Explorer SE in the red iron bearing clay of Virginia

Tom do you have any facts about the Explorer SE in the hot ground of Virginia or else where?
Opinion of how well it might stack up against the F75 LTD in the hot ground of Virginia.

Mark........yes. And somewhere on this long forum, I've posted some fairly extensive results. But...... in a nutshell: In severe red clay lateritic iron oxide Georgia soil (Lake Oconee area).....the Explorer-II and SE were clearly the trump card. One particular area..... the CZ and F75 went into bell-tone/warble overload at 11" above the ground. A dime laying on the surface could not be detected. The Minelab could have it's coil about 3" above the ground.....swept over the dime.......and detect the dime. Digging a 1" deep hole.......placing the dime in this 1" deep divit/hole.....and NOT covering the dime with any dirt....... and the Explorer would NOT detect the dime. This is how bad some of the soils can be. (I sent a sample of some Georgia red dirt to Dave J and John G......not quite as bad as this....but fairly close). ,,,,,,,, Normally, in most cases, I would recommend the F75; but, this is a case that I would strongly recommend the Explorer. It is a much slower microprocessor; yet, can handle the bad dirt better than any other VLF induction-balance detector. A PI will trump the Explorer..... and by a wide margin; yet, the PI has no ID......or.....at best...... a 'unique twist' ID ability.

I live in the Upstate of South Carolina where our dirt is solid red clay below 1", but obviously of a different composition compared to what is seen next door in Georgia or encountered in Virginia. In my test bed I found that my Explorer-II w/Pro coil slightly trumped my original F75 on deep silver but my F75 LTD was superior in finding that same deep silver, in all moisture conditions, when run in BP mode. When I determined that the LTD was repeatedly superior, I sold the Ex-II.

My Ace 250 could find a silver dime buried at 6" in all conditions, but rarely the 7" dime. Pretty impressive for a $150 machine...

Your dirt is probably 'right-at'............if not 'very close'..........to where the proverbial tables start to turn. Slightly 'hotter' dirt....... and the Minelab will trump. This leads me to recommend........especially for you.........to "test-garden" test each detector (especially before you buy).... and/or before you hunt.

Absolutely!

That limits my selection to clean, used machines, but that's fine by me. The depreciation is so much less upon resale.

Bump