SDC 2300 Initial Performance Report

SDC 2300 Initial performance report.

Hi guys n gals I'm back
As some of you know I got a loan of the New SDC 2300 from Minersden Parramatta (Thanks guys!)
and as I said I will now give you my initial thoughts on the new detector.
I cannot do a proper review like I did on the CTX as I need to do more testing and get a bit of time using it under my belt,but here is my first impression from one day in the field.

FIRST IMPRESSION OF SDC 2300
Ill start with what I did to give it a initial test.
I took it to 7 different places 4 of them old patches of mine, 1 spot under power lines next to a fence and 1 old workings near a fence.
All of these areas have been thoroughly searched by me previously with the GPX 5000 and its predecessors and other detectors.
Results:

-1st patch
Is a high alluvial terrace on the upper Turon river, material is alluvial pebble/red clay sitting on highly foliated yellow/green schist, this is nosy variable ground as the alluvial's and bedrock have vastly different property's.
The SDC ran quietly on max sensitivity and had no trouble with the choppy mineralized ground.
No gold but I got 17 bird shot pellets and 2 buck shot that I had missed with the 5000, I didn't search the whole patch as most of it is too deep for a 8in coil.
I also buried some nuggets and tested the response in comparison to the 5000 in these mineralized ground conditions I also checked out the target that I found with the SDC with the 5000 to see if It could detect them.
Out of the targets it could only pick up 1 buck shot the rest were inaudible on the 5000 (spent 3hrs here)
 
-2nd patch
high terrace catch point below gold baring weathering pollymictic conglomerate on metamorphic fine grained sandstone (found fark loads here with 5000).
SDC performed well here on max sensitivity and had no problems with all of the hotrocks.
No gold but got more bird shot and a few buck shot that I missed with the 5000 only spent one hour here and its a large area.

-3rd patch
high alluvial terrace on Turon river alluvial pebble/ orange clay on mudstone and schist bedrock with small diorite intrusion and a quartz reef.
This spot has a sheep fence with wire mesh running straight through the middle.
The SDC performed good here on max sensitivity I got more bird shot and buck shot that I had missed with the 5000 and 3x small pieces of GOLD and heaps of junk along the fence where I couldn't search with the 5000 due to interference from the fence.
I got the gold next to the fence, I was able to swing as close as 400mm while walking parallel to the fence with no interference at all and at max sensitivity. (only did 1hr, there is definitely a lot more good gold along the fence but it was time to move on.)

-4th patch
Shallow sloap bellow a reef
only stayed 20 mins as another prospector pulled up down in the valley, so I bailed so he wouldn't see me to  protect my patch location.

Old working near fence
After seeing how good the SDC ran near a fence I pulled up at some old workings with a fence running through them As they had not likely been properly searched ever due to the fence.............. and I was right, as there was junk galore I'll go back and have another look here as there has to be good gold here but due to time constraints I had to move on. 2hrs  (no gold heaps of oldtimer junk)

Spot right on side of road under power lines and next to a fence.
This was a spot that Golden Guss told me to look so he could get an Idea on how the SDC performs under these condition's
Its also an old terrace of a well known gold rich gully and Guss had got gold here.
I didn't get any gold but I got a old silver 3pence @ 200mm and a shilling at about the same and a 50c modern coin at 300mm all easily heard.
I had to lower the sensitivity to 3 here as the EMI conditions are very bad, but the SDC performed brilliantly
in these conditions I couldn't believe it, so I buried a few nuggets and it detected them easily.  
The 5000 was unusable here.

As you can see from the results It looks promising for the SDC 2300 as it performs well in EMI and close to fences and its very sensitive to small gold.

Things I like about the SDC 2300:
-It easily packs down to a small manageable size.
-Its light.
-robust construction
-It uses easily available cheap battery's.
-It performs very good in mineralized soil.
-It performs very good in variable soil.
-It performs good in bad EMI
-It is very sensitive.
-No touch sensitivity, I could NOT get it to detect the coil cable even when bashing the coil against a tree or rock .
- very simple to use
-water proof

Things I do NOT like about the SDC 2300:
- The Arm rest! the blo*dy thing fold its self up after every time you pull your hand out of the thing to recover a target or the like. And you have to keep unfolding the Blo*dy thing before you put your arm back in.  
- The speaker location is not good if your right handed as on the end of the back swing you cant hear it, they should have put the speaker on the top somewhere.    
- THE PRICE  
- You only have 1 coil size choice.  
- the coil knuckle gets in the way .

Summary
over all I am pretty happy with how the SDC performs even up against the 5000 with a 8in coil on
It surprised me it actually is more sensitive to gold under 0.4g than the 5000 is but on gold over 2gram the performance drops off in comparison to the 5000.

I am going to buy one as I can see the potential for emi areas or bad emi days and I'll just use it in areas where I would usually put on the 8in like when I'm following a leader or cleaning an area or on bad emi days.
It will be extremely popular with the crumers or saidy brigade or operators who have shallow emi areas. The SDC2300 is going to be a important part of my prospecting kit and it will pay for its self very quickly. It will be very useful for chasing up or following leaders.
I will probably never use a smaller than 11in coil on the 5000 ever again as I’ll just use the SDC now because of its superior sensitivity to the small gold, its ability to handle bad EMI and its ability in mineralized ground.

The 3x specks that I found