New M6 User

[LeeH]

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum. I have been a member of Friendly Metal Detecting forum for about 8 months. This is my first year detecting and I own a M6. I love this machine and have found lots of clad and a few silver rings, but no gold. A few months ago I started panning for gold here in NC. I thought I would check to see if White's had a better prospecting machine. I was surprised to find a lot of guys using the MXT to prospect with (over a DFX). Here's what is curious, when I posted to the Friendly Metal Detecting forum as to whether I should upgrade to an MXT, the overwhelming majority (everyone) said to stick with my M6. They said they saw no advantage whatsover in upgrading. This is puzzling to me, so I thought I would ask you guys your opinion. I want to find more gold jewelry...do I have the machine to do it with. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

LeeH

 

[khouse]

If your looking for gold then you have to set your disc at 9 o'clock and dig it all. Gold will start to hit at around zero and go up from there. For small gold you'll have to set the sens a little hot. Since the M6 and MXT run the same frequency then you should stay with what you have.

 

[Rob (IL)]

LeeH, I answered your post at friendly. You stated you didn't want a dedicated gold detector like the GMT. Then you asked if the MXT was better for coins and gold jewelry. Most of us answered NO because the MXT (I own one) won't find coins and gold jewelry better than the M6. We were answering honestly, I quess you expected us to say, get an MXT just because we had them. If you are only going to hunt coins and gold jewelry stay with the M6. Some guys with MXT's never hunt in any mode than C/J. In that case, except for a threshold, they might as well have an M6. Both machines are based on the same engine and have the same ground tracking system. You also have the tones for coins with your M6 and some people believe the M6 is just a tad more stable.

You said," I love this machine and have found lots of clad and a few silver rings, but no gold.". You find silver because silver reads in the coin range. Basically, except for a gold ring that has the same VDI as a nickel, all the gold will have a VDI that is the same as junk. Gold will read like tabs, canslaw, screw caps etc. So unless you have been digging these signals you won't be finding gold.

I also run my disc. at 2 which is at 9 o'clock. This is a little difference between machines but a setting around 2 will knock out surface nails. Rob

 

[bill(de)]

Since you narrowed it down to hunting gold jewelry the M6 is more than adequate.I agree with khouse to lower the disc and run sensitivity as high as you can but use one of the smaller dd coils.I'd suggest the 5" EXcelerator coil as it picks up some of the smallest pieces of metal i've ever hit on and the best separation you can get. If your in a high trash area it's as good as a lottery pick when hoping for gold and dig just about everything between foil and zinc. If your looking for ground coverage the 6"x10 Eclipse would be a good choice in lower trashed areas.Tone ID helps isolate lower conductive targets.Good Luck. HH Bill

 

[LeeH]

No rcasio44, I didn't expect you to say get an MXT because we have one. I do expect a detector that costs $100 more to be significantly better. I do expect a detector that says it has "Prospecting" mode to find gold better. I guess I made a very wise choice with the purchase of my M6.

 

[Bill G]

I do not disagree that the M6 will find gold as I had one for a long time, its a great coin & jewelery detector. I also own a MXT and find it to be a personal favorite that does everything very well. I will say that I like the MXT better than the M6 as It works very well in the relic mode, this is a great over all mode and works great for coins and jewelery. The coin & jewelery mode works great too but dose not have the 7 tones that some like. Also the MXT is a threshold based detector which I personally like better over a silent search detector like the M6 and others.

The key to the original posters question is he asked about finding more gold and said (Quote) I thought I would check to see if White's had a better prospecting machine. The one point that everyone is missing is the prospecting mode on the MXT has saturation speed adjustments to help with finding small gold nuggets, this is a critical feature when looking for gold nuggets and the M6 does not have it. The MXT also gives a reading of the ground mineralization in the prospecting mode along with a specific or tweaked ground tracking set up or design in the prospecting mode to help when looking for small gold nuggets. The prospecting mode on the MXT was modeled after the GMT just for gold nugget hunting and it works very well for that specific task, better than the M6 because of these extra features specific to the prospecting mode of the MXT and the over all design of this gold specific mode that the M6 does not have. Yes the M6 will find gold, So with that being said not to offend anyone if your looking for gold nuggets the MXT is a better detector over all for that purpose and does every bit as good a job at finding coins as the M6. So if your sole purpose is to find gold nuggets and still have a detector that will hunt the heck out of coins & jewelery the MXT is worth the extra $100.00 bucks hands down.

Take Care,
Bill G

 

[Rob (IL)]

It does have a prospecting mode,but your question was will it find gold jewelry better. If you wanted to hunt gold nuggets (prospect) the MXT would be better. In the prospecting mode you can get a ground reading which helps in finding gold deposits. The prospecting mode also is the deepest mode. Using Jeff Fosters method and the prospecting mode I can tell the mineralization of the ground which tells me whether to use a concentric or DD coil.The GMT would be better yet for prospecting, but you didn't want just a gold machine. I usually hunt for coins and jewelry in the relic mode which the M6 doesn't have so for me the MXT might be better. It's also a better machine for relics. The extra $100 is for these options. Basically, the M6 is the MXT without the relic and prospecting modes with tones added for coin hunting. The extra $100 wasn't for finding gold jewelry better. The sensitivity of both to gold jewelry should be the same because they use the same frequency and coils. Also as Bill said some guys like a threshold machine. There is no one machine that will do everything and for coins and jewelry you made a wise choice. Rob

 

[khouse]

I would have to agree with you about nugget shooting. But LeeH's post said in the second to last sentence stating he wanted to find more gold jewelry. So I figured that's really what he was saying. So I told him to stay with the M6. I know he mentioned panning for gold so I guess maybe he wants to find nuggets. Then the MXT would be the best choice. Maybe LeeH should clarify if he's looking for jewelry, nuggets or both?

 

[LeeH]

Yes, let me try to clarify my question. I purchased my M6 back in March of this year. My first detector. I had my heart set on a Prizm V, but when I actually got to (find a dealer) see the V vs. the M6 and the DFX he had on his floor, I could tell the latter two were head and shoulders above the V. Since i could not afford the DFX I settled for the M6. I have been extremely happy with this machine, finding nearly $200 in clad and silver jewelry this year. For the first 6 or so months of the year I discriminated everything out but coins. Soon I stopped digging pennies and focused on dimes and quarters. Of course when you search for that you will automatically get silver.

We've had a drought here in NC and I've had to dig with a screwdriver since May, it works great, it's much faster than the Lesche type tool I was using, but it is difficult to remove targets deeper than 5". Also as a rookie, I thought that faint tones were not good target tones. Bottom line is, I haven't been digging faint tones, with low VDI's. It now sounds to me as that is what gold would register with my detector. Air tests of my 14K wedding ring register around +20 and +22. I have also started panning for gold at the local recreational gold mines here in NC. I have found about 1/2 gram of flour gold. When I air test my vial of gold, my detector does not beep at all, and registers a negative reading in the Iron range. From what the prospectors around here tell me, what is left in the NC mines are not nugget mines but rather placer flour gold areas. I understand from panning from gold how you have to get down to the black sand to get to the gold. This sounds like what the Prospecting mode of the MXT helps you to do. Possibly the MXT finds the magnetic black sand, and is sensitive enough to emit tones for flour gold. Maybe not though, maybe like my M6, it will only emit a tone of nugget size gold like my wedding ring.

Finally, on the issue of me hoping the MXT would find gold jewelry better than the M6. Simply put, I think of good targets emitting good solid tones. If my M6 sets off a weak, faint signal when it encounters gold, my hope was that a Prospecting mode of a detector would somehow adjust to emit a good solid tone such as a high silver target, if you were looking for gold. That was the crux of my question.

Thanks again for the input, sorry for my confusion. I need to field test an MXT as maybe one day this would be my logical next step. For now, I will crank my discrimination down to the 1st factory pre-set (nickel), listen for the faintest of tones, and dig everything.

 

[khouse]

If I was seriously looking for gold flakes and nuggets I would buy a dedicated gold only machine. Also if you run a gold chain over the m6 coil I'll bet it will register -5 to +10 for most. And it won't be a loud beep. Get as many gold items like rings, chains and ear rings. Give them a test and see what kind of numbers you'll get. Also when you disc out the nickel you probably knock out 50% of your gold rings. Always dig all hits up to about +22 if you want gold. Set your disc at 9 o'clock and dig it all. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It all depends on how much time I have to hunt. Now with the time change I may not have 30 minutes (if I'm lucky) to hunt so I'll dig the +18 to +22 as not to miss the best percentage of rings. And of course the high coins.

 

[bill(de)]

Hi LeeH,

I know nothing about Prospecting but after reading all the posts you say your going to set your disc at nickel and dig everything indicates your looking for larger pieces of jewelry.You have to accept almost 0 disc and dig anything above iron to get smaller pieces of gold. I have no clue what size of natural gold the MXT will hit or even how it works in prospecting mode but would suggest using a small coil and "0" disc with tone id "on" and dig all the low tones above iron or the iron -foil bounce.I prefer using tone id when trying to hunt a certain target zone without looking at the meter all the time or having the disc level raised too high. Ain't nuthin perfect and the M6 certainly isn't but i've found lot's of stuff using the M6 that i walked over with other detectors because they lacked a quick recovery speed,smaller coils,tone id etc. I have threshold based detectors and detectors with Mixed mode audio,a detector with all metal id and on and on but the M6 ceratinly has it's niche and enjoy using it very much. HH Bill

 

[Bill G]

[quote bill(de)]Hi LeeH,

I know nothing about Prospecting but after reading all the posts you say your going to set your disc at nickel and dig everything indicates your looking for larger pieces of jewelry.You have to accept almost 0 disc and dig anything above iron to get smaller pieces of gold. I have no clue what size of natural gold the MXT will hit or even how it works in prospecting mode but would suggest using a small coil and "0" disc with tone id "on" and dig all the low tones above iron or the iron -foil bounce.I prefer using tone id when trying to hunt a certain target zone without looking at the meter all the time or having the disc level raised too high. Ain't nuthin perfect and the M6 certainly isn't but i've found lot's of stuff using the M6 that i walked over with other detectors because they lacked a quick recovery speed,smaller coils,tone id etc. I have threshold based detectors and detectors with Mixed mode audio,a detector with all metal id and on and on but the M6 ceratinly has it's niche and enjoy using it very much. HH Bill[/quote]

Yes I agree about the quick recovery speed as the MXT has the same circuitry as the M6 with an adjustable threshold. Both detectors are great units and outperform a lot of units on the market costing as much or more, both detectors are hard to beat. I have and utilize all the Eclipse coils available for the MXT,M6,DFX according to my needs. Whites has done a great job on both the MXT and the M6. I also love my good old Whites XL Pro analog meter detector.

Your right as no detector is perfect. The best thing a guy can do is learn the detector he uses to the best of his abilities allowing the detector to serve its purpose within its design limits. This will allow you to get all you can out of the detector giving you more finds while increasing the percentages of better finds.

Take Care & HH

Bill G