Detecting for gold at depths up to two feet

[ghostminer]

Looking for some advice on purchasing a detector for gold. Our company has 300 acres of historic mining property in the Sierra Nevada Mts. We are permitting for excavating equipment at present but I'm also interested in detecting for gold in old tailings & exposed bedrock. I have no experience with metal detectors and there sure are a bunch of them on the market. There are heavy concentrations of black sand or iron on the mine, and I would like to detect from surface to possibly two feet in depth. Any suggestions?

 

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[RobRieman]

If your searching for gold bars maybe. If it's small gold forget it at 2 feet.

 

[ghostminer]

What would be a reasonable depth?

 

[Dan(NM)]

Need to get yourself a Minelab GPX if you want to find gold at depth.

 

[ghostminer]

Thanks Dan. What's the learning curve on the GPX & what model would you recommend. Remember, I have no metal detecting experience.

 

[Terry Soloman]

The learning curve for a Minelab GPX or GPZ is steep, and you need to buy your machine from an authorized dealer that GIVES FIELD INSTRUCTION as part of your purchase. I know of at least three in Arizona.

 

[Dan(NM)]

Ditto what Terry said and they're not cheap. It's probably the last type of machine I would recommend starting out with and nugget shooting one of the most frustrating as well for a beginner.

 

[prospexican]

mineral.

Looking for some advice on purchasing a detector for gold. Our company has 300 acres of historic mining property in the Sierra Nevada Mts. We are permitting for excavating equipment at present but I'm also interested in detecting for gold in old tailings & exposed bedrock. I have no experience with metal detectors and there sure are a bunch of them on the market. There are heavy concentrations of black sand or iron on the mine, and I would like to detect from surface to possibly two feet in depth. Any suggestions?

hi ghost miner, i have experience looking for mineral and or metals, of course we are not going to be able to find a gold nugget at 2 feet, but probably a whites tm-808 metal detector will be able to find mineral concentrations or black sand, also a Gemini -3 will do the job, but if you give it too much sensitivity it might take you very deep, i have a TM-600 that i been using for a few days, but because of my experience i can find what ever i want, meaning minerals or solid metal, also my Gemini i can set it to locate super deep mineral veins, or i can set it up to go just a few feet deep, the only thing is that when looking for minerals it might pick up also big mineral rocks, or boulders whit high mineral concentrations, i do recommend after locate them to use a gasoline drill, not sure what is is call but i call it gasoline drill, they normally go 2 to 3 feet without any extensions, i'm not sure how far are you form Nevada, but if you need some help, just let me know. i mean just locating hot or good mineral concentrations. or i might be able to tell you how to do it, but without any experience with metal detector it is going to be very hard to get you going. if you like my equipment, i might be able to train you and sell you some of my detectors.
good luck.

main thing is not to do a ground balance or perform a ground balance on any metal detector, because that will ignore almost most of the minerals in the area. it will be a great experience for me to do some more testing on a high mineral soils, since i always do testing to try to identify what is my detector picking before doing any holes, many inexperienced guys might not agree with what i said, but i been there for a while with my metal detectors, like i know how to perform a pint point with my 2 box fisher detector, i do discriminate with it a not body does, I know when i am in front of minerals and or solid metals, or in front of a metal pipe, or mineral vein, i do identify 3 types of metals so far with my fisher 2 box, wish i am very sure not body does, and probably more than that, on top of that i do have a ferromagnetic locator, that works only on ferrous or black sand, and a few other toys. and like i said i can either give you a hand or just let you know how to do it. but one of the machines that will work for you is the Gemini-3 or the TM-600 but it is hard to find on this days. since it is been discontinued.

 

[prospexican]

and believe it or not, i found a 45 caliber bullet about 2 feet deep, at a dry wash under a big rock. with the GPX-5000 just can remember what coil did i use.

 

[cudamark]

I'd start out with a Fisher Gold Bug just to see what might be around and to get your feet wet. If you find gold and think you need something that will get you more depth, then consider a GPX or GPZ.

 

[ghostminer]

There's lots of fine gold in the ground. Largest nugget i've sluiced is about 4/10 gram. That's from digging bucket samples on gravels sitting on bedrock. There's a lot of verticle shale bedrock i'de like to explore.

 

[goldhuntertim]

Ditto what Terry said and they're not cheap. It's probably the last type of machine I would recommend starting out with and nugget shooting one of the most frustrating as well for a beginner.

I agree with dan they are not cheap before u spend 4-5 thousands of dollars get a semi cheap one 5-7 hundred dollars to get started

 

[ghostminer]

Thanks so much for all the info, I really apreciate you guys helping out. I'm learning.

 

[Barkeater26]

What about the Garrett ATX? Any opinions?

 

[cudamark]

Nice machine, if you can handle the price. Good detection on larger nuggets and deeper targets. Not as good on the tiny nuggets compared with a Gold Bug 2.