GPZ 7000 ,The Verdict is still out

by Shane Rigoll
(WA)

Hi everyone Camel Catcher here-

Well I purchased the 7000 after much debate and before a lot of people started to put there two cents in at forums and other places.

So would I have still purchased the 7000 knowing what I know now?

I am still not 100% sure.

Does it find gold the other Machines leave behind ? The answer is simple -YES YES YES.

Can give you a few examples , Friend was detecting an area with a 5000 they had been over the area previous with 4500 and she is no beginner in fact I find her to be a very thorough.

I turned on my new machine straight out of the box went over were she had finished and with in 3 minutes had my first of four nuggets all which screamed throough the speaker like they were sun bakers. The surprising thing was the depth of these nuggets. 1 was a 4 grammer at 14 to 15 inches and sounded like a tin can .

I have found gold every were other people have been and chained and crossed chained and even in one spot were 3 people had chained over straight after each other and got 17 nuggets in 2 hours and I considered all of them loud positive targets.

I have found nuggets that I thought was ground noise in wet ground for the first 7 inches the signal never change but then it started to sound positive dug 3 more inches for a 0.4 Grammer I was blown away.

I have found sub 0.1 nuggets with the only problem being finding the gold in my hand.this was on old scrapings but.

So in my opinion anyone who thinks this detector cant find small gold better than a 5000 doesn't know what they are doing.

Now for the other side of the argument ...

I am a Prospector not just a detectorist so on some days when looking for those elusive virgin patches in new ground we can cover up to 20 kms on foot and boy do you notice the extra weight of the 7000.

Its heavy and sometimes awkward.

Why does this machine in this day in age only have the capacity for 100 find points and 100 waypoints I have filled this up on a patch with no computer with me to download the info I had to start using the waypoints as find points to finish the day.

Having to have a internet connection and log in to use the software is the most ridiculous thing I find my gold in the outback not in the city were you get phone service.

The flexi joint of which I have attached some photo's of is not flexable. I broke one end then taped it up and broke the other end .

When I unpacked the 7000 my daughter first words were how long is that bit going to last and she was 17 and even she new it wasn't going to last in the real world of finding gold.

Very few accessories and no coils WTF !!

Now that ever continuing ground noise and balancing problem in heavy mineralised ground .... I have left gold behind I know it in my heart due to this problem.

Ferrite or not it don't matter I am very cool headed most of the time lucky for my 7000 other wise it would of been used as a boomerang in these situations.

The problem being this was the reason I bought this machine was because of its ability to handle this type of ground . This for me is the machines biggest let down, when I have to hold my 7000 over my head so I don't go deaf from the racket and my daughter runs over the same ground with my 4000 and its only a little noisy WTF is going on here.

I can tell now even before I walk on that type of ground im going to have problems. No matter what settings in these locations it don't work.

So you can see my dilemma

All thou this has some problems,which im sure are mostly software related and im sure someone is working on right now to rectify
( They better be ) Deep down in my heart I know this machine will find gold the others won't and that's a good thing.

But I also feel this detector was rushed for release and not ironed out the bugs and for that reason I would not pay this sought of $ for another machine.

Some of the GPZ7000 faults really make me wonder what minelab was thinking sometimes simple works best.

I must say as for the so called flexi joint Minelab replaced it no worries and I couldn't have been happier with there service but I havnt put the new one on yet to test it I like my home made bush repair better and think it works better because its flexable.

Now if anyone was wondering why I think my opinion might mean something
I am a former GPA tour guide and was a full time prospector so im not new to this.

Remember GOLD is were you find it

Happy Hunting

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