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Hi Kon
Thanks for spending the time to give us all the feedback on these x coils, now I have made the decision to get the mods done to the Z these test results make the decision on what stays and what goes onto ebay easier, thanks to Ararat Gold too
Cheers

That ground were specifically chosen for its mainly high ground mineralization content, meaning that if any coil can properly balance & run smoothly over that type of ground, without the continual nuisance of constant ground noise in-between each swing, then one can safely say, their coil can run quiet/smooth just about over any locality Australia wide. I know what a prospector detectorist goes through in pursuit of that odd bit of colour & the costs associated with this game of metal detecting for gold, for I myself have been chasing it for 30 years. This is why I cannot afford to place myself in jeopardy, in order to  stooge people with false facts/info into buying coils/detectors or any other aftermarket accessories, from any manufacturer, for the sake of personal gain.. I call it as I see it & experience it, so that people on here can then make a clear, conscious & accurate decision, as to whether or not a coil such as this new line-up of Concentric Coils, would best suit their needs & to this day, Iv never had any member on here come back & accuse me of giving out false information in order to profit from & damn that makes me feel good.

Steve, I can tell you now, you won't regret the decision you have made, as long as the adapter is properly made/put together, by someone who knows what they are doing.  Like the saying goes "No guts, No glory"

Cheers gents,  Kon.

I am hoping the concentric will do for the Z what the monos did for the PIs. For me and the ground I search in the Z added depth on both sub grammers and multi grammers/ozs over the PIs, be bloody magic if the concentric lifts that limit again above what the other Z coils have done already. Itching to get at it.

I like how you do a test properly Con. Although it's only a test on targets placed in the ground it's far more believable and scientific in nature than most testing shown, even by Minelab.

I'm soon to do some comparison video testing between the 20" x-coil and the gpz19 so will be using a few of your ideas where possible.
Over the Coiltek testbed the 20" looked to be better, however, a proper test over some very mineralized ground will be interesting to see. Like you, I believe in my integrity and will show it as it is.

Thanks Jin. Like I said in my initial write up, the depths figures given over all targets are very conservative, as others on here are bound to find out for themselves the moment they start cranking up settings to best suit their needs.  Looking forward to hearing some of your test results with the 20 inch CC as compared to the 19 inch GPZ coil.

Cheers Kon.

Jin wrote:I'm soon to do some comparison video testing between the 20" x-coil and the gpz19 so will be using a few of your ideas where possible.
Over the Coiltek testbed the 20" looked to be better, however, a proper test over some very mineralized ground will be interesting to see.

Good to hear from you Jin! Is this the 20" Spiral X-coil you'll be doing your testing with or the 20" CC? I recall you were the first in OZ to get the 20" Spiral. I look forward to hearing the results of your tests.

It will be the 20" Spiral.

I'm negotiating to buy a second hand 15" spiral x-coil today so hopefully, that comes to fruition. Seeing as a 15" CC is on its way from Russia ill be able to do a like-for-like comparison with those two also as well as a comparison between the two and the gpz14. I was thinking of the test site at coiltek as well as another little test site I know about. Might also be good to see how the two 15"'s handle a few different hot ground locations here in Victoria.

I was unable to take my 15" concentric out the past few days, life's been a bit busy but my friend JW took his out over the weekend, he's not so much into using forums these days but he gave me these photos to see how he went so I figured I'd show you guys, he is fine with that.

The biggest bit was down quite deep, he took a photo with the scoop barely coming out of the hole, some of the smaller ones were located as they were in the hole with the bigger piece. The Monster was used to recover the tiny ones from the soil.

















This was all done in HY/Normal/20 Gain, I haven't been to this location but he's been going there for years with various detectors and coils so he was happy to get this much out of the little gully with the concentric.

In regards to your last sentence there Rick, no need to wonder at all. The Minelab SDC 2300 with its 8 inch coil, much lighter weight & portability, at less than half the price of the GPZ 7000 & one of their biggest sellers, is a top little gold finder over mineralized ground, even outdoing the GPZ 14X13 coil on the tiny stuff at greater depth no?  Now how can you ask Minelab to produce a smaller coil for the GPZ 7000, especially one that has the potential of stopping the sales of the SDC dead on its tracks? Oh yes that's right, Minelab did say a much smaller coil were in the pipeline for the making.  
So us loyal Minelab customers waited & waited, living in hope with each passing week & then month & then year after year, for almost 6 long years, till Minelab announced the coming of the GPX 6000 (SDC Killer)      You see Rick, profits will always take precedence over any promises hey? That's business for you.

Nice going JW & thanks phrunt, well done. The new lineup of CC's are already showing good promise.    Now one can only imagine, what a smaller in size concentric, other than that of the 15 inch round would be capable of, when placed over the tiniest bits of gold at depth  

Cheers Kon.

Now one can only imagine, what a smaller in size concentric, other than that of the 15 inch round would be capable of, when placed over the tiniest bits of gold at depth wrote:

Yes, my thoughts also. I wonder how small they can physically go? With so many options now for coils I've decided I won't bother buying the 6000 and just stick with the zed and x-coil.

I am very hopeful for a 12" size Concentric coil to be made, that would suit me perfectly and it would no doubt be extremely good on small gold judging by my experience so far with the 15". I think it'd be very difficult to make a small concentric coil.

I remember speaking to a guy in Darwin well before i started prospecting, he told me he had been to minelab at the time in SA and he was told they have the knowledge to produce detectors that can punch deeper than the models they provide us with, like Kon said this is marketing, no point to them to produce something that will clean up heaps of the gold remaining, better for them to drip feed us and make us buy model after model
This was the main reason I have had the mods done and will now use x coils because i know they are not encumbered with minelabs philosophy
Good luck with the 15 inch x coil Jin you beat me to it
Cheers

Hi Steve, yeah, i saw it advertised and quickly asked the minister of finances could I have a grand.

What for now she said......sheepishly I said: "for a coil". I knew there wouldn't be a problem as I've been outside painting the house for the last 3 days, lol

phrunt wrote:I am very hopeful for a 12" size Concentric coil to be made, that would suit me perfectly and it would no doubt be extremely good on small gold judging by my experience so far with the 15".  I think it'd be very difficult to make a small concentric coil.

I was thinking possibly 10" or 11" CC but the receive coils would be pretty tiny.

That's what we were also told during the making of the first 10X9 DD X-Coil, of which I praised highly, if it were not for some minor issues popping up, due to some inner wire breaking loose, because of the very tight/limited space in the coil for a GPZ 7000 coil winding, only to have that problem fully rectified/fixed in the brilliant working 10 inch round DD.
Then just when we thought it couldn't get any smaller, we hear of an 8 inch round spiral.  Although spiral wound in mono form, must be a lot easier to install in a smaller sized coil, than that of the same in DOD winding, you just never know fellas, for if it can be done, you can bet the manufacturer of X-Coils will be having a go at it.
In a 10 inch, way to tiny Jin, then we'll need to carry round a magnifying glass (for we'll be well within the micron gold range) but maybe a 12 inch round    

Cheers Kon.

The 8" GPZ round isn't spiral, it's a bundle DOD like the 10" and it is a great little coil.

I think a 8" or 10" Concentric would be great, but I just don't think it'd be possible, that's why my hopes are for a 12".  Elliptical Concentrics would be awesome too, I just don't know how possible it is.  Time will tell and if they can achieve a 10" I'd be in queue to get one

I personally feel the 15" Concentric is getting similar to the 10" DOD in the small gold sizes its capable of finding, It think a 12" Concentric would be very sensitive.  I'd even be happy with the 15" Concentrics sensitivity level in a smaller 12" housing.

The GPZ has become an extremely versatile detector now with all these coil choices we have available to us.  

Concentric owners will be able to clean up in high EMI areas like power lines by running high gain where others have had to back their detectors off to get them stable.  I have a lot of places to go now and check again because of this.  Even in HY/Normal/20 gain my GPZ with 15" concentric worked under high voltage transmission power lines, it was getting a bit of EMI but certainly usable and I only had to take 20-30 steps either side of them for it to calm right down.  I have a video somewhere of that.  Some of my best nuggets already came from near power lines, possibly from past detectorists unable to detect well near them with their older detectors.

My mistake phrunt & here I am thinking it were a spiral wound mono. Well there you go. I thought they couldn't get it any smaller than the DOD 10 inch. If they can achieve a 12 inch in size, not alone a 10 inch CC, count me in for one.  I cant even start to comprehend the possibilities over tiny gold at depth not to mention almost zero EMI. I'm sure X-Coils are listening.
Versatile indeed. Its pushed the GPZ user years ahead of what's to come. This new line up of Concentric Coil, will definitely open up ground that could not be detected over before, not to mention the extra depth advantage it would have over gold nuggets in hammered or new ground.

Cheers Kon.

There are no mono coils on the GPZ, the majority of X-coils are Spirals windings in a DOD configuration, the standard Minelab coils are DOD coils with bundle windings which I believe is also what the Nugget Finder Z-Search is.  The only GPZ X-coils with bundle windings are the 8" and 10" as they were unable to physically fit spiral windings inside the smaller coil size, they're still a DOD configuration.  All the other sizes are DOD Spiral.

This is why the 15x10" Spiral is known to be just as sensitive to small gold as the 10" round which is bundle wound.

The current Concentric coils are all Spiral wound too, maybe if they manage to make a really small one it would likely no longer be Spiral due to lack of space, we'll have to wait and see what they come out with

Spiral windings obviously take up a lot more space inside the coil than bundle windings as they're laid out flat.

Sorry if you already knew all of this, just clarifying in case anyone reading doesn't quite understand what's going on inside the coils and why different sizes have different winding types.

No, its good that you're stating it down, as it actually is. That's what I meant to say, but one winding to many, got the better of me.

Cheers Kon.

I agree. When nuggets start to exceed the 10 gram mark or so in weight, its normally the General/Difficult that starts matching that of the High/Yield or exceeding that of the High/Yield in depth.

Cheers Kon.

I too agree general is usually my go to mode when patch hunting with all coils, I say usually because it depends on the days "mood & feeling". For cleanup HY, extra deep, Bogenes, manual GB etc etc. Whatever.......... Especially extra deep and manual GB, even normal if your real keen. Remember if your flogging old patches your detectors not the first but your approach may give you an edge.

Here is JW's total for the weekend last weekend using the 15" Concentric, he said he has done this particular gully before with the ML 14x13" coil some time ago, the 10" X-coil and the 15x10" X-coil and they missed these nuggets. The Concentric was getting deeper.

Did the 2 or 3 smallest LUMPS register on the scales. Looks like a good trip.

geof_junk wrote:Did the 2 or 3 smallest LUMPS register on the scales. Looks like a good trip.

I doubt it, JW doesn't have good scales I've never been to this spot. It's a little gully where he found gold in the past that had been previously been turned over by miners.

The smallest couple of bits were recovered using the GM from the hole of a bigger bit.

Norvic, although we may all start out with our preferred go to modes when patch hunting, we also know that no one ground/gold mode setting or coil size/type, can cover all the ground we're swinging over thoroughly, without necessitating the use of more than one gold/ground mode, in order to maximise gold returns, by going over the same section of ground again & again.
The day they come up with some form of IC software, that can process/combine all ground/gold modes/settings etc processing ground information quickly, precisely to the immediate ground conditions at hand & determining automatically what best to use over that type of ground, is when we see metal detecting technology at its ultimate best. (a little similar to what's currently being offered on the new GPX 6000, but not fully there yet.)  
Right now as it stands, the High/Yield Difficult or Normal, will see inground gold targets, that the General difficult might not see & vice versa. On the other hand, if one were to go covering the same section of ground time & time again, by changing from one ground/gold mode to another, in order to maximise gold returns, it might just take us an entire lifetime to cover one goldfield only.    
Well done JW. Thanks phrunt. Looks like we have a winner here in way of the CC coils.    
Oh BTW, Its not JW's scale that's out of whack, but the forum allowing for the downloading of large almost full screen size pictures, that make the small nuggets look like whoppers

Cheers Kon.

Here is JW's total for the weekend last weekend using the 15" Concentric, he said he has done this particular gully before with the ML 14x13" coil some time ago, the 10" X-coil and the 15x10" X-coil and they missed these nuggets. The Concentric was getting deeper. wrote:

I've got a spot I've done to death. I've gridded this spot using 1m x 1m squares and used different timings but only the 10" as the gold is small. The area has been dozed and I'm working directly over the run of old-timers potholes. If the 15" CC picks up anything here ill be amazed.

Well get ready to be amazed Jin. The same 0.61 gram bit of gold gave me 5 inches max depth, with the 10 inch X-Coil DD (on standard factory pre-set settings) The new 17 inch CC gave me 6.5 inches deep, with the same settings under the same conditions. You have the 15 inch round concentric, (the smaller of the 3 Concentric coils currently offered by X-Coils) which should pick up the odd smaller bit of gold just out of reach of the 10 inch DD.

Cheers Kon.  

Tis exciting watching ML working in this "intelligent detector" direction, the 6000 being another step, just wonder how this direction will affect the aftermarket coil market. X coil has given us a big range of productive coils for the Z, the concentric showing they are continuing to progress outside of MLs "influence". Maybe the 6000 will show their direction more firmly and be after market coil proof.

I am confident the GPX 6000 will have it's chip inside the coil like the Equinox has, it has the same coil error/shutdown diagnosis as the GPZ which indicates to me there is electronics in the coil somewhere like with all of the modern Minelab coils.  It doesn't rule out aftermarket coils, but it makes them a very specialty item.  Another group of Russian coil makers have had a range of Equinox coils for over a year now.   They remove the chip from a stock coil, make an adapter out of it, fill the void in the coil where the chip was with epoxy so it can be used again Then they can run their range of coils on it.  

I used to think the legacy GPX series were the last Minelab detectors with a good range of coils, now it appears that is the GPZ thanks largely to X-coils so far.  I doubt it will be the case with the new GPX 6000.  In 5 years they may let Coiltek make 3 basic coils for it or something judging by history.

I'd be happy to sacrifice a coil to use the chip. It's not like I use the gpz14 anymore even though I could. Chop the 6000 coil up, get the chip out and make a range of coils that will give me an advantage over users of the standard offerings.