How does gold react?

[HuntNdig]

I haven't found any gold items yet, nor do i have any gold to run tests with, but what type of signal will gold give? I know the smaller the gold the lower the tone and the bigger the gold the higher the tone, but will the gold stay within a steady read out range on VDI or will the shape of the item effect the numbers? Basically, will it read a steady number or will it be jumpy within a certain range? I have a Fisher F4 and have been digging low targets and some have been jumpy but not knowing what gold rings up or how it rings ive just been digging everything.

[jmoller99]

Get some small lead fishing sinkers or small lead bird shot. These react very much the same a small gold nuggets. If you can't find them, then you will have trouble out in the field. There are many thousands more small pickers and less than 1 gram nuggets than bigger nuggets out there to be prospected. Big gold, while very uncommon, can be found by pretty much any reasonable detector.

The F4 will too low of a frequency to find any small gold. Its a 6.8 Khz machine. Most gold detectors run at 12 kHz and above. The Tesoro Compadre actually does ok on small gold (its a very inexpensive detector), but lacks the ability to ground balance - something that is necessary in area where gold is normally found. Your F4 can be ground balanced for these areas.

The F4 will find silver - there is a lot in old tailings dumps in Colorado. That also tends to read low because it is rarely very pure.

Gold Rings read like aluminum pull tabs most of the time. Small gold chains usually won't be picked up by lower frequency detectors. When hunting for gold you often have to dig everything.

[HuntNdig]

Thank you for the response. I am just interesting in finding gold jewelry, i should have specified. I am no where near gold country that i know of, so any gold nuggets won't be coming out of the ground. I was just interested if gold rings, earrings, necklaces, etc keep a fairly solid number or tend to jump a little? And yes, digging everything is pretty much the norm for gold lol!

[freddy williams]

Gold gives off a distinctive tone you will know it when you here it if your familiar with your detector dig everything for the first 40 to 60 hours to get to know your machine after 40 hours start guessing what it may be then dig it to see if your right I can almost tell you the tones and what they are on my old XLT I am learning a minelab 705 right now the tones are similar HH

[Lanny in AB]

Freddy has given you a nice response. As well, get some gold rings and listen to the tones. Listen to test samples of other metals (iron, steel, etc) and your ear will soon get tuned.

All the best,

Lanny