GoldBug 2 or Whites GMT?

[Peejay]

I'm completly new to metal detecting and to be honest have never even held on to one.

We own a block of land in an old gold mining area and a couple of years back an old fellow called in and asked if he could use a metal detector to try to find some gold for his grand daughters wedding ring. He worked away for about 3 hours and came back with half a matchbox full of very small flakey gold. Never saw him again and now understand that he died a few months later.

It got me thinking at the time so I've decided to purchase a metal detector and spend some time on my own block and the large sheep station next door.

I've spent hours going through the forum and seems that most of you guys prefer either a Gold Bug2 or a Whites GMT (Minelab a little expensive for me). What are the best and worst features of each model? and please convince me which would be my best option for quite small nuggets or flakes?

 

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[Hoser John]

I like the GB2 MUCH more BUT since your a newbie trying to learn detecting backwards you better go with the whites for the auto tune mode. GB2 is advanced MANUAL ground balancing takes quite some getting used to. Nuggetshooting is BY FAR the hardest form of detecting there is. I made my first in 61 and have NEVER stopped in 48 years. tons a au 2 u 2 -John

 

[patches63]

i agree,the auto function on the gmt works well. the gmt also smoothes the transition to using manual ground balance full time.read the manual,watch the dvd many times,take notes.the grab button feature is the key.found a perfect heart shaped flake bout 3 grains,my first time out.gb2 good machine,slower learning curve.

 

[Peejay]

I like the GB2 MUCH more BUT since your a newbie trying to learn detecting backwards you better go with the whites for the auto tune mode. GB2 is advanced MANUAL ground balancing takes quite some getting used to. Nuggetshooting is BY FAR the hardest form of detecting there is. I made my first in 61 and have NEVER stopped in 48 years. tons a au 2 u 2 -John

I get the feeling here that you are saying that the GMT is a good learners detector, but the GB2 is a better machine. Am I right?

I have to be sure that I am getting the better detector even if the learning curve is a whole lot longer. Whatever one I purchase will need to last me, as her upstairs certainly won't let me buy another in a years time!

 

[Hoser John]

dETECTORS ARE LIKE WIVES--ONE MAN'S PLEASURE--IS ANOTHERS WORST NIGHTMARE--TAKE IT SLOOOOOW--NOT 1 IN A 1,000 oops sticks to nugget hunting-expense-travel-dangerous critters--rules--regs--blah blah blah--BUT ya gotta try-the whites is also good on relics,coins and such so you can practice--practice and then practice some more to be truly proficient in your recoveries- tons a au 2 u 2 -John

 

[7oz]

The Gold bug 2 is awesome an small gold machine, especially with the 6" coil. I never used a GMT, I've extensively used the Whites GM2,3 4b. If your a newbie all the sounds are pretty annoying. The Goldbug 2 is lightweight and works very well. The MXT or X terra 70 with 5x10" dd. are both great dual purpose detectors IMO, with these two machines you can also hunt for old coins and small gold nuggets. The Goldbug 2 would is too hot for coin hunting, you'd be better off with a low end Tesoro Silver Sabre. HH

 

[arizonaames]

I'm completly new to metal detecting and to be honest have never even held on to one.

We own a block of land in an old gold mining area and a couple of years back an old fellow called in and asked if he could use a metal detector to try to find some gold for his grand daughters wedding ring. He worked away for about 3 hours and came back with half a matchbox full of very small flakey gold. Never saw him again and now understand that he died a few months later.

It got me thinking at the time so I've decided to purchase a metal detector and spend some time on my own block and the large sheep station next door.

I've spent hours going through the forum and seems that most of you guys prefer either a Gold Bug2 or a Whites GMT (Minelab a little expensive for me). What are the best and worst features of each model? and please convince me which would be my best option for quite small nuggets or flakes?

Beyond any doubt, get a MXT! I hunted with a pro in NV 45 miles north of Rye Patch. He was using a Minelab 4000 and me with my trusty MXT. I found twice as many nuggets as he did. The MXT is also synamite on coins and relics. The discrimination is awesome and one does not have to dig up every pulltab, rusty nail, and iron along the way. It takes 10 seconds to set up, like a pro, and away you go to finding wee nuggets and deeper than a GB2. I am on the Klamath in CA now and headed up to OR. Take it from someone who has used a Goldmaster V/SAT for 15 years with manual ground balance. I would never go back to that outdated circuitry again......jim

 

[golddigger14s]

My vote is GB2. Got mine (almoast new on e-bay for about $350).

 

[AUDuke]

The Gold Bug and the GMT are both good, the gb2 is lighter but the gmt is a little easier to learn if you have never used a detector before. I like the gb2 a little better because of the manual ground bal. and the light weight, i can swing it all day. for your situation a vlf is probably better than a pi. Pi's go deeper in mineralized soil but are not nearly as sensitive to small gold. (less tham a few grams). Probably more nuggets have been found with a Gold Bug than any other detector. Which ever one you decide on I would recommend getting a small (6") coil for it.

 

[beaks]

rent or borrow each brand/model for a weekend and figure out what works best for you.

everyone is different i use a G 2500 and it will do anything that needs to be done but some people think its too complicated.

its all about what works for you and what type if ground you are working in.

 

[AUDuke]

While any detector will find nuggets if they are big enough the only vlf gold detector Garrett makes is the Stinger, it is old technology and not as senitive as modern gold detectors plus it devours 9v batteries.

 

[lperry3]

I haven't a clue how the GMT works but I do have a GB2. I can tell you that any detector that can't handle hot rocks isn't going to be worth a cent in the Boise Basin, the iron capital of the world imo!
Do you know what the geology is where you hunt? That's why I love my GB2. i use the iron discrimination switch on every blip in the threshold. The iron discrimination switch affectively drowns out hot rocks. Does the GMT ignore hot rocks and do you have hot rocks in your area?

I was in an extremely hot rock spot last weekend and for the first time ever I switched to iron discrimination mode and just kept it there. I found these in a 20 sq ft area under an inch of pine needles and about 2 inches of red sand in that mode.

​

 

[Matt (CA)]

Reading some of these posts I wonder how sensitive the GBII really is in all-metal motion "normal mineralization" mode vs iron disc mode. Has anyone buried some nuggets, lead or nickels to see how well these modes work depthwise?

I think the remark in the post above about the hotrocks needs to be uppermost when looking over detector features. Hotrocks can ruin your day, so you need to be able to deal with them.

I think I'd sort of trust the iron disc on stronger signals after some checking/digging to confirm its working, but I ain't so sure about "every blip in the threshold". I think the iron disc is a must have feature for dealing with hotrocks, but do you think it also masks tiny gold or gold deep enough to only give a slight signal response?

Here's an important question, have any of you GBII guys noticed any difference between the 10" elliptical and the 6" shooter coil when it comes to using iron disc? By this I mean have you noticed that the smaller coil may tend to also eliminate more smaller gold nuggets when used with iron disc? Or not?

 

[lperry3]

I tried not to get into much detail. I'm by no means an expert but in my experience the iron disc mode can be at times as much as a 1/3 less sensitive depthwise, and that's why I rarely use just the iron disc mode. When I get a "good sounding" blip in the threshold and the iron disc mode doesn't pick up a signal, I'll scrape the edge of my boot over the area to get a little closer to the target. If I get the smallest of crackles after that I'll keep scraping until I get a solid tone in iron disc mode. Once I get a solid tone I start digging. If not I'll move on.

Because the areas I hunt are so hot, I usually am running my threshold in the 4-6 sensitivity range just to get a reasonably smooth sounding threshold. It still crackles but not as much as 8-10. My ground reject is usually in the 7-8 range to get a nice positive ground balance. The fun thing about iron disc mode is that you don't rely on the sound of threshold, it's totally silent. So I was thinking last night that when I go back up there today(if it quits raining) I'm going to hunt in iron disc mode, crank the sensitivity up to 10 and slide the coil over the pine needles to see if I can find something a little deeper. I just looked at my detector and I was at 6 last weekend.

I don't think hot rocks masks the sound of gold as illustrated in the above pic. My very first nugget, a few months after I bought the machine, was found when I ran the iron disc mode over a cold rock- that backward ricochet twang sound. I got a solid iron disc beep so I dug. I don't think the iron disc mode actually drowns out hot and cold rocks as it is a teller of non-ferrous items. Bullets, lead and shotgun bb's fool me more than square nails and old timer sluice backing tacks as they have a more solid iron disc tone like gold does. But I still dig them all- for now. I play a game each time before I dig by guessing what it is from the sounds they make. If the iron disc breaks up at all or is super loud it's probably a square nail. I'm getting pretty good but not as good as some of these pros.

 

[Matt (CA)]

Iperry3,

It seems to me that you do have a very good idea of how to use your GBII.

Its pretty interesting the different features offered by different manufacturers. Both the GBII and Lobo ST use concentric elliptical stock coils as compared to the Whites MXT/GMT's DD coils.

The Whites units both have autotracking capability; GMT also has manual ground balance ability, while MXT in both disc and all metal prospecting modes is entirely autotracking.

By comparison, GBII iron disc mode is an independent preset ground balance, silent search mode (as far as I can tell), while the autotune modes are manual ground balance. The Lobo ST has the auto tracking in its all metal mode, but again, its disc mode is preset ground balance. GBII gets the nod as the more sensitive detector to very tiny nuggets, but may suffer a bit in high mineral ground probably because of its very high frequency.

It would be great to hear from someone who owns or has operated both of these two units (Lobo ST and GBII) and tell us how they use them differently. Both are designed by the same well known engineer.

Anyways thanks alot for your reply, you gave two honest posts.

 

[arizonaames]

Iperry3,

It seems to me that you do have a very good idea of how to use your GBII.

Its pretty interesting the different features offered by different manufacturers. Both the GBII and Lobo ST use concentric elliptical stock coils as compared to the Whites MXT/GMT's DD coils.

The Whites units both have autotracking capability; GMT also has manual ground balance ability, while MXT in both disc and all metal prospecting modes is entirely autotracking.

By comparison, GBII iron disc mode is an independent preset ground balance, silent search mode (as far as I can tell), while the autotune modes are manual ground balance. The Lobo ST has the auto tracking in its all metal mode, but again, its disc mode is preset ground balance. GBII gets the nod as the more sensitive detector to very tiny nuggets, but may suffer a bit in high mineral ground probably because of its very high frequency.

It would be great to hear from someone who owns or has operated both of these two units (Lobo ST and GBII) and tell us how they use them differently. Both are designed by the same well known engineer.

Anyways thanks alot for your reply, you gave two honest posts.

Again, the MXT has the same circuitry as the GMT but gives you the advantage of using 2 other Modes, C&J and Relic modes, as well as prospecting mode. With the Super SAT feature, you cannot go wrong with the White's machine and it does find gold. I found a diamond ring in an overworked lake beach near my home the other day along with 4 nuggets in northern NV 2 months ago.

 

[AUDuke]

The GMT and the mxt are not the same ,they operate at different frequency's, the GMT has a much higher freq, which is better for small gold.

 

[extractor]

The GMT and the mxt are not the same ,they operate at different frequency's, the GMT has a much higher freq, which is better for small gold.

If ya are nugget shooting, I'd pick the GMT or the new GMZ

 

[goldinmyear]

PEEJAY''....Thats a nice handle. since you are a beginner,you might want to reconsider your options. Theres a new detector in town...The New ''GMZ'' Made by WHITES.
Made just for gold detecting. Im not a dealer,just a concerned member. (50 khz.) Its perfect for the New Hobbiest.. Good Luck!! HH. Goldinmyear

 

[Peejay]

Thanks everybody for their advice very much appreciated.

I've ended up buying a GMT (before I knew the GMZ existed!) and have had it out a couple of times- so far only findind lead shot - it's amazing how it picks up tiny shreds of lead.

Haven't really been into the main gold areas around home yet as I'm only using a set of music type headphones and think I most probably need a decent set before hunting in earnest.

Any recommends on a good set?