MXT and it's Coils

I posted this else where, But I think is is important enough to share here,

This past month I have Bought 4 Whites coils and I have been testing them Doing Air Tests and IN Ground tests and I think a lot of folks look at coils the wrong way, In the past people have come to rely on DD's swearing that in ground that reads from the mid 50 to the mid 60s that they have to have a DD when this is not the case,

There are a few things that I have found out, As I have said before some of Whites concentric coils will lower the ground balance setting by a fair margin and because of their small foot print you can get away with using them in hot ground,

This past month I bought the 6x10 (5x9) Eclipse DD and the 4x6 DD Shooter and the 5.3 (6 inch) Eclipse round Concentric and today (10/8/16) I got the X pattern 950 Eclipse Concentric, When I compared the 6x10 to the standard 10"DD in and air test on coins it looses about 2 to 2.5 inches to the 10" DD, and on bits of lead weighing 0.02 grams they were both equal, The 4x6 shooter looses about 4 to 5 inches in the Air to the 10" DD on Coins but see's the 0.02gram bit at the same distance, Now I have never understood what all the fuss was about with that 4x6 because a heck of a lot of people use them, but I have always thought of it as a Dog of a thing,

Anyways, had to order another set of Scales because I need some that had a 5 1/2 digit read out because although I already have 3 sets and one set being worth about $1400.00 they still did not go down low enough, Having read GSA's story about the MXT and the 5.3 coil I thought I would give it a another try because I have always had a 5.3 up until about 4 years ago. And I have to admit is what GSA say about that setup is 100% correct and then some.

So now it was time to start testing the 5.3 (6") concentric, This is where things really made a difference, Once fitted to the MXT A/P I cranked up the gain (As Before) and now the MXT is seeing bits well into GMT, GB II and GR Territory on Very Tiny bits and on a US Quarter it see's then at the same distance as the 10" DD depending what mode I use, So after some head scratching I thought I would take the whole setup out side and see what faint targets I could find,

The builders replaced the Lead on the roof and from around the windows here about 2 years ago, So you can imagine what I found, Anyways I got this soft target come through the head phones after about 30 minutes and when I worked out exactly where it was it then took me another 20 minutes on my hands and knees to find It with a 10x power magnifying glass, So once I had it safe it was back indoors to clean it and weight it, It turns out to be the Tiniest piece of metal/Lead I have ever found with a VLF as in the VLF range Not LF machine,

As some of you know I made my GMT as hot as the GB II if not more so just by adding the GM II coil to it and That also lowered the GB setting too, So that was another bonus, and it is a lot hotter than the 4x6 shooter when fitted on the GMT and it see's Extremely tiny targets at 3 X the distance that the Factory Twin "D" coil does. As in bits that can't be weighed the size of a piece of Glitter,

Anyway back to the MXT A/P and the 5.3 Coil, That bit I found was about 3/4" Deep in the ground, so I got out the new scales and calibrated them to make sure they were spot On

AND.... It weighed 0.00019 ozt, or 0.0925 grains, or 0.006 grams.

Now in my books that is pretty good going for a VLF regardless of the brand, And in the Air that coil can see a bit weighing 0.10 grams at about 2 to 3 inches depending on the EMI.

If you happen to own an MXT then the 5.3 coil has many other uses and it can hit coins in to the 7 to 10" inch range In the Ground and it is a real Gem in junk filled ground, truly I think that the 4x6 is a dog of a thing in comparison,

And another thing about the 10" DD and the 950 coils,,, we always see people testing two such coils comparing them together, and folks complain that the 950 is not a fair comparison because it is a concentric, well these two coils break the rules, because the 950 will see 0.03 bits at about 3 to 4" inches where as the 10" DD will see them at about 2 to 3" max depending on the EMI,, Yet once the Items get up around 1.00gm they start to become equal and when they get up to 1.89 gram they are equal and then after that the 10" DD starts to pull away ever so slightly and as things get larger the 10" DD begins to Rule the roost, So what ever Whites did to that 10" DD it is really not normal and it breaks all the rules. Which is a bonus for Prospecting because of the hot ground etc,

I Air tested these 1.00 gram and 1.89 gram pieces and they were really out there a person would be happy to get half that distance in hot ground.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2016 07:09PM by auminesweeper.

Thanks for the report and yes the 5.3 coil is a winner!

A very good indepth review,like yourself currently have the 5.3 coil mounted on my DFX,mainly for the stiff stubble after the harvest,but after cranking the AC up its getting some very good depths for its size.

Cannot comment about the 4x6 coil as that is the only one that i have never tried,my other coil that i mainly use is the 12'' Hotshot coil which is also a concentric coil,thats a deep coil and works well on the DFX on pasture sites.

Watch this Vid I did a few years ago MXT Pro..

DD coils..

Concentric's on a MXT around here are almost to the point of making you go crazy from all the falsing in my soil..I live in the gold belt...

[www.youtube.com]

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Watch this Vid I did a few years ago MXT Pro..
>
> DD coils..
>
> Concentric's on a MXT around here are almost to
> the point of making you go crazy from all the
> falsing in my soil..I live in the gold belt...
>
> [www.youtube.com]
>
> Keith

Thanks for that Keith,

It is pretty amazing how that coil see's through the Brick and unmasks the coin, I know they use the MXTs for prospecting in hot ground, I used it in Australia and a friend took it way out in the Deep Red Dirt in the bush in OZ and he did find Gold with it in a place where his 4500 did not fare well because of all the junk and he did find Gold with it.

So from what your video is saying and with my tests I am wondering are those Whites coils too hot for Hot Ground,??

The reason I ask is because the 6x10 seems to be trying to blend the signal of the Brick and the Coin.

I had owned the 5.3 before but I read this story from Australia a few years back and I came across it a month back and I thought I would try and push it a bit further, because they used the 5.3 in hot ground and did find Gold, [www.goldsearchaustralia.com]

Keith have you have a chance to try the 10x12 SEF or any of the 3 bigger ones at all ?

Thanks again, Great Video.,

John



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2016 02:57AM by auminesweeper.

I really like the 10x12 SEF on the MXT in my soil..

Again it will hold the allmetal threshold steady in my soil..

And by doing so I can monitor the all metal channel easier and it alerts me to dig the real deepies out of the range of the disc mode..

I have dug minnie balls well past a foot in bad soil with the 10x12 SEF in this red clay..they just waver the threshold ..then when I cut the cake and get close enough to the target the Disc will start to signal good or bad..

Smooth deep coil in funky dirt!

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I really like the 10x12 SEF on the MXT in my
> soil..
>
> Again it will hold the allmetal threshold steady
> in my soil..
>
> And by doing so I can monitor the all metal
> channel easier and it alerts me to dig the real
> deepies out of the range of the disc mode..
>
> I have dug minnie balls well past a foot in bad
> soil with the 10x12 SEF in this red clay..they
> just waver the threshold ..then when I cut the
> cake and get close enough to the target the Disc
> will start to signal good or bad..
>
> Smooth deep coil in funky dirt!
>
> Keith

Thanks Keith, that's great,

Did you have to reduce the Gain compared to using the Whites Coils of can you still run the higher gain settings

Thanks again

John.

The SEF8x6 coil that has been mentioned on the MXT is also very good on the DFX,i used the 10x6 coil for years then tried the small SEF coil and overall performance is much better,when the stubble has finally rotted away will probably put the SEF8x6 coil back on again for general use.

Never used a SEF12x10 on my DFX but i have on the T2 and its one of my favourite coil brands,at the moment i have the larger SEF15x12 coil on the T2,that is not only very deep but still very sensitive on small finds as well,great at pinpointing and will stay on the T2 over winter probably as i will be using the detector alot on pasture or deep ploughed and rolled sites.,another bonus i like for a 15'' coil its pretty light as well,not in the same league weight wise as the white T2 15'' boat anchor coil.

Here is another part of the first post,

It is a well know fact that Concentric Coils of equal size have more depth than DD's and Air Test around 2 to 4 inches deeper and knowing this was the reason behind buying the 950 Coil, The 950 is a lot more sensitive to tiny items but on coin sized items and nuggets over a certain size the 10" DD pulls ahead and although this is not the result I was looking for, It has an up side to it in that I have the Depth of the Concentric but in a DD format which is good where the ground starts to heat up.

When I tested the 12" Concentric, I found that it had a 2 to 3 inches depth increase compared to the 950 Coil and the 950 will pull Coins from between 11 to 13 inches where 10 to 12" is a common occurrence, And I have actually seen the 12" Coil pull coins from a measured 13 and a half inches with the Gain set on 6.5 to 6.7. The 12" Should add another 1 to 3 inches over the 10" DD although some of that will be lost in the ground.

The 10"DD can see your bare hand between 4 to 6 inches and Air Tests on larger targets at huge distances, So even if it losses 50% of that depth in the ground then it is still going to be very deep, And using this Coil In the Prospecting Mode will give even the best PI's a run for there money in normal Ground the 12" Concentric will without a doubt.

The 6x10 Eclipse Coil is a nice Coil but it looses about 1.5 to 2 inches In Air when compared to the 10" DD using a US Quarter and on UK coins that can be a bit more. It is a good Coil for poking around it the wood and rocky places, But because of the depth difference between it and other Coils I tend not to use the 6x10 and when I do it is only when detecting in tight places, But it is still a great Coil and it was seeing what the 6x10 and the MXT can do that made me want an MXT in the first place and they are an impressive pair.

In all the years that I have been using and testing the MXT's I have never owned the 4x6 Shooter Coil, to me it always seemed stupidly small and is equal to a 5" round DD, Anyway I caved in and about one this past month and every thing I thought about it has come true, It lacks depth and covers very little ground and it has the same sensitivity of all the other DD's, So for Prospecting it offers Nothing apart from being able to fit in tight places and for a Coils so small it is quite solid weighing 398.99 grams which does not sound like much but for it's size out of all the Coils it really feels like a Brick in your hand, and when it come to nuggets, what the 4x6 see's at 1 inch the 5.3 will see at 3 inches and on a US Quarter it looses a good few inches,

When it come to the 5.3 (6") Concentric Coil, it has the depth in most cases that rivals the 6x10 DD Eclipse and again on tiny bits, what the 6x10 see's at 1 inch the 5.3 will see at 3 inches and it can see bits a lot smaller down to the size of a grain of Sugar and then some and I have No Doubts that it will see bits half the size I have listed in my first post and no doubt before long I will attempt to find out how small it will go,

One Coil I have owned and never took to is the 8x14, people claim it is heavy and prefer to use after market coils when it comes to coils of this size, Last year I bought one of the Whites 8x14 Sierra Max Concentric Coils second hand from the US Which was made for the GMT/ Goldmaster series, They don't make them anymore and I think that they have just stopped making the DD versions for the GMT and the MXT series.

Knowing what a huge difference the GM II Longscan Coil made to my GMT, I decided to buy the 8x14 Sierra Max and to my shock it was not as hot as the standard GMT Twin "D" Coil and I was expecting huge depth increases, But to be honest even in Air tests I could not see any difference on normal sized Items, The Concentric Sierra Max Coil is White in colour where as the DD versions for the GMT and the MXTs are Black,

It is common knowledge that larger Coils loose sensitivity to small Items but that is not always the case as I found out when I bought the 15" Concentric MXT Max Coil, It will easily find things 3 or 4 feet deep and no doubt it will go a lot deeper, But at the other end of the scale it can see bits smaller than 0.02grams. The only down side to it is it weighs 1047.78 grams including the lead and the plug, To say it has depth is an understatement, heaven forbid if it ever locks on to a big/large target at depth.

All the coils have some really good merits except the 4x6 and the 8x14 and the only time I would use the 4x6 is in tight spaces and the 8x14 seems to draw a blank with me.

John.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2016 02:39PM by auminesweeper.

I thought Keith really liked the 4X6 in his tests.

D&P-OR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought Keith really liked the 4X6 in his tests.

Yeah He did and he is very well versed in the MXT and it's habits, But the 5.3 is a lot hotter on small nuggets and it see's them further, The thing is Gold is hard enough to find as it is, So seeing as it see's bits at 3 inches plus and the 4x6 see's them at one inch or less and the fact that it can see smaller bits makes it the better option and It does work in the Dark Red Dirt in Australia in places the render VLFs useless makes it a viable option, So many folks hear the word concentric and instantly close their minds to even thinking about using one,

So Imagine This for a second, You have a 10"DD now make in to a 10" Square 10x10 = 100 square inches, Now do the same with the 5.3 6" coil 6x6 = 36 Square inches, Now by using a 6" coil you are Reducing the picture of the Ground that the Detector has to deal with or see's by 64% and with the 6x10 = 60 square inches So by using the 5.3 (6") you are reducing that picture by 43.75%. which will help you run higher Gain setting in hot ground, And with the 4x6 it would equal 24 square inches which is even better But you are loosing 3x the depth on tiny targets and you are missing even smaller targets the 4x6 can not see.

People should do what ever they feel is right for them, But I would never of found that piece of lead with the 4x6 coil, Now If I was in Gold baring Country I would have to ask my self ? Am I prepared to give up Such an Advantage or risk finding nothing at All.

When you crank up the Gain on the MXT with that Coil it will see nuggets a lot smaller than has been put in any reports that I have read about which is why I posted it here because then hopefully people can pull it apart,

I have seen Keith's Nugget Test with the 4x6 Shooter Coil, But I would like to see him do the same test with the 5.3 Coil, Because in the Prospecting mode if you use the MXT like you would with the GPX 5000 etc, and listen for the rise in Threshold and not the Zip Zip and train your Ear to such signals then you will hear much deeper smaller Targets, You should also use this method when you are using one of the Mixed Mode Audio Settings because it is the key to maximizing the full depth abilities of the MXT and the GMT,

When Whites did that Video where they were promoting the MXS and they said that the MXT only see's/hears the Quarter at 10 and a half inches is rubbish because mine see's it at 12 and a half to 13" plus inches But put the MXT in either the Mixed Modes or the Prospecting Mode and you will hear it signal all the way out to 19 to 22 Inches depending on the Coil and the same with Gold rings, about 95% of people maybe more who own an MXT only Dig when it bleeps and they do not realize that by using the Mixed Mode Audio or the Prospecting mode and training your Ears to hear it that they are missing out on a 100%+ Depth increase and up to 200% more depth with the right coil combination, Which is partly why Keith said that the MXT is prolly the Best All Round detectors ever made,

What I have written here is not set in stone, It is just to show folks other options at the same time as pointing out the Bonus and pitfalls of the coils I have Tested.

HH,

John. .



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2016 04:47PM by auminesweeper.

with the 6x8 sef and 10x12 sef I can run the gain plus 3..

outstanding coils..

the 10x12 is just a Beast on depth also..

i can run the 950 in my soil it blows back on the all metal side too much..

the 5.3 can work well as I just use it for site work..and it does have good unmasking ability..Yet I also found for site work the 5.3 identifies iron too good..and by that I mean it caused me to miss some of the tin back buttons and such as it identifies them as iron better than the DD..

A rule of thumb for a relic hunter ..you want a machine to dig tin...but just don't hutn a site ful of tin with that unit...there's a good bit of stuff in the relic world that will read like tin especially co-locates and especially certain buttons..and I want those buttons..

I like to run MXT in relic mode...and to do that the mixed allmetal and disc I like to keep that all metal channel as smooth as I can ,,the SEF coils allow that for me here..I want to here those deeper than disc report items cleanly..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> with the 6x8 sef and 10x12 sef I can run the
> gain plus 3..
>
> outstanding coils..
>
> the 10x12 is just a Beast on depth also..
>
> i can run the 950 in my soil it blows back on the
> all metal side too much..
>
> the 5.3 can work well as I just use it for site
> work..and it does have good unmasking ability..Yet
> I also found for site work the 5.3 identifies iron
> too good..and by that I mean it caused me to miss
> some of the tin back buttons and such as it
> identifies them as iron better than the DD..
>
> A rule of thumb for a relic hunter ..you want a
> machine to dig tin...but just don't hutn a site
> ful of tin with that unit...there's a good bit of
> stuff in the relic world that will read like tin
> especially co-locates and especially certain
> buttons..and I want those buttons..
>
> I like to run MXT in relic mode...and to do that
> the mixed allmetal and disc I like to keep that
> all metal channel as smooth as I can ,,the SEF
> coils allow that for me here..I want to here those
> deeper than disc report items cleanly..
>
> Keith

Yeah Keith, Sounds like you have really got your Relic Hunting down to a fine Art, I might add a couple of those SEF's to the Kit, They did not have a noticeable effect on the Sovereign GT, But in saying that In all fairness when I bought the 10x12 ,12x15 and the 21x18 that was when they had only been on the market for a year or So, And I would have thought that they would of Ironed out all the Wrinkles by now, Or Maybe the SEF Coils Run in High Gear on a Single frequency machine, But what ever the reason I know that they are doing good things on the Coil Front.

Keith, How deep has your MXT made you dig for a target ? I should imagine it gives you a good workout on some of those bigger Relics,

HH,

John.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2016 06:52PM by auminesweeper.