Garrett went a little quite there for a few years, well they are back with the new Garrett Axiom Gold detector, here's my first run with it. 2 Hours use.
The Garrett Axiom is a high end Pulse Induction Gold detector. Using Pulse technology it is better suited to mineralised soils and harsh conditions. Places that a VLF Machine struggle to cope with. (Not sure on the difference between Pulse and VLF, Read this article.)
Opening the Box:
Inside the Box is Literally just a canvas Backpack with a big Garrett Logo On It. Unzip the Bag and everything is inside with its place. 2 Coils, Headunit, Lower stem and all the charging gear.
Battery is Built in, so you don't need to look for it, and you also get a back up AA Battery holder for when you get caught short. With Battery Life in the 15-16 Hour range, it will always see the day through.
While on Battery, with the 12V Chgarge it does take sometime to fully charge, so make sure you allow for that. A couple extra charging hours for near 2 full days of hunting is worth it.
Starting it Up:
I chose the 11 Inch coil for the machine as the larger coil is DD and I always default to a mono. Probably a bad habit and one I need to change to truly explore the DD Options for this and other machines.
Fast Start Up, The machine starts very very fast, however you will need to Run through the Frequency Scan at least once at the start of each trip. I did it twice. Once when I started the machine and then again when I got to my 'Spot' as several other powerful machines had kicked in by then. 45 secs so not that long a wait.
Ground blance was easy and fast, Just hold the button and Pump the coil. The machine settled very nicely.
In The Field:
Number one is this machine is LIGHT! It feels very good on the arm and with the 11 inch coil on, felt well balanced.
I used the default audio tone and for those that have used pulse machines before it is a very familiar tone. Threshold I like to keep low, so a setting of 3-4 was my choice most of the time. There is another Audio option, but i didn't get to it.
Timings are Fine:
- Fine
- Normal
- Medium
- Large
I started in Fine as Recommended by the videos I watched. The ground I was in was very Ironstone littered, some of the gold has ironstone inclusions.
With sensitivity at about 75% it felt a little wobbly.
Rather than tank sensitivity I simply changed to Normal Timing.
The Audio was much more stable and I heard my first genuine 100% target noise. I may have walked over a few quiet ones and written them off before this as I was testing. This tone I dug first was pretty much exactly whay you want to hear. Subtle but obvious change in the machine that repeated.
That turned out to be a 0.27 Gram Gold Nugget. A Very Flat and thin piece that should have been a gram but was so skinny. The target was about 3 Inches down.
Across the rest of the test, I dug about 20 Targets and chased 2 false signals as I had the thing wound a bit high I would say. I did check with a more familiar machine to me and I'm 99% both were ground noise.
All In all I got 2 Pieces of gold, the first one and then a tiny little 0.12 at about 2 inches. I lost it twice in the spoil pile but ultimately it ended up in the bottle. The other targets where a mix of shot gun pellets, and a screamer that turned out ot be 2 small nails and a buckle in one hole at about 6 inches.
Conclusion:
The garrett Axiom is a very nice machine to use, easy to learn and has a few timings you can play around with until you find your groove.
It can handle a fair chunk of the sensitivity that is available and I was running 75% or over most of the time. The shape of the 11 Inch coil makes pin pointing using the "Off the toe" method pretty easy and quick.
The Machine is Very Light as Mentioned and No harness or extra gear was required to use it. I do tend to drag em on the ground so weight is mitigated somewhat anyway, and again the shape of the coil was handy in grassy areas.
All In all I was Hyper impressed with the machine.
Who is it for?
Gold Hunters quite simply, this could easily become your primary weapon and with a little training and practice is one of the nicest Pulse machines I have used.
It's price Point of $7,385 Makes it Several Hundred Dollars cheaper than the obvious comparison machine, the GPX 6000 from minelab. So If your Upgrading from an older pulse machine or an SDC this may suit you.
Is it as Good though?
In My Limited time with the machine I believe it is as good and if not it is very very close. I have a lot of hours on the 6000 and the Axiom felt natural to use and gave me very similar tones and target responses. I found my targets easily and 2 of them were gold so it definately works well.
What would I improve?
The ergonomics of the Axiom are excellent I must say I do Like an Eliptical coil on my pulse machines. So all good as far as design goes. Except it fell over sideways a few times when I was waving soil over the coil, that was frustrating. But that is an eliptical coil trait.
The bag will not hold the coil with lower stem attached, so its a full pack up to get it back into the bag, most of us leave the coil on the stem each hunt, so a bag that is a bit longer would be grand. On the plus side it makes sure your getting the dirt out of the washers etc, so it may extend life a bit.
Other than that I think Garrett have hit the nail on the head with the Axiom.
Light, easy to use, and with a small learning curve it is the type of machine you can get out of the box and get on the gold with little to no training.
Remember though it is a pulse machine so you will end up with a nice handful of lead, small iron and other NOT gold Targets. I couldn't audibly tell Gold from Lead, but I can't with any pulse machine so its a dig it all type scenario.
All in All the Garrett Axiom is a top class machine that will find its place in the Australian market once people realise what Garrett have done with it.
I am looking forward to the sideways ground balance, a feature I didn't get to try as I was too busy digging holes and smiling.
Cheers guys, any further questions etc, please get in touch.
0467 614 701
Clegy
Aussie Detectorist Garrett Axiom Package deal.