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Fresh from the ground! A friend & customer just texted over this photo about ten minutes ago. Take a look at what he just unearthed with his Minelab GPZ 7000 at over 25 inches! This is his biggest nugget to date. I asked what it weighed and he said his scale only goes to an ounce, and the nugget causes an error message. I hate error messages, but in this case it’s a good thing! I can’t say exactly where, but it was found in the Arizona desert…I am so excited for this gentleman. He’s a great guy who works hard and definitely deserved this trophy piece. Well done my friend – thank you for letting my share!

I was able to get in some detecting right before that snow storm hit central AZ earlier this week. I headed out to a spot that I have been eye-balling for a while. All the geological indicators for gold were there, so I figured it was worth a swing. I decided to take my new Nugget Finder 12x8” EVO coil out for a test drive. It performed beautifully on my Minelab GPX…actually almost too well. The sensitivity is unbelievable and I found myself digging shards of metal that were so small I had a hard time spotting them in my hand even after they had come out of the ground. The depth was good as well, but it was the overall sensitivity that blew me away. In really trashy spots this might be a disadvantage, but for patches that held lots of tiny nuggets and have been worked hard, the new 12x8” is in my opinion the way to go. A perfect size coil for wash or creek bed hunting. I didn’t hit any new patches, but I did score this 1.4 gram piece. The most challenging aspect of this area was the sheer amount of magnetite. Just about every wash I walked was loaded with black sand and the bedrock cracks were packed with heavy black hot rocks. They were noisy for sure, but I found I could work the ground by backing off the Gain, holding the coil slightly higher than normal, and moving a little slower. Now that I know there is gold I might try some dry-washing this spring to see how much fine gold those washes carry…Anyway I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and 2019 if off to a great start!

A friend and customer sent over this photo showing off some of his recent finds. The gold has been a little skinny, but he is doing well on cleaning up some meteorites! This variety are known as chondrites or "stony", and although they don't contain a tremendous amount of metal inside they do have enough nickel/iron to set off most detectors. Many people have walked away from these believing them to be hot rocks; I know I did in the past. However, once you have seen & handled a few you can't help but recognize them. He found these using his Minelab GPX-4500 and his new Nugget Finder Evolution Coil. A big congratulations to the lucky finder, I really appreciate you sharing with us. Hopefully the next photos you send will include a multi-ouncer! Happy hunting everyone..

The owner just sent me this photo of the nugget all cleaned up. It turned out stunning! The final weight was 31.4-grams. Gravelwasher, I don't think that's the hole.

A friend of mine that likes to detect in Arizona sent me this photo a few days ago. What he thought was going to be a nugget actually turned out to be a really nice meteorite! It is a “stony” or chondrite and is a beautiful example of the type. The total weight is 187-grams. He is swinging a Minelab GPZ 7000 with the 14” coil. Way to go!!!

I sold a Minelab Equinox 800 a while back to a gentleman up in Wyoming and mentioned that I always love seeing photos of customer finds. Well he didn’t forget, because I just got these in the mail! From the looks of it, he has definitely gotten the hang of the machine. He has found all sorts of goodies. My personal favorite is the bar token from Montana…Great work Tom, thanks so much for sharing with us!

What a fantastic piece ! I know that road !!!

Happy Holidays from AZO! The Arizona Outback office will be closed from December 24th – 26th and will resume normal business hours on Thursday the 27th. I would like to wish all of our forum family a very joyous holiday season. May your Christmas be filled with fun, laughter and happiness!

Merry Christmas Chris and all the AZO family. Our tree and a couple knife sharpeners I’m making for my sons.

I finally got out yesterday after a month or 2 absence working as a fly fishing guide and building a new house this summer certainly cuts into s guy's detecting time. This is my second trip out with Arizona Outback Freedom System and other than two little quirks I have to give it 2 thumbs up. If you are not familiar with Chris's Freedom System it is a very small light weight battery and charger and a deteknit wireless head phone and after using it I have to say I will never go back to coils again. I found 5 nuggets in a few hours all but the largest were very deep signals just a faint break in the threshold. This System did a great job massaging them out. This area has been heavily worked by others over the years. I was using the 5000 along with the 12 inch round Evo. As far as the two quirks I mentioned earlier first thing I noted is the head phone control touch pad has to be on the detector's side. If not, it would blank out often. The other thing I noticed the transmitter had to be tucked under the right arm pad. If not blanking was also noticed. Give Chris a call and try out this System. You will be glad you did. 5 nuggets totaled, 4.4 grams in all, largest 2.1. Keep on digging! Enoch

Happy New Year to everybody at AZO! Dean

Check out this unusual nugget that a friend of mine found while metal detecting in Arizona. He calls it the “SEE THROUGH” Nugget! He said it was buried ten inches deep, and gave off a very weird signal response. He almost didn’t dig it, but then luckily decided to go back and investigate. I’m not sure what the two brownish spots are, but I believe they could be limonite…Great find!!! Thanks a million for letting me share with everyone. Keep up the good work!

I just wanted to give a very positive recommendation to Proline Mining for a recent purchase. After years of running under powered pumps on my Heckler Fabrication wash plant, I finally bit the bullet and ordered a HP500 500GPM and Honda 9HP combo from Proline. My wash plant uses modified Clarkson riffles and uses a LOT of water, as you can see in the picture below, previously I actually had 3, 1.5" pumps feeding it into a manifold under the hopper. I called, spoke with Jeff, he spent a LOT of time on the phone chatting, very friendly, wanted my business made sure I was happy with the decision and made some suggestions about the mounting options (on a rack vs regular dredge rack so it was more stable) etc and it was ordered. It was VERY well packed, shipped very quickly and arrived in great shape... what a beautiful combo!!!! Thank you Jeff.... very much appreciate the time and product. Jen