in the 0 & minus range unless it was next to a nail or piece of wire stuck down in a crevice, if you get a negative reading over a crevice DIG IT!!, a good portion of the time it will be a nugget with some type of iron very close and I have even found coins like this. I hope this info helps.
 
Thanks for the reply Jimmy! It's very much appreciated!

I went to the river today and found that the soil is WAY WAY too iron rich... Even after calibrating, I put a quarter 6 inches under the top of the soil and smashed the soil down and the detector did not pick it up at all with the 6X10.... I replanted the quarter at 4 inches and still nothing...I literally had to put the quarter like maybe an inch below the surface before it would even give me a signal on it. It first went off as a hot rock in relic mode, and then went of as iron in coin and jewelry mode. At that point in time I changed to the 4x6 and it read the coin at 6 inches down but would tell me it was iron....At even 1 inch under the surface it was showing up as $1 or 50 cents. I had to remove the sediment off of it before it read 25 cents. I played with my gain and cracked it all the way up to +3 but that wasnt working very well at all because it kept telling me that their was either a big target or it was overload.... I put it in prospecting mode and tested things out with it too and it was wasnt all that great. I dug a couple of things that read in the +90's and they were all some sort of schist. Then there was a couple times where I dug some that were in the +80's and they were iron. Of course once at the surface they read in the negatives....Needless to say, I wont be going back down there again... That was a wasted trip for sure.... I kinda figured that the detector would only penetrate grounds that had okay mineralization.... Apparently the location I was at was classified as severe ground mineralization....

Oh well.... Back to finding coins and jewelry until I can get to a place like Arizona where the ground's not so harsh.
 
Hi, I know that the soil in va. is hot but mxt's work well there so I am just thinking maybe you need to drop back sensitivity out of the crosshatched area, when you crank sens. up its like runnining high beams in fog, plus remember newly buried items are often not read good on any brand detector. I never bury my test nugget I just throw it down and after gbing I run my search coil over the test nugget/item and keep lifting up the search coil until I find the fadeaway point and that will give you an estimate of how deep you can detect in that particular area. You can rest assured if the coil reads the test item that it will definetly read long buried items, Also did you try hypersat in the prosp. mode ? if you play with the mxt with a test target over bad ground I will bet you can find the tune you need to make that mxt hum right along.
 
Good points! I took it out of the cross hatched area a couple of times and I just wasnt comfortable leaving it there... Maybe it's because im new to using the detector but during the air test at home, I noticed that the small gold I had would register on the detector if the sensitivity was cranked up and it wouldnt if the sensitivity was turned down... I guess I was overly concerned that I would miss some gold but in the meantime I set the sensitivity too high and therefore the detector just detected the huge mass of iron on the surface. The coil could read the quarter at the surface but it would still go crazy when I placed the coil close to the ground... It kept telling me that it was overload in a lot of places. As far as putting the detector in Hypersat while in prospecting mode....Unfortunately I didnt think to do that. Of course it's my first time out prospecting with the MXT pro. Im going to send you a PM of the creek I was at and I would like for you to let me know if you have been there.

Thanks again!!
 
I promised to send the original photos of the nuggets in the raw before I either sold them or made jewelry out of them, here they are, plus a pic of me taking my turn keeping the bears off while near a small river near Talkeetna, Alaska.
 
if anybody wants to see what large nuggets look like go to ganes creek on the web. alot of the nuggets there wwere found with a mxt as it is the most used one there as the ground has low mineralization. my first nuggets from there were .77,.33 and .4. that was the first time i had ever gone detecting and i was using a mxt300. the largest one from there last yr was a 10.5oz. the picture is on the web site. enjoy. john
 
Cool site! It seems like the MXT is only good for low to moderate soils for finding gold from reading posts and such throughout the internet. This is the only page that anyone has ever said that the MXT runs smoothly in highly mineralized soils. I guess its more or less just about the experience you have. I know a lot of detectorists will go from one detector to another before they can learn the one before. I think Jimmy is one of the few who has had enough experience with the MXT to find gold in high or low mineralized soils.
 
Glad to see your'e not giving up lol, I would also try turning the gain down to between 7 & 9, start the SAT at the 4-6 position and work your way to hypersat and see if this helps with the bad ground, just remember there will be a setting that works in your area but you have to take time and keep trying various settings and there may be some trade offs in sensitivity and depth. I have found out that its not depth you are looking for it's the Useable Depth that can be attained for your specific ground. Take a nickel with you and bury it at the 4-6" depth and keep tunning until you get that crisp ZIP, if you get that sound on your test and it's good and solid you can be sure you will get that same sound on a nugget that size at 6" to 10" deep. Smaller nuggets will be less but still detectible. Also my best coils for this are the 4x6 DD shooter (Awesome coil) and the 6x10 DD (very hot coil). Let me know how you do. Also it takes time unless you have beginners luck lol, it took me 6 months to find my 1st picker nugget. Good luck
 
Nope, definitely not giving up!! I found this site last night http://whiteselectronics.com/info/field-reports/1806.html It's VERY helpful and I think im now set to go down and hopefully find some gold. I have both the 4x6 DD and the 6x10 DD and i'll start off probably using the 6x10 and i'll see how it handles in that ground. The last time I went down I had no idea what I was doing but this time I know what im doing after the research that I did. I created a small list of things that I need to do before I get started. Now im pretty confident that ill at least be able to see deeper into the ground... Rather I find anything or not is a different story... I guess that depends on where the gold is hiding... I hope it's hiding under my coil :bouncy: Anyway, ill definitely let you know what happens tomorrow!
 
Well, I left the house this morning around 7:20 and arrived at the creek around 9:30. I was ready for a nice long hunt on the creek! My goal for the day was to get my metal detector to read the ground well and within about 10 minutes I thoughly accomplished that. To start off the day, I used my 6X10 DD coil. I set the knobs to preset with threshold just within hearing range, and switched to ground to ground balance the machine. I followed by burying a nickle around 6 inches deep. I then took a few swipes in a nearby area to make sure the detector ground balanced well. It balanced out at a GB of 84. I then went over the nickle now buried at 6 inches deep and the metal detector had no problem picking it up so I started messing with the gain and the dual control and found a nice position for the crisp zip-zip. I believe the gain was at 7 and the dual control was about the same. I started off rather slowly trying to get things figured out. I realized short off the start that the whisper sounds I heard were all hot rocks. I dug probably 30 before I decided that I wasnt digging those sounds anymore (in this area). Soon afterward, I heard that sharp zip-zip and flipped to relic and coin and jewelry mode and figured it was worth a look and dug the first penny at about 2 inches down. The soil really took its toll on it and I could barely make out it was a memorial cent. I kept on detecting until I about had enough of the heat. I stopped for a good 10 minute break and changed to the 4x6 DD coil. I ground balanced and buried the nickle and I was able to crank the gain all the way up and was getting a REALLY strong signal coming from the nickle at 6 inches down. I continued on but it didnt take long before I had to turn the gain back down because the ground got worse. On my way back I took a slightly different route and found another penny only this one was right on the surface.... I was detecting hot rocks galore in this area but I came to the conclusion that the gold just wasnt able to be detected because it was too deep or not large enough at the depth it was at. Through my headphones I heard a crack of thunder and here I am in the middle of a stream with a running detector, headphones on my head, and the rod end of the larger 6x10 DD coil sticking out of my book bag on my back. At this point it didnt take me long to turn off the detector to remove a couple lighting attractants. I left the creek at 5:15pm and arrived back home around 7:30. It was a long hot day but it was fun even without the gold!
 
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