I finally had a chance to do some gold detecting using the new Makro Gold Racer, and I was pleasantly surprised to say the least with this metal detector. In fact, I suspect that it will soon become my primary detector for hunting small gold nuggets in shallow ground.

I recently spent a few days prospecting at a location in Oregon where I have found some gold in the past. I had hunted this area before with a Minelab GPX 4500, but I suspected that a good VLF detector would be able to pick up some smaller nuggets that I had missed with the Minelab. The Gold Racer did not disappoint and really produced well.

This detector has several things going for it that really impressed me which I thought I would discuss in greater detail. Rather than going through all the features of the detector, I’m going to talk about a few simple yet important things that I feel give it a slight edge compared to a few other metal detectors out there. In a future article, I will go into further detail about some of the more in-depth features of this detector.

For nugget hunting, I almost always hunt in All-Metal Mode. Here are a few of the features that I found particularly nice about the Gold Racer.

 

Lightweight

 

The Gold Racer is lightweight and can be used all day with very little fatigue. For this hunt, I used the 5” x 10” DD coil. I also have a larger 13” x 15” DD coil which I have not used yet, but have heard good things about and hope to use it in a future hunt. Compared to the Minelab GPX that I normally swing, this would still be nice and lightweight.

 

Design

 

A quick note on the shape and design features of this detector. It is built sleek and lightweight, it display screen is large and easy to read. The headphone jack comes out the back of the detector which helps keep the cord from getting tangled.

A small but simple thing is the power/volume knob. It is located on the back of the detector, and it is STIFF so that you won’t accidentally bump it (unlike the Gold Bug Pro). I have used a Gold Bug Pro for many years and it is a great detector, but the tendency to bump the threshold knob and constantly need to readjust it definitely gets old. With the Gold Racer, once the detector is set-up properly it is good to go.

 

Ground Lock/Smooth Threshold

 

Ground balancing is a piece of cake just like most gold detectors made today. It has a locking ground toggle that you simply push forward while pumping the coil a few times above the ground. After 2 or 3 pumps the detector will beep, indicating that the ground balance is locked.

The ground I was hunting wasn’t too hot, so most detectors would be able to handle it. Still, the threshold of the Gold Racer remained smooth and consistent.

 

Tones

 

So here’s something most people don’t really mention, but that I really liked about the Gold Racer; the tones. The threshold has a mellow sound that I could listen to all day without much fatigue. There are a few VLF detectors on the market that simply drive me crazy due to their annoying tones. I suppose that this is a personal preference that you wouldn’t know until you have actually used one in person, but for me I found the Gold Racer to be one of the most PLEASANT detectors to hunt with due to the tones.

Why is this important? Well if you find that yourself losing concentration due to fatigue late in the day, there is little doubt that you will be detecting sloppy and miss gold.

 

Accurate Target ID

 

The target ID on the Makro Gold Racer is exceptionally accurate. Whenever I test a new detector I always dig all targets for the first few days, just so that there is no doubt about what is under the coil. On iron trash targets, the target ID number reliably hits around 19 to 21. With few exceptions all the boot tacks, nails, and other solid bits of iron would ID in that range.

The only exceptions would be on very thin sheet metal (which is troublesome to ID for pretty much all VLF detectors) and some larger pieces like big bolts and a few rusty old snuff tins that I found. The target ID would bounce around inconsistently on these bigger iron targets. However, since I was detecting in an area known to have larger multi-ounce nuggets, it’s always a good idea to dig out these bigger targets.

 

Results

 

I could tell almost right away that the Gold Racer was going to be a good gold detector because of the small targets I was finding at decent depth. I ended up digging a lot of junk along with a nice collection of small nuggets. These were all smaller bits of gold that were mainly less than 2” deep. This didn’t surprise me since I had already hunted this area previously with my Minelab detector and I had pulled out several larger nuggets from the area.

In the future I plan to write a few more posts with more detail about the different features of this detector, including the different adjustments available while in discrimination mode. I can tell that the Gold Racer is also going to be a very capable coin and relic detector also.

Buy a Makro Gold Racer