Mach1Pilot
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- Jul 21, 2008
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GPZ 7000 proves its a DEEP monster at Diggin' in Virginia!
I've been at the Diggin' in Virginia hunt since Sunday..... and have been anxiously awaiting this week because of something new: the Minelab GPZ 7000. For the last few years the relic hunting scene in the hot soils of Virginia have been dominated by one detector: the Minelab GPX series. They have proven themselves to be the deepest and most accurate detectors available for finding the Civil War relics in the camps around Culpeper, VA.
So when Minelab introduced their all-new GPZ 7000 for the gold hunting market last month, I knew I wanted to try one in Culpeper! Aside from the extensive depth increase available with this detector, it did have one major difference in features as compared to its older sibling - the GPZ 7000 lacks the iron reject feature found in the GPX series. This is not a big deal for gold hunters who dig everything. But for us relic hunters, we prefer not to fill the pouch up with nails but only relics.
Unfortunately for me, the month of February and early March were dominated by snow and frozen grounds in both PA and VA, thus limiting my pre DIV test time so I began the hunt with only a few hours of experience with this detector. So the first part of the hunt started slow as I tried to learn what signals were good, which were not so good and also what settings are best for finding relics. A few bullets were dug the first two days, but nothing drastic.
Forward to the end of Day 2 (Monday evening). My friend Tony had been using my GPX 4800 for two days and described a perfect scenario for testing the GPZ 7000. He and another friend had just "cleaned out" a small 20'x20' area of 28 bullets... many of them so deep he could only hear them after lowering the coil into the open hole. No signals remain, he proclaimed!
Of course that became a challenge.
So at 07:30 the next morning we arrived at the site. Little did we know we would not be moving from it until it was time to quit for the day.
Since this is getting very long winded, I'll summarize. We dug 43 MORE BULLETS in that spot! Most were in the 16-19" depth range! We tested quite a few of them and the stock 11" DD coil on the GPX 4800 could not hear those bullets no matter what way we set up the detector. We also compared some signals with a GPX 5000 and 15"x12" DD coil and another GPX 4800 with an aftermarket 15"x12" SEF coil With those two machines could hear some of the bullets, but not all. To be fair, some of the bullets we found outside of the original area were easily reachable with the GPX series machines. About 1/3 fall in this category. About another 1/3 could be heard with the GPX and a large coil, but only if you knew they were there in the first place - or after the GPZ 7000 found them first. The final 1/3 could only be heard with the GPZ 7000....
Recovering this many bullets at depth in the roots of light brush was exhausting! Tony and I dug the bulk of them, but we also had Russ dig a few... he just happened to walk by with his White's TDI and we asked him to try and hear them with his machine. Of course, he could not either. While he was watching we offered a few of the dig holes to him.
Sorry for the long winded post!
I've been at the Diggin' in Virginia hunt since Sunday..... and have been anxiously awaiting this week because of something new: the Minelab GPZ 7000. For the last few years the relic hunting scene in the hot soils of Virginia have been dominated by one detector: the Minelab GPX series. They have proven themselves to be the deepest and most accurate detectors available for finding the Civil War relics in the camps around Culpeper, VA.
So when Minelab introduced their all-new GPZ 7000 for the gold hunting market last month, I knew I wanted to try one in Culpeper! Aside from the extensive depth increase available with this detector, it did have one major difference in features as compared to its older sibling - the GPZ 7000 lacks the iron reject feature found in the GPX series. This is not a big deal for gold hunters who dig everything. But for us relic hunters, we prefer not to fill the pouch up with nails but only relics.
Unfortunately for me, the month of February and early March were dominated by snow and frozen grounds in both PA and VA, thus limiting my pre DIV test time so I began the hunt with only a few hours of experience with this detector. So the first part of the hunt started slow as I tried to learn what signals were good, which were not so good and also what settings are best for finding relics. A few bullets were dug the first two days, but nothing drastic.
Forward to the end of Day 2 (Monday evening). My friend Tony had been using my GPX 4800 for two days and described a perfect scenario for testing the GPZ 7000. He and another friend had just "cleaned out" a small 20'x20' area of 28 bullets... many of them so deep he could only hear them after lowering the coil into the open hole. No signals remain, he proclaimed!
Of course that became a challenge.
So at 07:30 the next morning we arrived at the site. Little did we know we would not be moving from it until it was time to quit for the day.Since this is getting very long winded, I'll summarize. We dug 43 MORE BULLETS in that spot! Most were in the 16-19" depth range! We tested quite a few of them and the stock 11" DD coil on the GPX 4800 could not hear those bullets no matter what way we set up the detector. We also compared some signals with a GPX 5000 and 15"x12" DD coil and another GPX 4800 with an aftermarket 15"x12" SEF coil With those two machines could hear some of the bullets, but not all. To be fair, some of the bullets we found outside of the original area were easily reachable with the GPX series machines. About 1/3 fall in this category. About another 1/3 could be heard with the GPX and a large coil, but only if you knew they were there in the first place - or after the GPZ 7000 found them first. The final 1/3 could only be heard with the GPZ 7000....
Recovering this many bullets at depth in the roots of light brush was exhausting! Tony and I dug the bulk of them, but we also had Russ dig a few... he just happened to walk by with his White's TDI and we asked him to try and hear them with his machine. Of course, he could not either. While he was watching we offered a few of the dig holes to him.
Sorry for the long winded post!
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