Finding Gold anything with a XLT

[tank014]

I'm sure this gets brought up all the time but does anyone have any insights on finding that precious gold anything with my XLT. Does anyone have a program that might work in Colorado. Anyone that knows a thing or two please help me.
Thanks,
Frank

 

[Tom_in_CA]

are you talking about nuggets? gold coins? gold jewelry? and in what type of "Colorado" environment? Don't say "all types and all environments", because the settings and machine are different for each type goal. Some settings are for teensy pinhead targets, and others are better suited for coin/relic targets. Be more specific. Gold is like aluminum (in its conductivity). Are you looking for tiny flecks of aluminum, or entire aluminum cans?

 

[tank014]

Sorry I made it to broad. I am wanting mainly to be able to find baclets, necklaces, and rings in a park enviornment. I havn't evolved into nugget shooting yet.
Thanks,
Frank

 

[Tom_in_CA]

well for gold jewelry, you'll have to open up (accept in your disc. program) everything down to about negative 10 or 20. Don't worry about iron at those low settings, because nails don't register till below that (neg. ~ 25-ish and lower). But of course, you'll also have opened up all the foil and tiny flitty little cr*p areas of your disc. settings too. So if you're hunting junky inner city blighted urban turf, you might drive yourself nutty at those settings. But at cleaner swimming beaches it may not be as much of a problem.

Teensy fine gold necklaces are going to be hard to find with the XLT, as with ANY coin/relic machine. The little gold links will read separately to the machine, unless they are bundled up and wadded REAL tightly together

Gold rings can read just about anywhere on the TID scale, from below zero (for teensy dainty platinum ladies solitaire type rings) up to the zinc penny area (for big 10K mens navy/army/class type rings). It will depend on size, karot, etc... Unfortunately, gold and aluminum share the same conductivity per their size. But depending on where you hunt, this may or may not be a problem.

 

[tank014]

Teensy fine gold necklaces are going to be hard to find with the XLT, as with ANY coin/relic machine. The little gold links will read separately to the machine, unless they are bundled up and wadded REAL tightly together

What would be a good glod jewlery machine in your opinion then and of coarse why?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

are you asking that question in terms of the teensy gold necklace chains? (because that's what you high-light as a quote of mine). If so, then the best for those would be a beach pulse type machine, or a nugget specialty machine. Either of those can get tinsel fine gold earing studs, thread/tinsel fine gold chains, etc.... like there's no tomorrow. But "Lord help you" if you took a beach pulse or nugget machine to a junky inner city urban park! You'd go crazy digging every flitty little grommet, birdshot, etc.....

So this all must be weighed on where you intend to hunt at. And since you say "parks" in your thread, I assume you're willing to pass up some types of gold jewelry, lest you go mad in those "park" environments? I don't know how clean the parks are where you're at, but where I'm at, in a 50 or 100 yr. old park, especially in the more "party" atmosphere sides of town, if I were to take even a coin/relic machine, and turn the disc. all the way down so I *just* reject nails/iron, and if I chased anything that remotely had a hint of conductive, I'd be digging holes every foot or so. Ie.: I'd probably just stay on my hands and knees, and not even bother getting up. Just scuttle target to target. And then you'd be kicked out of the park d/t too many holes. I've seen guys insist that they can "have the best of both worlds" by treating inner-city-urban parks as if they're going to angle for dainty little things in the turf. Believe me they get a "reality check" after the first 30 minutes or so, after filling their apron with teensy foil/gum paper, etc... Perhaps in the sandbox you could do this strip-mine method, but in the turf, you might want to play the odds-game with TID's.

So are you talking turf, or sandboxes, or what? If you're talking turf, I'd go with any # of coin/relic machines, that has an expanded TID scale (Explorer, 6000 Di pro, XLT, etc...) and try to reject the most recurring types of junk in the turf. Or if you're talking sandboxes, you can take the same machines, and simply have a more "dig all" approach to the TIDs (rejecting only iron). Or, in those sandboxes, to increase your odds at dainty/thin chains (which those coin machines will be weak on), you can get a 2-filter machine like a Silver Sabre, etc... but bear in mind, that they'll have less depth, and less tone-ID fun stuff, than the power-house 4/multi filter machines have.

If you're really after jewelry, then the choice of machine should not so much be your focus. Your focus should be more on WHERE you're hunting. Sand at swimming beaches, volley-ball sand courts, and turf directly adjoining swimming pools. Those are venues where it is natural for people to be frolicking around, and/or taking off jewelry for "safekeeping", lathering up with slippery suntan lotion, etc....

 

[tank014]

When I am looking at my machine and hit a gold target will it give me a solid bar everytime I hit gold. Is there any way of using that signa bar graph to aid me in my decisions to dig or not. Are there any consistencies?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

tank, whatever gold object example you are waving in front of your machine (that gives you a "solid bar everytime"), is just one sample target. So too can a given similar size small aluminum fragment (foil wad, wadded beaver tail, etc...) be made to bounce exactly at that "solid bar everytime" too.

You can get a variety of various types of gold items (rings of different sizes, bracelets, necklaces, earings, etc....) and you will get a different TID, and different repeatility, bounce, solid-ness, etc.. on each one. They'll all hit a bit differently. I also guarantee you that once you memorize the various types of hits that various gold jewelry items can bounce/sound at, that I can take aluminum can shards, foil wads, bent up beaver tabs, etc.... and get them to give the exact same sounds/bounces too :P

So no, there is no way to use your graph, tones, etc... to indicate gold verses non-gold. All you can do is tell low vs high conductors. And unfortunately, as I've said, gold and aluminum share the same TID. That's why to increase your gold jewelry finds, you should concentrate on WHERE you're hunting, and not so much the machine. Just keep your disc. down low to *only* reject iron. Make sure you can still pick up tiny (little finger nail sized) pieces of foil, in sample air tests, so that you know you can pick up little dainty rings, earings, charms, etc...

If you find that wherever you're hunting (parks as you say) that you're going crazy digging aluminum, then you either need to 1) re-think your hunt spot, and choose a swimming beach or sand-volley-ball pit, or other such better ring-ratio spot, or 2) you need to cherry pick on your disc. setting, and tune out some of more commonly recurring junk low conductor items. Be aware though, that the minute you do this, you stand a chance of missing something gold that just happened to mimic that commonly recurring junk item

 

[Bavaria Mike]

I have found around 12 gold items with my XLT. Gold tends to hit and sound like trash. I used the on board relic program and turn up the pre amp gain and another setting that I just can't remember right now, sorry. HH, Mike

 

[tank014]

UPDATE!!!
Found a small. I mean real small babies 14K gold ring with two little feet on top. I'll post a pic after I find my camera cord. Showed up as a 11 and 13 on the XLT. Funny thing is that once I got it out of the ground I scanned the ring above the detector to see the reading again to get a sense of what to look for and it always came up as a 9 on my VDI. Is this normal?? Why would it show up higher in the ground? It was only about a half inch to a inch below the ground.
Thanks and HH,
Frank

 

[Tom_in_CA]

yes, targets can change when air-tested vs having-been-in-the-ground for years. Mineralization can skew TIDs. Also depends on the angle in the ground it was lying, verses the angle you passed it in your air test, etc....

They shouldn't skew by much though. So for example, a high conductor (penny/dime) can bounce around from the 50s to the 80s. But if you criss-cross (90* angles, etc...) enough, and play with your swing speed and centering, you can usually "bring it in" to find the most likely TID range, depending on the soil minerals, depths, etc....