Best Coil For Flogged Desert Areas Hunting Deep Large Nuggets

I am just getting started detecting with my gpx4000, and starting to get a handle on it with smaller coils, I am amazed at the sensitivity and depth of this machine, and the settings available for different situations, I was a previous VLF only user, I am now a convert to minelab gpx detectors,  one of the main areas I go to to detect was flogged in the late 90's to early 2000's for a lot of nuggets and quite a few multi oz nuggets were found by some people I know, so I know there is still more there, just deep, out of reach of normal coils, I am contemplating purchasing a Coiltek 24x14 EM coil for these deep overlooked nuggets, and I hear this particular coil will also not ignore smaller gram size stuff toward the surface which would be a plus, what are your thoughts? I have a 8" commander mono, a 15x12 commander mono, and a goldstalker coiltek 18" round mono coil, will the 24x14 em exceed the 18" goldstalker in performance and be a worthwhile buy? If not should I buy a larger round mono like a 25" mono?  I know once a hole is started an elliptical will be easier to pinpoint with as tip is narrower, the area is desert ground with the usual bushes and open areas, mild to moderate mineralization mostly, overburden is from 6" to 2 ft or more in some locations. I am trying to up my odds of finding nuggets overlooked by the masses in yrs past in this area. Any thoughts?

G'day gold bug sniper

G'day your enjoying your self, in most cases am 18" round coil will out perform a 24x14 or 24x12 elliptical coil.

Elliptical coils has the advantage of being sensitive on the tip and heal of the coil and good for pin pointing, also these coils are better for scrubby areas to get under and between the bushes also in amongst large rocks that are close together. On the other hand the big round coils shine in wide open spaces where you can swing them without getting frustrated with a lot of obstacles in the way.

Good luck out there.

cheers dave

Thanks for the reply and coil info. Sounds like I may be setup fine for now with coils, will concentrate on learning more about timings and using that 18" coil well. I do enjoy going out in the desert detecting was out there tue/wed learning the machine, running sensitive extra, deep, 9 gain, with the commander 8" mono round coil.

G'day Gold Bug Sniper.

Depending on ground mineralization,try using General,Normal,fixed,mono,motion speed slow/very slow,audio deep,with a gain of 1 or 2 in conjunction with your 18 inch mono,and go over the same ground again.If detector is still a little to noisy to operate,try all the above again,but this time in tracking mode,changing to fixed the momement you believe you have a positive signal.This method of set up will lose some sensitivity on the tiny bits closer to the surface but have little effect in depth loss on the half ounce slugs and above.

Cheers Kon. 

Kon, thanks for the tips on using 18" properly, wow a gain of only 1 to 2 seems super low? This is a new learning experience, I used to be a gold dredger when we could that here in Calif. but no more it seems due to politics. So I recently took up detecting for nuggets seriously, been coin/jewelry detecting for yrs, however this nugget detecting is much harder to do for me than even finding gold jewelry around here is. I think by next spring I will be ready to start producing some results I hope. Have detected some vein gold on a friends claim w/gb2 up in nevada, but that was cheating as we knew about right where to look for that.