Best Detector for Extreme Depth and can handle some Iron, minimal trash

If you had a site that had its share of iron but most targets where deep 10 plus inches which detector would you use? Not really that much trash either. Etracs and CZ3D are at there limits need more depth.

1. Blisstool - can it kill enough Iron to be useful?
2. Whites TDI
3. Garretts Infinium - low-high tone tells you it is medium or above conductor.
4. Somthing Else?

The really good stuff is deep often greater then 10 inches. The Site does have its share of Iron not crazy but still a lot. Looking for old Silver is the goal. My hit some Gold and Silver rings along the way.

Bryanna

Very perceptive. Welcome to the real world!

(((You can add the F75-SE to the E-Trac/CZ-3D list)))

Blisstool for sure = #1 pick. Once you can pick the "mellow" sound apart from the raspy and sharper sounding targets, it is indeed an iron killing, deep seeking VLF machine. I hunted about 8 hours with mine last night at the same site I hunted last week where I was digging so much iron. After getting the mellow sound in my head, I was able to go back in there and hunt that long and only dug 2 nail like iron objects....one is a square nail that ain't a bit rusty and not entirely sure that it's even iron. My buddy's T2 also liked it before I dug it. The other was a non iron fence steeple...one of those U shaped things. I only dug 2 drop minie balls and a button, but filled my pouch last night with melted "camp lead" blobs. We were in the right spot....just it had been picked over pretty good by other folks in the past. I dug enough camp lead to cast mold about 100 minie balls lol.

The TDI is good but has a learning curve to the sounds of it as well. I know people with well over 100 hours of use on it that still can't tell a high conductive target from a nail. I had one particular TDI that something was different about it than the other ones that I've had....almost anybody could tell the difference in sound on it, between a nail and say a minie ball...which would read as high conductive target on it. On some of the newer ones I've ran and helped set up...whatever they are doing with them now, makes it extemely hard to cipher the difference between the two objects with VERY similar sound.

No Magic I guess Tom. So the Kings do not have enough horses to get past that 10 inch dirt floor. I will also add the CTX3030 because for the most part no one is saying it is deeper then the Etrac. I guess that is why I added Some PI detectors to the List but Discrimination is not their forte as we know. Maybe a Minelab GPX machine but that is a lot of money and I am guessing a lot of Iron Digging. From what Daniel is saying maybe the Blisstool has enough punch to push the floor down a inch or two with out becoming an Iron Maiden. Would love to give one a swing in this site. Would be very telling for sure.

Daniel - planning on visiting Nebraska this Summer - Hint Hint!

Bryanna

No the GPX isn't as bad as you might think. It gets a bad wrap for an iron digger..mostly by people who have never used them or if they have, it wasn't for very long. It is the more user friendly PI machine on the market. The ONLY downside to the GPX is the price. It comes stock with a 11" DD coil and an 11" mono coil...the mono coils you CANNOT discriminate with...only the DD coils can utilize that on the GPX machines. The 11" coil is really too big for a very trashy site...thus a good smaller DD coil makes a big difference. I had the 6x10 DD Joey coil by CoilTek and was digging Civil War bullets and buttons down to 12 inches with it...with gain cut back to minimum to further help pick goodies from the trash. In one of my videos I dug an eagle breastplate with that very combination in a camp littered with iron from hut sites and such and it was a little over a foot deep. I initially started digging it thinking it was a bullet at just 6-7 inches deep from the signal it gave. With it...you can tell a low conductive target from a high conductive target by the two tones it gives...they are reverse what you would think they would be. It gives a low tone for high conductive things like coins...and a high tone for low conductors like foils, pull tabs, etc. The Bliss just gives one tone for all signals...albeit you can get an ear for hearing the difference between raspy and smooth....but really nothing to set apart a coin from a pulltab, etc.

Between the Bliss and GPX...that would be a hard choice if I had an infinate amout of money. I would probably have to go with the GPX if that were the case...and if they come out with a smaller coil for the Bliss...then it would take over as #1 because it has a faster processor anyway. But with money being the determining factor...the Bliss wins hands down. No trips to Nebraska planned lol Although one of these days I'm gonna go on a vacation and do some touring of those states across the Mississippi River....having been here 30 years, I've only been across the Mississippi one time in my life, and that was just to St. Louis, Missouri...right across the river.

Start removing the iron signals from the site...Work the larger iron first...try to get as much out of the way as you can...Slowly hunt it till you get it down to just nail rejection...A simple machine will do this for you...just get a full range discriminator...

One of my favorite machines to work iron down till you get to small iron is a whites MXT...Put the disc on the machine at nail reject and dig it all till you get down to it quites producing then see what you have come up with...
It uses all metal and disc at the same time...set it to nail reject,, Disc at 2..or a hair below Work all the big iron out of the way..you will be surprised at what you start hearing the more you sanitize the bigger iron...

You can always go further even from that point when it's just nails left masking but it takes a specialized detector for sure..F75S.E./T2S.E...GMP/DEUS...Tejon are the best I have encountered in unmasking in nails to a final degree stage ..

I would not recommend a TDI in iron if you dont know the in's and out's of a ground balancing pulse machine..or even a Infinium...Pulse works their best in severe mineral's and actually remove alot of nails from the audio if the ground is bad enough...But in medium ground or less.. unless it's an area void of alot of nails it can be cumbersome...


I keep a TDI on hand for specialized hunting but not every day hunting...I see it as an total site analyzer..



the key is patience and time and consistency...

Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2012 07:47PM by Keith Southern.

So not even the MIGHTY F75-SE

I edited the post Gov!!

I left out the S.E. Abbreviation...not on purpose just so used to it being the norm now I dont think about it...

Theres a few more unmasker's I like too...One is a 1236 Fisher with the silencer turned off i ..nail reject setting really like coin's in iron.It found me 2 coins in iron nails I never thought I would find
A Lobo S.T. works awfully well too at unmasking..not quite a depth demon but has a broad nail reject area...

I Can say this though..

A Tejon for me will unmask in iron real well in real world hunt's...

I Know I mention the DEUS/GMP alot but I have personally seen the Tejon in the dirt nail infested site's compete on a level field with them...It just lacks an iron grunt....Tejon has a special language...it's all about ticks Vs spit's with that machine...Never under estimate it...


Keith

Iron is a issue but not that big of an issue. The bigger issue is the coins are old and deep very deep. The soil and iron make 10 inches very iffy even for the Etrac and the CZ3D. So more then anything this site needs depth and some iron discrimination or at least some way to tell iron from higher conductors. If you could eliminate the middle conductors that would be great as well because most of what you seek is silver coins. The area is also very large so you have a lot of ground to cover we are talking lots and lots of land mostly grass. Again trash is not much of an issue.

Still sounds like Daniel or at least his Blisstool needs a trip to Nebraska

Well if you just want the High coin's...The TDI will do that......and dig very very little iron...

One neat thing about the TDI is you can manipulate the ground balance CCW towards a setting of about 4 and flip the conductivity switch into high and most all iron will be gone from the audio...also pulltabs crowns caps zinc pennies gone too... just high coins will come in...

It looses depth on the coins like this but it will still pick up a 10 inch coin in the ground....It very fascinating to hunt for high coins with the TDI with it set like this.. very quite and unmask to a degree very well..It's still bound to the laws of physics but it works great just for this desirdr purpose...there's quite a few people who silver hunt witha TDI just for this reason..Basically all it will hit is high coin's copper on up....listen for the smoother deeper sounds not the surface overlaods sound's.

plus a Pulse machien will open up a whole new world of detector exploration to you...

I can make a video for you if you like ....it might take a few days to get it up but I can if you like so you can see what it is capable of..Very astounding

Keith

Wow if you're TDI can still pick a coin up at 10" set like that, you better hang onto it. All it really does is change the break over point of the nails/iron and makes it change to a high tone while coins still give a low tone...since you can have only one audio channel selected, you don't hear the high tone the nails now give but can hear the low tones of the remaining high conductors. I've had 4 of the original TDI machines, one TDI Pro, and one TDI SL. I've NEVER seen one get more than say 5 inches of depth on coins or bullets with it set that way, of all the ones I've owned and of the 100+ or so I've helped teach classes with at the DIV hunts, in the classes and in the field at the actual hunts. It does work but the depth is not there. Thus is the catch to it if you will...you can in a sorts "disc out" nails and still get coins/bullets/plates. BUT you lose 3/4 of the depth you normally could get with it balanced correct. I've had it with stock 12" coil and all the way up to a 14" mono coil, and 12x15" DD. There is a bit of better iron recognition with DD coils on it but they aren't as deep seeking as the Mono design coils on it. Even still, with a 14" mono and the GB set to around 4....I've never seen one that could nab a coin at 10". You'd better keep that one....that's just a few inches shy of what to expect out of one with it set at 10 micro seconds and 8.5-9 GB.

yeah I have a dime at 10 inches at it will hear it but its a whisper but repeatable...I have to run the gain wide open but with 1 tone muted it is pretty dang quite wide open even in yards it is very smooth...

its an early TDI not a black knob but right after that ..

runs really smooth for some reason...

On G.B. 8 it will hear the dime out to about 15 inches in a little warble sound...but then then iron sound good too...LOL!!

Seems to loose about a third of it's depth on coins when in G.B. 3...But wont even hear a 3 ringer there...

whats funny though Is if I creep it up enough to like 4.5 to hear a .58 caliber minnie the nails wreak havoc on me so it really a no go for deep bullet hunting unless you can go back up to 8 or 9 on the G.B...but bullet's like to read at zinc and to get the best performance out of it for deep silver coins without digging everything else the g.b. of 3 seems to be the sweet spot..


If the conductivity switch was not selectable in would still be a nightmare thats for sure...

Keith

Maybe look into a new coil for your safari.

Got an SEF 15x12 in an airlest it was adding about an inch but boy is it a boat anchor to swing. I may be permeantly disabled from my first 2 hour hunt with it. Kind of wishing I had got the Coiltech WOT coil I sure looks lighter.

Bryanna

I have a park with a similar situation. Waiting for the Blisstool folks to add modulation to their units so I can hunt depth and ignore all the trash on top.

I don't hear much discussion about the SPI MX 3. Is it not a the real deal?
[www.youtube.com]

P.I. with multi-tone?

Pinpoint twice, dig once

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well if you just want the High coin's...The TDI
> will do that......and dig very very little
> iron...
>
> One neat thing about the TDI is you can manipulate
> the ground balance CCW towards a setting of about
> 4 and flip the conductivity switch into high and
> most all iron will be gone from the audio...also
> pulltabs crowns caps zinc pennies gone too... just
> high coins will come in...
>
> It looses depth on the coins like this but it will
> still pick up a 10 inch coin in the ground....It
> very fascinating to hunt for high coins with the
> TDI with it set like this.. very quite and unmask
> to a degree very well..It's still bound to the
> laws of physics but it works great just for this
> desirdr purpose...there's quite a few people who
> silver hunt witha TDI just for this
> reason..Basically all it will hit is high coin's
> copper on up....listen for the smoother deeper
> sounds not the surface overlaods sound's.
>
> plus a Pulse machien will open up a whole new
> world of detector exploration to you...
>
> I can make a video for you if you like ....it
> might take a few days to get it up but I can if
> you like so you can see what it is capable
> of..Very astounding
>
> Keith


wow this is fascinating! was never "aware" that tdi's
could discriminate! thought all pulse detectors electronically
"see" everything! wow what an eye opener,and STILL get down 10"?
gotta check into this! i musta been livin' under a rock!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow if you're TDI can still pick a coin up at 10"
> set like that, you better hang onto it. All it
> really does is change the break over point of the
> nails/iron and makes it change to a high tone
> while coins still give a low tone...since you can
> have only one audio channel selected, you don't
> hear the high tone the nails now give but can hear
> the low tones of the remaining high conductors.
> I've had 4 of the original TDI machines, one TDI
> Pro, and one TDI SL. I've NEVER seen one get more
> than say 5 inches of depth on coins or bullets
> with it set that way, of all the ones I've owned
> and of the 100+ or so I've helped teach classes
> with at the DIV hunts, in the classes and in the
> field at the actual hunts. It does work but the
> depth is not there. Thus is the catch to it if you
> will...you can in a sorts "disc out" nails and
> still get coins/bullets/plates. BUT you lose 3/4
> of the depth you normally could get with it
> balanced correct. I've had it with stock 12" coil
> and all the way up to a 14" mono coil, and 12x15"
> DD. There is a bit of better iron recognition
> with DD coils on it but they aren't as deep
> seeking as the Mono design coils on it. Even
> still, with a 14" mono and the GB set to around
> 4....I've never seen one that could nab a coin at
> 10". You'd better keep that one....that's just a
> few inches shy of what to expect out of one with
> it set at 10 micro seconds and 8.5-9 GB.


had to be somethin that wasn't quite right!
very good post!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

Bryannagirl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Iron is a issue but not that big of an issue. The
> bigger issue is the coins are old and deep very
> deep. The soil and iron make 10 inches very iffy
> even for the Etrac and the CZ3D. So more then
> anything this site needs depth and some iron
> discrimination or at least some way to tell iron
> from higher conductors.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I don't get it. How do you know most of the good stuff is 10" deep or better?
Did you do an ultrasound of the ground?
Most silver I found is on average 5" deep.

Stay tuned!!!

Bryanna your problem is a Safari is not an Explorer and does not have its abilities basically a user friendly version of the Explorer but don't expect the depth of an Explorer with it.

Your experience with a Safari is certainly limited and you could swing a garbage can lid on it and not get the depth of an experienced Safari user..

Rome wasn't built in a day and its takes time with these new fangled units to get the best out of them and just because you have one of them in your hand doesn't mean you will get superior depth until you put a lot of time with it in the field.

Certainly not knocking you down but the fellow killing them with depth at the old golf course is an experienced CZ user and well your just not going to get CZ depth out of a Safari...especially being sort of a newbie with this unit as you just bought recently and might take weeks or months to become proficient with.

All goes back to the nut behind the wheel not the size of your coil...

Coilfishing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't get it. How do you know most of the good
> stuff is 10" deep or better?
> Did you do an ultrasound of the ground?
> Most silver I found is on average 5" deep.


Coil,

I don't know about Bryannagirl, but it's not that hard to discern that fact. In my park, I am finding Mercs from the 40's 8-9 inches down. At the 10-11'' level I find large targets from the 20's and 30's (3 merry widows tin for example). The park was opened in 1901 and was very popular from that date to the 1960's. I thus surmise that the early Mercs and Barbers lie below the 9'' mark.

I also find silver shallower than the 8-9 level but it's mostly Rosies and Franklin's.

Pinpoint twice, dig once

This is a quote from my post earlier [www.dankowskidetectors.com] about hunting this same old golf course...

"I shouldn't be complaining but sometime... sooner than later I hope... I can get a detector that goes deeper.
10 1/2" on a dime takes super concentration (an some luck) in our dirt. Even with a 12 1/2" loop. It is
about the limit of this CZ-3D. The course has undergone several relandscaping/resoding projects over the years.
I've dug up aluminum can slaw well over a foot deep in there... that ain't normal! Found part of an old broken sprinkler
head yesterday at over a foot and a half deep... that ain't normal either. Several times in different areas I'll dig
down 4/5/6 inches and run into that plastic landcaping netting. Add to that a golf course gets mowed often. Think
of all the grass clippings that have piled up and turned to dirt over the years. There are a LOT of coins in there lost
to the depths (and of course masking). The SHALLOWEST silver coin for me in there has been 6". With 7 to 8 inches
being the average. I surely pondered the Blisstool. And although there is not a heck of a lot of non ferrous trash, there
IS enough to take the Bliss out of contention. I'm too old to dig every non ferrous signal. Although there is just a small
handfull of people who know about this place a couple are VERY experienced. A few use Minelabs with various sized
loops, a Whites V3ii user, Garrett AT Pro... to be honest my CZ-3D finds more there. We have compared finds at the
end of the day a couple times. I've easily outhunted them. So to me, at least right now, for this spot: no advantage going
to any Minelab/Whites/Garrett for the deep coins here. Bryannagirl mentioned getting a F-75. I've never used one/or even
saw one in use, so I don't know. Would it work better here? And the Deus sounds nice. But I just don't think it goes deep
enough for this situation. Think I'll just wait on the new Fisher, who knows?

Or I could do what my 30 year old son suggested (he has a CZ-3D also, and is in good shape):
Buy a Blisstool. I swing the detector. He digs. We find out what is REALLY hiding there"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was there again 2 days ago and found 11 silvers in 4 hours, same situation, all very deep.

Keith -- ahh that explains it....I have seen some of the first generation ones that seemed to be a heck of a lot more sensitive than the current models. Carl said they have continued to evolve the platform to make it smoother running....thus smoother running usually means less sensitive. Some of the early ones can't even be hunted with at Max gain...too unstable. The last three that I had....you could run gain wide open and they run smooth. The SL is the newest generation of it but I liked it the least.

are you talking a pulse?
they CAN discriminate?
wasn't aware of that! thanks!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

pulltabMiner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Coilfishing Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > I don't get it. How do you know most of the
> good
> > stuff is 10" deep or better?
> > Did you do an ultrasound of the ground?
> > Most silver I found is on average 5" deep.
>
>
> Coil,
>
> I don't know about Bryannagirl, but it's not that
> hard to discern that fact. In my park, I am
> finding Mercs from the 40's 8-9 inches down. At
> the 10-11'' level I find large targets from the
> 20's and 30's (3 merry widows tin for example).
> The park was opened in 1901 and was very popular
> from that date to the 1960's. I thus surmise that
> the early Mercs and Barbers lie below the 9''
> mark.
>
> I also find silver shallower than the 8-9 level
> but it's mostly Rosies and Franklin's.

Good point. While it may be true that most coins are not that deep, it really depends on the spot AND we don't really know. Most posts seem to say that most older coins are found in that 4" - 8" range. But, the question I still have is, out of all those detectorists, how deep do their detectors go? How good are the detectorists to hear those faint sounds? I have a strong feeling that what you say regarding depth is true of MANY locations - I'm not sure if it's true of most locations, but I wouldn't be shocked one way or the other.

Separation may be the game these days, but only because VLF machines don't seem to go much beyond the 11" or so mark (outside of the Bliss).

My point is, unless we are using machines that do indeed go down to 12" or beyond, how can we really say how deep the coins (or targets) are with any certainty at any particular spot? (In some ground targets just don't seem deep, but outside of hard or tough ground...)

Albert

I am not the only one hunting the site, most finds of silver have been more the 8 inches. I have found clad at 6 to 7 inches. The is if the good detectors and detectorists are findings silver at 10 inches and can not get much deeper it is likely there is another layer of even older coins just that much deeper. So no I do not have an Ultrasound machine just information from others and myself that tells me an extra inch would help even with 9 inch silver because it will sound off that much stronger.

Hope that helps


Coilfishing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bryannagirl Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Iron is a issue but not that big of an issue.
> The
> > bigger issue is the coins are old and deep very
> > deep. The soil and iron make 10 inches very
> iffy
> > even for the Etrac and the CZ3D. So more then
> > anything this site needs depth and some iron
> > discrimination or at least some way to tell
> iron
> > from higher conductors.
>
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
> I don't get it. How do you know most of the good
> stuff is 10" deep or better?
> Did you do an ultrasound of the ground?
> Most silver I found is on average 5" deep.

Once again......... Correct thought-process Bryanna. I'm quite certain there may be another layer (actually........... multiple layers) of coins/targets at different depth strata(s).

I'm curious here. There is a spot I hunt, goes back 100 years or more and I have found many coins at the 8" - 9" level. BUT none of them silver. The 5 quarter sized silver D-Marks I found were dated 1890' and the rest were from the 1920's mostly and were 4" to 6" deep. The ground is somewhat iron mineralized but I,could run the E-Trac at max sens AND got the best depth there - I checked on deeper targets.

Does larger silver usually go deeper than dime sized copper or zincs? The deeper ones mentioned before were mostly from the 1940's.

Thanks

Consider this: A direct quote from Tom's FISHER INTELLIGENCE 5th edition

"...I found ANOTHER
mini coin spill. At 15-1/2”, I recovered
a 1917D Walking Liberty Half Dollar
which was almost directly on top of a pair
of Standing Liberty quarters; a 1919 & 1920.
The 1920 quarter was almost completely
Uncirculated with nearly full mint luster. To
date, this is the best condition quarter I have
ever recovered. The 1919 quarter was About
Uncirculated. I believe that I can safely say
that these 3 coins were lost in the Spring of
1920."

And this was published in 2004 or 2005, several years ago! So you tell me. How deep do the coins get? What about the early to mid 1800s coins. How deep are they?

Dan - why I will agree that my limited time with the Safari - About 3 months - does affect my success rate. But on the issue of depth I disagree that the Explorers are deeper. I would bet real money that if an Etrac or Explorer found a target my Safari would see it also. Where the Explorer and Etrac trump the Safari is there ability to give you more Target information on the screen to help you tell a little better between trash and treasure. One area I have read several places many feel Minelab tweaked the Audio on the Safari so it is more like the original Explorers in its richness and depth of information. This may be a personal thing because I have read of people that like the Etrac sounds better. So who knows. I think were experience really helps is what happens when you are walking. Like I said earlier I am pretty confident that given a target found by an Etrac or Explorer if we all swing our detectors over the spot we will all see it. The question is would I have stopped or not. My CZ friend has the experience to know when to stop. It is not that his detector is better but his judgement is better when it comes to deciding what to dig or not dig.

One last thing it has been said you never know for sure unless you dig. Well let me change that up a little - You never learn unless you dig. I try to dig even when I am convinced what I am about to dig is not treasure because it helps me to learn. If you do not dig a few iffy targets you are only guessing what was there. This is the experience part you spoke about. I am trying real hard every time I hunt to give myself some experience.

Bryanna

Dan-Pa. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bryanna your problem is a Safari is not an
> Explorer and does not have its abilities basically
> a user friendly version of the Explorer but don't
> expect the depth of an Explorer with it.
>
> Your experience with a Safari is certainly limited
> and you could swing a garbage can lid on it and
> not get the depth of an experienced Safari user..
>
> Rome wasn't built in a day and its takes time with
> these new fangled units to get the best out of
> them and just because you have one of them in your
> hand doesn't mean you will get superior depth
> until you put a lot of time with it in the field.
>
> Certainly not knocking you down but the fellow
> killing them with depth at the old golf course is
> an experienced CZ user and well your just not
> going to get CZ depth out of a Safari...especially
> being sort of a newbie with this unit as you just
> bought recently and might take weeks or months to
> become proficient with.
>
> All goes back to the nut behind the wheel not the
> size of your coil...