Makro Racer Fact or Hype ?

Was at my local MD dealer this weekend and took a look at the new Racer 2 as well as the Racer 1. They both appear to be nice machines and well built. I also looked at the Teknetics T2 and was wondering if I was missing something. It seems everyone is dumping the Racer 1 on Ebay to include dealers and private party owners. Was really considering the T2 but it seems my 1270 and Coinstrike can still compete in terms of depth and quality. The EMI on the Racer crackled inside during the demo. Both of my Fishers are whisper quiet inside my house when doing an air test. What do you guys recommend I do ? I mainly hunt civil war sites and occasional coin hunting. I don't want to be caught up in new detector fever but I really believe my current machines can still keep pace with the Racer and T2. What am I missing ???
Thanks for your input.

Nobody hunts inside so ignore the EMI thing. The Racer actually ran pretty good at sites I had problems with other detectors.

The Racer and I assume the Racer II (since I have never used one) do some things very well. The number one thing they do better than any other detector is hunt in iron. If you have iron or nail fields that you want to hunt then the Racer with the small coil would be a very valuable detector in your arsenal. Not the occasional iron grunt, but machine gun iron.

One other nice feature is the simplicity of the Racers. Easy menus that get you hunting real quick. No second guessing yourself on the settings.

They are not the deepest detector out there, but in the iron fields depth is something that really can't be achieved anyways. No detector will penetrate to any great depth.


For a single frequency detector the Racer series does very on the salty wet sands if you beach hunt at all.

I see the Racer series as a valuable tool for iron hunting. Many of the sites have been pounded for years. But the iron areas still hold many valuable targets. They were either ignored or poorly hunted because people didn't have the equipment to hunt them properly. Detectors such as the Racer, Deus and even the AT series have made great strides and are game changers.

I don't look at the Racer series as do all detectors. In fact I don't believe that detector exists. But it sure has a spot in the hobby for iron infested sites.

One thing to note about the Racer, is that when you turn it on, it automatically starts up at near max Sens with a really high GB number. So they go nuts when first turned on, especially inside. But as mentioned, nobody hunts inside. Once adjusted for actual hunting they are pretty darn stable.

Other than the ability to bleed/blend audio tones together (which really helps you identify iron from non-ferrous) I don't think there is anything special about the Racer or the Nokta Fors CoRe like I have. The target ID number accuracy sucks to be honest. And the Racer comes with a fairly cheesy made stock coil. But for a relic hunter who works in iron, mainly hunting by tones, they are a great tool. For a coin hunter in modern trash, relying on an ID number, they are so-so.

BUT!

The Racer 2 and the new Noktas have a different target ID range (resolution?) and should be better at giving an accurate target ID. If that is true, then they will be a tough detector to beat in about any situation. So if you have a dealer that has both (you are lucky if you do), I suggest giving the Racer 2 a spin outside. Take some rusty iron with you and lay some coins or bullets beside it and sweep over it and listen to the tones. Then do it with a T2 or similar and you should be able to get a feel for why the Racer and Racer 2 have earned a pretty good reputation.

If you decide to get a racer, hold on to your other detectors if they still work well for you. Compare the new with the old and see what works best.
In my soil, the racer handles my red clay so much better than the f70 & t2 I had. I also love the racer audio. The racer was also deeper in my soil compared to the other two.
But that may not be the case with your detectors and soil. Give em all a test drive, and keep whats good for you.

The racer can hunt with my deus and find the same undug targets...It has deep coils and is fast and well built. The F19 is not as good and not as well built but comes close in preformance...I don't like the T2 had it sold it.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2016 02:04AM by Lawrenzo.

virginia digger Wrote:
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>........................................................... It seems
> everyone is dumping the Racer 1 on Ebay to include
> dealers and private party owners.

I think this is only because the Racer2 is out, and people are looking to try it out.

I tried mine out this weekend at an old iron patch, and was pleasantly surprised by it's performance. I also have the Racer1, the adjustable iron audio is a very useful feature. I managed to pull a few nice keepers out of a very well pounded iron infested site with the R2 and the iron audio @ 2. Very nice machine, seems better build then my R1.

If you're mainly an open ground relic hunter the T2, especially a boost model is the better machine due to its outstanding ergonomics and useful all metal mode. (Racer all metal is useless IMO). And a boost model will be deeper. The racer red is a good machine, but struggles on 9" or more minie' balls in my very good ground. It does jump on buttons though. I swear it's as deep on a coat button as a .58

If you're a housite hunter the racer is the better machine. And I will will say overall overall the racer is better at a number of things, it was stellar for for me in wet sand at obx. Depending on model of T2, the racer seems to be more emi friendly. Also the small racer coil is better than anything for T2.

No comment on the racer 2, but like the changes I see. Just wish they gave it a threshold based all metal.

deadlift Wrote:
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>
> No comment on the racer 2, but like the changes I
> see. Just wish they gave it a threshold based all
> metal.

The R2 does have a threshold based All Metal with an iSat feature..

That's right cabin fever I forgot, thanks. My gripe would be it's still (reportedly) no deeper than disc modes so I wouldn't have a use for it in our decent soil.. Alot of us would use thewhites in all metal and check targets in disc mode.

virginia digger,

I acquired a VERY clean 1270 today...

It's TOO EARLY to say [ Which ] is Best? Racer 1 or racer 2...jury's still out...even John Grisham's confused......!!!!!!!!!

But, what I do suspect is in years to come people will say: "The `racer red ' was better?????//?/////?

PROVE ME WRONG EVERYBODY........

Thanks for all the Racer input but how about a comparison to the 1270 and/or Coinstrike. Is there a real gain in anything if I go Racer to T2 other than the costs ?My thought is the 1270 goes very deep and is one of Fisher Labs last great machines. The Coinstrike also goes deep and I do like the digital numbering system. Any negative numbers are iron and positive numbers can be good targets depending where they fall on the scale. With notch and 4 tones it seems to be able to hold its own when coin hunting. Just don't want to be caught up in the new detector fever. That only lasts so long until another machine comes out and gets all the attention.

My feelings are the racer and racer 2 for relic hunting are just about the same, having iron vol is a nice feature but not enough for me to sell the racer 1. Notch don't use it and on iron I dig a lot of it and find nice relics. For those on the fence or want more get the racer 2 you won't look back.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2016 03:33PM by Lawrenzo.

virginia digger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for all the Racer input but how about a
> comparison to the 1270 and/or Coinstrike. Is there
> a real gain in anything if I go Racer to T2 other
> than the costs ?My thought is the 1270 goes very
> deep and is one of Fisher Labs last great
> machines. The Coinstrike also goes deep and I do
> like the digital numbering system. Any negative
> numbers are iron and positive numbers can be good
> targets depending where they fall on the scale.
> With notch and 4 tones it seems to be able to hold
> its own when coin hunting. Just don't want to be
> caught up in the new detector fever. That only
> lasts so long until another machine comes out and
> gets all the attention.

Hard to beat the Coinstrike for coin hunting. Very accurate ID's on deeper co-located targets and pretty solid on older nickels as well.. I used one to clean out an old park after hitting it with the Cz-5.

Tom

Well, I like to boil things down. Having used both the Racer and Racer 2 the main difference is your style. If you want to dig all non-ferrous, the original Racer with its expanded 0-40 ferrous range is the way to go. The Racer 2 expands the non-ferrous end of the equation and as a result compresses the ferrous range into the 0-10 range. This allows for less fine tuning of the break between ferrous and non-ferrous. It also means less resolution in the ferrous range for relic hunters.

The Racer 2 is better for modern park detecting if you like playing with tone schemes and notch settings to go after certain things. I tend to focus on the mid range targets and the Racer 2 has plenty to offer in that regard. To sum up if you just like digging all non-ferrous like LowBoy then I would stick more with original Racer, if you are more concerned with breaking out non-ferrous items into specific ranges or categories, go Racer 2.

Personally I have the Racer 2 and Gold Racer, and that is a bit of a match made in heaven for me. For what I do the Gold Racer is actually my favorite of the three Racers. It is of course a superb prospecting machine but also a jewelry killer. I guess I can never be satisfied because now I want a Racer 3 which has all the Racer 2 features but runs at 56 kHz.

I guess we have it... Racer 3 in the works. Lol
Or is it Racer Gold 2???
I do read your posts Steve, I enjoy them to the fullest.

Steve Herschbach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, I like to boil things down. Having used both
> the Racer and Racer 2 the main difference is your
> style. If you want to dig all non-ferrous, the
> original Racer with its expanded 0-40 ferrous
> range is the way to go. The Racer 2 expands the
> non-ferrous end of the equation and as a result
> compresses the ferrous range into the 0-10 range.
> This allows for less fine tuning of the break
> between ferrous and non-ferrous. It also means
> less resolution in the ferrous range for relic
> hunters.
>
> The Racer 2 is better for modern park detecting if
> you like playing with tone schemes and notch
> settings to go after certain things. I tend to
> focus on the mid range targets and the Racer 2 has
> plenty to offer in that regard. To sum up if you
> just like digging all non-ferrous like LowBoy then
> I would stick more with original Racer, if you are
> more concerned with breaking out non-ferrous items
> into specific ranges or categories, go Racer 2.
>
> Personally I have the Racer 2 and Gold Racer, and
> that is a bit of a match made in heaven for me.
> For what I do the Gold Racer is actually my
> favorite of the three Racers. It is of course a
> superb prospecting machine but also a jewelry
> killer. I guess I can never be satisfied because
> now I want a Racer 3 which has all the Racer 2
> features but runs at 56 kHz.

That is exactly what I thought about one hour in to my first Racer 2 hunt.
Iron audio, and notch would be a nice addition to the Gold Racer.

I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the new smaller iron zone on the R2 though.
I need some more time on it to know for sure.
Just in wheat pennies alone there is about a 14 point spread on the ones I tested at home.
Makes it a lot harder to use the notch and tone break features.
Great audio though. The 2 tone audio Is better then the original Racer.
I think the iron audio is my favorite new feature..

Like you Steve, the Gold Racer is my favorite Makro detector and
I haven't even been out nugget hunting with it yet.
It is so unique.. Nothing out there like it that I know of.
I bought it for nugget hunting but have had success in the parks with it.
Just found my oldest coin, an 1875 2 Pfennig and a V nickel in a small area
that a friend and I have gridded heavily with a CTX, Vi3 and AT Pro.
It loves small jewelry and trinkets too..
Bryan

Bryan,

That is a correct observation in regards to the wheat pennies. On a F75...... they span in ID from '58' - '72'.............. ranging from early dates......... to newer dates. And fairly consistently. Yes, you may find a newer wheat that reads low........ but this is due to excessive corrosion. Early wheats will ID on the low end of 'Zinc' cent.

Quote
deadlift
That's right cabin fever I forgot, thanks. My gripe would be it's still (reportedly) no deeper than disc modes so I wouldn't have a use for it in our decent soil.. Alot of us would use thewhites in all metal and check targets in disc mode.

I read a few reports like that but that hasn't been true in my searches so far. I am headed back out to a ghost ton we've hunted four times this year and it is a mix of decent soil and challenging ground. A high desert area of the Great Basin Desert region with a mix of now plowed pasture and crop land eating up the south half of the town site, and the northern half is a mix of sagebrush and grasses. Away from the dense iron litters areas I have been running the Makro Racer 2 and Nokta FORS Relic in the All Metal mode where you can cover a good 20 to 50 feet and not hear a single target. On the south-side plowed portion, we run either a 5½X10 or 7X11 coil where, again, there is spare trash and infrequent targets.

Saturday I hunted a good size grid and compared the signals of 3-Tione to 2-Tone and then 2-Tone to All Metal mode, all of them using a Gain setting of '85' and the All Metal mode does get a little better depth. On the deepest and weakest responses where 2-Tine was 'iffy' and All Metal was repeatable, I selected the 'DEEP' 2-Tone mode, also at a Gain of '85', and I had better depth and target response than 2-Tone an d it came close to what the All Metal mode does.

Quote
Cabin Fever

Quote
Steve Herschbach
I guess I can never be satisfied because now I want a Racer 3 which has all the Racer 2 features but runs at 56 kHz.

That is exactly what I thought about one hour in to my first Racer 2 hunt. Iron audio, and notch would be a nice addition to the Gold Racer.[/b]

Humm, a thought I have also pondered as well, but for now the Racer 2 is handling most of my Relic Hunting and Coin Hunting needs just fine and is 'complemented'; by the Gold Racer and FORS Gold + and FORS Relic. Still, a more-featured Gold Racer version might be an interesting future model, but I think it will take time for Makro/Nokta folks to monitor the sales activity of the Gold Racer and take into account comments from all users in all regions to see if it warrants a 'new model' addition to their catalog.

Quote
Cabin Fever
I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the new smaller iron zone on the R2 though.
I need some more time on it to know for sure.
Just in wheat pennies alone there is about a 14 point spread on the ones I tested at home.
Makes it a lot harder to use the notch and tone break features.

For Coin Hunting, and really for my Relic Hunting, I definitely like the enhanced Non-Ferrous range of the Nokta Relic ('21' - '99') and Racer 2 ('11'- '99') to give more valuable TID or target Classification information than the more limited range ('41' - '99') on the FORS CoRe, FORS Gold + and Gold Racer models. Very seldom do we really need a broad break-down of a Ferrous-range scale.

As for the improved 'spread' of Target ID numbers, I find it very useful for gold jewelry hunting, and it has the same effect on some US coin categories as well. In the case of the US 1¢ coins, they have been a very diverse mix of metal alloys through the decades, and in a way kind of like gold jewelry or our US silver coins. Not all gold jewelry is the same alloy mix, and even if you take all rings marked 14k you will find a very broad spread for their read-outs. That's caused by the balance of the coin metal alloy mix being made up of so many different metals or percentages of metals. Also the difference in shape of the jewelry and the width, thickness and length or diameter of the objects.

How about out US silver coins? They are supposedly made of 90% silver, but their thickness and diameter causes quite a 'spread' from a Half-Dime to a Dime, a Quarter, a Half and a Dollar. But pennies, oh those blasted and plentiful 1¢ coins we so frequently encounter, they have and even stranger make-up. After the 'fatty' Flying Eagle and Indian Head design they went to the thinner Indian Head 1¢ in 1864. Until the modern Zinc Cent was released in part of 1981, most of the 1¢ coins (Indian Heads, Wheat-Back Lincolns and Memorial-Back Lincolns) were made of 95% copper and various mixes of tin, zinc or both for the remaining 5%.

Before the introduction of the modern Memorial 1¢, I had already been testing a lot of found coins and had noticed than most Indian Heads and many early-era Wheat-Backs, from about 1909 to 1920, could be rejected with a slightly lower setting than required for most healthy and modern copper versions. This was a few years before the introduction of visual Target ID. It was determined just by experimentation with variable Discrimination.

A friend of mine was a detector dealer at his coin shop business so I used not just my detected-and-dug coins in various conditions, but used 'collectors coins' in splendid condition that lacked wear, dirt, patina or any corrosive condition. The result? The same. Some of the Indian Head and early dated Wheaties had a 'proper' or 'anticipated' rejection requirement , but many of the Lincolns tested and most of the Indian Head's gave a lower point of being Discriminated. I confirmed this after we had various brand with visual Target ID was well.

I my Seminar Tote I have about 15 to 20 samples of older Indian Head and early Wheat-Back cents to use in demonstrations, some a little worn and some looking like they were nice appearing and in current circulation. A couple of them have a TID 'read-pit' that is a little lower than a modern Zinc 1¢. No patina or corrosion, and often very little wear, so why the lower readings from these older coins? The answer I have is from my own 'best guess' as well as from thoughts I have had with folks who work in the metals industry.

It can easily be the source of the copper as not all copper is alike, and it can also be the foundry processing of the copper ore and the refining that can leave a varied mix in the 'purity' of the copper. The we factor in the ground mineral environment and have to appreciate the fact that some targets are a challenge to properly ID. The Racer 2 has a very useful Notch Filter for the avid Coin Hunter who loves their urban environment, and I have heard from several already who like this model's Notch system.

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Cabin Fever
Great audio though
The 2 tone audio Is better then the original Racer.
I think the iron audio is my favorite new feature.

I like the Iron Audio Volume, but also the Audio Tone Level adjustment so I can set the tone pitch where I want it in all 2-Tone and 3-Tone modes, and also the Tone Break when hunting older sites in 3-Tone mode where I have Tone Break set at '10' and '65.'

Quote
Cabin Fever
Like you Steve, the Gold Racer is my favorite Makro detector and I haven't even been out nugget hunting with it yet.
It is so unique.. Nothing out there like it that I know of.

The Gold Racer is definitely a 'must have' for many hunting challenges and not only looking for smaller-size Gold Nuggets, where it just happens to excel. One sharp unit for finding smaller size gold jewelry, to be sure. Even hunts up some nice old artifacts when Relic Hunting.

Monte

virginia digger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for all the Racer input but how about a
> comparison to the 1270 and/or Coinstrike. Is there
> a real gain in anything if I go Racer to T2 other
> than the costs ?My thought is the 1270 goes very
> deep and is one of Fisher Labs last great
> machines. The Coinstrike also goes deep and I do
> like the digital numbering system. Any negative
> numbers are iron and positive numbers can be good
> targets depending where they fall on the scale.
> With notch and 4 tones it seems to be able to hold
> its own when coin hunting. Just don't want to be
> caught up in the new detector fever. That only
> lasts so long until another machine comes out and
> gets all the attention.

Hang on to them 2 Fisher's as not being made anymore and can hang with the best of them!

Thanks Tom and Monte for your response to the penny range.
I am aware of the diversity of pennies but was just thinking it was a little bigger than normal range..
My experience is very limited compared to either of you though.
I have only been out once for 3 hours with the Racer 2 so it's too early for final opinions on my part.
I did dig 4 wheat pennies ranging from 1917 to the early 40s with VIDs from mid 60s to 81. (15+ Spread)
3 of the coins were found with the big RC40 coil up to depths of 7" and one was found with the stock coil at 4"..
My CTX puts most wheat pennies in a range of about 36-44.. (8 points) I have probably had a couple drop a little
lower because of extremely depth or sitting next to a nail but that is rare.
My thinking at the time was maybe if they would have shrunk the iron range from 40 to 20 instead of 10 it might have
been the sweet spot for better coin ID.
To be fair I don't think the Racer 2 was designed to be a dedicated coin detector anyway.
More of a farm house, ghost town, relic detector that can sniff good stuff out of heavy trash.
What it lacks in VID it makes up for in audio.
Thanks again.
Bryan

Thanks Harold, I will be keeping the two for a long time. Just don't care for the new machines that are made today. To me, the real Fisher labs doesn't exist anymore. Just the purchase of the name to add to the Bounty Hunter line up. Didn't really want a new machine but also wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything comparing the Mackro Racer to what I already had.

Thanks again,
Mark

The Racer's are good quality units, but there is a bit of hype as well, as should be with product marketing. I'll put the rest of my 2 1/2 cents on the Racer 2 in another thread, but I will say that the Core performed much better for me in iron. If at all possible, try to get your hands on one before spending the money, opinions vary...