When I first started panning, I skipped the classifier and lost gold for two seasons before a friend on r/Prospecting asked me one pointed question: how much material do you actually pan per load? I tested ten of the best classifiers for gold panning across creeks in Colorado, banks along the Mother Lode, and a […]

I pulled on my boots, slung a kit over my shoulder, and walked down to a creek in the Sierra foothills for three months of testing. By the end, our team had panned through roughly 80 pounds of material, recovered a few tiny pickers, and learned exactly which of the best gold prospecting kits actually […]

Finding the best sluice boxes for gold panning can mean the difference between leaving a creek empty-handed and walking out with a vial full of color. I've spent the last three months running side-by-side tests on twelve different sluice boxes across creeks in the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Range, and a half-dozen smaller tributaries in […]

I still remember the first time I dipped a plastic pan into a cold mountain stream and watched a single yellow flake catch the sunlight. That little moment is what pulled me into gold prospecting, and over the past two seasons I have tested nearly a dozen pans on creeks in the Rockies, the Sierra […]

After spending three months swinging eight different metal detector coils through parks, beaches, and an old homestead full of bottle caps, our team learned one hard truth: the stock coil that came with your detector is almost never the best one for the way you actually hunt. The best metal detector coils change everything from […]

I spent the last three months hunting parks, beaches, and old farm fields with eight different metal detecting headphones clamped to my head. After hundreds of swings, dozens of dug coins, and one unforgettable Civil War button I would have missed on speaker audio alone, I can tell you the best metal detecting headphones do […]

Our team spent more than 60 hours over the past three months digging through wet sand, dry sand, and surf-zone wash on three different coasts, comparing ten of the most popular metal detecting sand scoops on the market. We've measured sifting speed, weighed every basket empty and loaded, watched which welds gave up first in […]

I've spent the last three seasons digging through farm fields, sandy beaches, and rocky riverbeds with a dozen different shovels, and I can tell you this: your metal detecting shovel matters more than most people realize. After going through 7 cheap Fiskars trowels in a single summer, I learned that a quality digging tool protects […]

If you've ever dug a 6-inch hole only to find your coin sitting another inch to the left, you already know why a good pinpointer matters. After 30 days of testing eight handheld metal detector probes across dry sand, saltwater beaches, and a Civil War-era relic site, our team ranked the best pinpointers for metal […]

I spent the last 90 days swinging 10 different beach metal detectors across the Outer Banks, the Gulf Coast of Texas, and a handful of freshwater lake shores to find the best beach metal detectors worth your money in . My goal was simple: figure out which models actually hold up in real saltwater, which […]