Gold detector-Garrett Scorpion or Fisher Gold Bug II?

[pyledriver]

Anybody know of any head to head comparisons? These both seem very similar but the Fisher is more expensive than the Garrett.. Not ready to buy yet, but gathering info!

Thanks!

 

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[nuggetshooter323]

That's about what I figured Willy and thanks alot for all your advice on these detectors. Gave me some pretty good ideas so I think I'll see about that MXT. You really helped out.

The prospecting mode and the ground balancing circuit of the MXT are based on the the circuitry of the GMT. If your looking for a gold machine only, the GMT operates at 48 kHz, and will find smaller gold. Since there is more smaller gold in the world, you have the chance to find more gold with the GMT than you can with the MXT that operates at 14kHz. If you want a unit for coin & jewelry hunting along with prospecting, then the MXT is a good choice.

 

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[Seamuss]

Anybody know of any head to head comparisons? These both seem very similar but the Fisher is more expensive than the Garrett.. Not ready to buy yet, but gathering info!

Thanks!

I learned on my Garrett Scorpian and I'm sold on this machine. If I would have learned on the Fisher Gold BugII then I might have been sold on that one. It comes down to preferrence.

 

[Willy]

One of the things that I've found with higher frequency detectors (in this case the GMT and GB2) is that in really lousy ground, the kind I've been blessed with, the lower frequency unit like an MXT can find gold as small as the higher frequency one. This insn't because the MXT becomes more sensitive, it's that the higher freq. become 'swamped' by the ground signals and lose that edge of sensitivity. That's why I'll be swinging an MXT when I go out nuggethunting in a few days. As I've posted before, 1/3 grain (which size I was finding with the MXT ) is pretty darn small. Some people wouldn't even bother with crumbs of that size. I do 'cause I'm a cheap SOB. ..Willy.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Yep Willy, you may be a cheap SOB, but you are an honest one. Keep talkin, I'm your favourite reader...which kind a shows you the current state of my life, it's been a long, hard winter here.

Good luck in a few days.

Jim.

 

[Willy]

Hey there Jim. I'm chompin' on the bit and my dog's chompin' on my butt; we both wanna get outta here! My buddy Cliff is headed up to 'Loops and I aim to meet up with him in a day or 2. Looks like I'll be using the Diablo uMax up there for some nuggethunting. Nothing much happening elsewhere and it's a bit damp in the Fraser Valley. Keeping an eye on that new Vision; want to see how it does in bad ground and on small gold. Air tests are all fine and dandy, but often the situation in the ground is a completely different story. Might just stick with the MXT. Too bad the F 75 doesn't have ground tracking.. have you done any more experiments? The benefits of ground tracking became evident when I was playing around Quartzite AZ with the GMT. I could run it maxed out (SAT & gain w. boost) and only be a bit ragged on the threshold.. turned off the tracking and all hell broke loose! Maybe FT will drop the price on the F 70/75 and I might just scoop one. It would be nice to get a new unit and have the comfort of knowing that it's warrantied for 5 years. I don't suppose it would be too hard to hook up a spring to the trigger of the F 75 to keep it pushed forwards, yet allow for pinpointing and such. ..Willy.

 

[RazorCityDen]

I came round-about into a Stinger a few years ago and it's the only machine I've really got any time on, except for friends letting me swing theirs (to see how much better they are) so take this for what it's worth.

First of all.

It takes some getting used to because it's such a hands on machine, there's nothing auto about it, conditions change you have to be ready to spin on the knobs. All three operating modes require manual adjustments and then there's the ability to blend one mode into the other causing even more confusion. So you really have to drive the thing a lot harder than the more expensive machines, but once I got it figured out it's worked good for me. It takes awhile though and I've met some folks that just quit using it because they didn't have the patience to stick with it (like the guy that sold me mine for $100 nearly new in the box )

It really pays with this machine to do lots of bench "testing" with different materials till you get the hang of it. I had the advantage of an uncle who is an assayer/miner/prospector from way back and he's had a lot of electronic prospecting experience, like since the day it started He's a crusty old desert rat in Nevada and uses a ML 4500 now but still thinks the Stinger is a good machine for what you pay for them.

The manual nature of the Stinger can be pretty damm handy in lots of situations such as finding this black sand and gold pocket in the bed rock crack of a paleo creek bed a couple weeks ago.

Would I recommend it to someone else? Hell I don't know, I really don't have a lot of detecting experience except for the prospecting I do here. This really isn't all that good of "nugget shooting" country, I use mine along with the more traditional methods, often in dry country in exposed bedrock to find pockets of black sand, but I have found some specimens and a few smallish nuggets with it.

It seems like it's popular these days to bad mouth the Stinger, but according to my uncle a hell of a lot of gold has been found with them over the years.

Good luck with your shopping!

Take care,
Den

 

[Willy]

The gold Stinger IS a good detector.. I had one for about 3 years a ways back. It just suffers from a rather ridiculous battery replacement scheme. Having the 15KHz 'Groundhog' circuit makes it pretty hot on gold.. interesting to see a number of newer detectors operating near that frequency. I still think it's overpriced though. If Garrett were to update the Scorpion and lower the price, it would make for nice little nugget finder/coin/ring detector. ..Willy.

 

[Seamuss]

The gold Stinger IS a good detector.. I had one for about 3 years a ways back. It just suffers from a rather ridiculous battery replacement scheme. Having the 15KHz 'Groundhog' circuit makes it pretty hot on gold.. interesting to see a number of newer detectors operating near that frequency. I still think it's overpriced though. If Garrett were to update the Scorpion and lower the price, it would make for nice little nugget finder/coin/ring detector. ..Willy.

Good point of view. My point of view isn't all that far from yours, but I'm hooked on my scorpion.

 

[Willy]

I traded mine to my buddy Jim (for a spare GB 1 he had) and he used that thing for years. He basically coin/relic hunted with it and generally got bragging rights. ..Willy.

 

[RazorCityDen]

Here's a question for anyone. Been thinking of switching over to gold hunting. I'd like to know how you guys are setting up your Ground Balance in order to locate black sand deposits in streams/wherever. Any response would really be appreciated. Later,

Jim.

I've only been using a metal detector for the last 5 years in my prospecting and the only detector I own is a Gold Stinger. I have never really used it for coins/rings etc. but I have swung it around old prospect sites/camps and found various bits and pieces of artifacts.

I guess I'm saying this to let you know I'm no detector expurt', just a guy who fell unto a good deal and ran with it. I'm lucky I was able to get my uncle on his cell phone, I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't talked to him first. I'm more about dredges and high bankers

I can tell you though that my Stinger has put us on 3/4 of the sites we have worked. Wyoming is a funny place to prospect, it was still pretty wild when the Black Hills and Montana were booming and and didn't get hit hard except for a couple regions. So your pretty much on your own and I like it like that.

To find black sand concentrates. I ground balance in the "all metal" mode with little to no "discrimination". You'll want to bench experiment with the black sands you encounter in your area, they ain't all the same.

Make sure your genuinely ground balanced, this is typically the tedious part, "coil down, noise down, knob up" is how I remember ground balancing Ground balancing is the technical part of this project, understand it completely, practice at home, and do it exactly like the manual says and don't be lazy about touching it up while your searching. This is the part that has folks cursing the Gold Stinger.

I set the "audio" a little higher than my normal. This is were it really pays to have good quality headphones throw those cheap ones that Garrett supplies away (Garrett has some better ones, but I got mine at Radio Shack)

Go really slow when searching, your on black sands when your tone decreases, sometimes it's real subtle and comes on very gradually which is why you need to go slow. I stick a small, wire survey flag and keep searching, marking "hit's" with the little flags as I go. By doing so I pick up the trend of the"stringers". After I work an area with the detector I go back and dig some holes. I like to see the "big picture" before I start digging so I set out quite a few flags first, then stand back and take it all in. When the trend is up and down the hill I know I need to go higher, when the flags are across the hill I know I've got the layer I'm looking for, at least most of the time.

I use the detector more often hunting in dry or nearly dry drainage's and up their banks than in active creek beds, since the hydraulic action often carries the light material exposing the blacks anyway. In dry area's the blacks end up covered with lighter material and plant matter. Sometimes I just take off walking, working the subtle ledges above active creeks that show color looking for alluvial pockets that have eroded from above and concentrated for whatever reason.

The best scores are hitting the exposed or semi-exposed bedrock or false bedrock clay of paleoplacers where the black sands have concentrated into a semi rusty mass. In some area's there are quite a few of them above the modern hydraulic action, most often at right angles to the modern drainage and most often hidden to some degree.

Many times the gold in these paleoplacers is black till you hit it with a little diluted acid. The picture of that sample pan had quite a bit of that going on. The gold showing was from a high water mark crevice (that sounded off normally) The "black gold" right next to it in the pan sounded like a black sand hit, probably because the gold was below the black sands in the "rusty sands" about 10 inches (it's a good stringer). The detector sort of went from tone to a "whisper" sound like it didn't know what it should say. It was a good sample on BLM land that will get some attention once the weather changes 8) I usually don't mix high and low samples but we had a few nice days before the last blizzard and I was out and about letting the stink blow off. I didn't even work the concentrates till we were snowed in for three days last week.

I've got spring fever in the worst way right now! (which is why I'm blathering on the internet)

I've heard (my uncle) that there was/is (?) a 12" coil for the Stinger that was the bomb for finding magnetic black sands but all I've used is the supplied 5"x10". Anybody know anything about the larger coil?

Take care,
Den

 

[JamesE]

When I was hangin' with guys in Quartzite that worked local club claims, they totally recommended the GB 2 over anything else. They were showing pinhead size pcs. they said from 2-4''. Some said deeper, but? Other nice sizes also.
No persnal experience yet, my GB 2 is on the way, just what I saw and heard. jim

 

[arizonaames]

That's about what I figured Willy and thanks alot for all your advice on these detectors. Gave me some pretty good ideas so I think I'll see about that MXT. You really helped out.

The prospecting mode and the ground balancing circuit of the MXT are based on the the circuitry of the GMT. If your looking for a gold machine only, the GMT operates at 48 kHz, and will find smaller gold. Since there is more smaller gold in the world, you have the chance to find more gold with the GMT than you can with the MXT that operates at 14kHz. If you want a unit for coin & jewelry hunting along with prospecting, then the MXT is a good choice.

At a little less then 14 hertz, the MXT will find gold deeper that the GB2 or GMT. However, if it's flakes that you want that are shallow, the GB2 or GMT is the choice. Personally, I am very happy with the MXT and for very mineralized ground, you have the advantage of the variable speed SAT and Super SAT......

 

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi,

Poor old Stinger. Why won't Garrett give it it's due with an update?

It is a good basic unit but suffers from the worst battery replacement scheme still left on the market - straight out of the 1970's. And the coil selection sucks.

Give us a drop in battery set-up and more coils and the Stinger would come back to life. It really is a capable machine but neglected for far too long.

Gold Bug 2 or Stinger? I am currently using the GMT.

Steve Herschbach

 

[Hoser John]

Morning Steve--No TDI tons a a au 2 u 2 -John