Nevada Nugget Hunters

RexB · Site Admin Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 566

I’ve been meaning to do a test like this for awhile, so here it is. In order to save time air tests were conducted for each detector instead of buried targets tests. Although the depth of buried target responses will vary from the results of these air tests one can still glean some information from side-by-side comparisons. Ten targets were used for the tests. The targets used were lead fishing weights and gold nuggets of the following sizes: 0.10 gram (piece of lead fishing weight), 0.41 gram gold nugget, 0.71 gram lead weight, 1.12 gram gold nugget, 1.72 gram gold nugget, 2.36 gram lead weight, 3.31 gram lead weight, 6.67 gram lead weight, 13.53 gram lead weight, 20.49 gram lead weight. The distances from the targets that are noted were the furthest from the coil that gave a full response, not a broken signal.

The X-Terra was tested with the following settings:
Mode: Prospecting
Volume: 30
Noise Cancel: 2
Threshold: 7
Tones: 22
Sensitivity: 20
Ferrous Rejection: 6

The following coils were tested:
Xterra 70 with Round 9"
High Frequency 18.75 kHz
Mono Coil

X-Terra 70 with Round 9"
Low Frequency 3 kHz
Mono Coil

X-Terra 70 with Elliptical 5"x10"
High Frequency 18.75 kHz
DD coil

The MXT was tested with the following settings:
Gain: 10
Threshold: 50% (halfway)
Dual Control: 6
Trac Mode Prospecting

The following coils were tested:
Whites MXT with Eclipse Deepscan
Elliptical 8"x14" DD 1400 coil

Whites MXT with Eclipse Shooter
Elliptical 4"x6" DD coil

Whites MXT with Eclipse
Round 9.5" Multi-frequency coil

Below are jpg’s of results for each detector, as well as three charts showing comparisons of the Xterra 70 and the MXT. There are also photos provided of the targets and the detectors.

You will notice some irregularities from what one might expect of the data results. For example, the results show the 1.12 gram gold nugget is often more easily heard than the 1.72 gram gold nugget or the 2.36 gram lead weight. This is because the 1.72 gram nugget is very flat and was oriented along the flat side giving the greatest response. It has a larger surface area exposed to the coils when compared to the other two heavier targets. The other nugget is more chunky, while the fishing weight of course is rather circular in comparison.

It also appears that gold is slightly more detectable than the lead fishing weights of similar size and shape. I did not provide data for the Whites ferrous probability read-out etc. only the audio responses are taken into account for the tests.

Overall, I am impressed with the similarity of each detector’s performance which varies somewhat depending on the particular coil in use. In some areas the X-Terra 70 has an edge while the MXT has an edge detecting other targets with certain coils.

One final note concerning the targets, the 0.41gram and 1.71 gram nuggets are from Nevada and appear lighter in color and will most likely have a higher silver content, the 1.72 gram nugget is from California and will have a lower silver content. Also, you will notice there are some randomly distributed boxes in the first two jpg test results, for some reason those appeared when converted from pdf to jpg format. They don't have any significance.

Click to see full size image

Click to see full size image
oops how did that get in here?

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If first you don't succeed...

RexB · Site Admin Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 566

Sorry for the error with the MXT settings, they have now been fixed above and read as follows:

Gain: 10
Threshold: 50% (halfway)
Dual Control: 6
Trac Mode Prospecting

Rex
_________________
If first you don't succeed...