MXT Pro and F75 today...a long read/report for ya

Daniel, What double D coil was you using ? Jim , Tn.

The MXT Pro is a unit I will never sell. Great point about the deep targets and the audio. Once that is learned, the detector can sniff out some really deep low conductors...not to mention silver too !

Daniel...if you want to try out the 8x6 SEF on it let me know. I can ship it out to you if you want to take it for a spin.

John



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2014 03:50PM by therover61.

Daniel Tn Wrote:
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> Got a question for you guys. What pinpointer do
> you use with the MXT? My ProPointer eats it alive
> when I turn it on. I have to turn the detector
> off to be able to use the pinpointer. I was
> thinking about getting the new Whites one...I
> guess if it doesn't interfere with the MXT, I will
> go ahead and get one.

Go for the Whites TRX. It is the best one in my opinion.

therover61 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The MXT Pro is a unit I will never sell. Great
> point about the deep targets and the audio. Once
> that is learned, the detector can sniff out some
> really deep low conductors...not to mention silver
> too !
>
> Daniel...if you want to try out the 8x6 SEF on it
> let me know. I can ship it out to you if you want
> to take it for a spin.
>
> John

Agree, Awesome machine and many can attest to that. It is a workhorse that never disappoints. Forget the testbeds..

been around quite a while now,and has "spun off"
a few" derivatives"..mxt-all pro..m6...and the "baby of the bunch",
"sleepin' baby" (ehe! he! he!)..the lightweight mx-5..all crackerjack
coin,and relic sniffers.

(h.h.!)
j.t.

My opinion is mx5 is the best of the bunch ..has pinpoint lock..volume control..backlight..standby mode so any pinpointer can be used...notch..big numbers on screen..weather resistant..as deep as all other mxt's..lighter by alot...only feature missing is trac lock but the new faster processor resets so fast there is no need to have a trac lock... All they did was take an analog/digital mxt and make it 100% digital..better in my book ..ad the sef 10x12 and one of the deepest best separating detectors i have used..

i agree!.."track lock" is not necessary.the detector is "lightening" quick in it's reset.
coupled with the 5.3 eclipse concentric coil makes hunting the "junk" a pleasant experience.
very lightweight,well balanced set up.when you are getting down 9" or so,on coins,you "ain't"
leavin' much behind..the real "hoot" is ya don't pay $1,000.00 or so,half of that gets it done!
i'm just sayin'

(h.h.!)
j.t.

Trac Lock may not be needed for most but I will not buy without it. Make an MX6 with lock and a ground grab and I will get one.

I probably wouldn't like a faster speed. In fact, I think that is why the MXT is doing so well here...it is slower and thus "sees" the target longer and reports it as it is instead of clipping it off when it reports it. You coin hunters need a whole different platform than us relic hunter's. Most of the time we are going for the deepest of signals and the less digitalised sound and filters the better. Especially in heavily mineralised soil. This is why on the Minelab machines, you have the options for fast speed in trash, or deep and slow. Not both. I watched a few videos on the MX5. Can't say I wouldn't be a fan of it if maybe I used one but definitely not a fan of the fast digitalised sound.

yeah!..it's a coin sniper's best friend!
with the amount of ferrous crap in the ground,
ya need any break you can get!..gets deep too!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

I have been around the block with lots of detectors over the yrs, but since 2002, and my first mxt, I have strayed away since a few times, but always back to a mxt, now I have a mxt pro to use this yr. My 4th MXT, hehe. They are a well built machine.

Hi Daniel,,,hey that was a good informative read thanks.....JJ

Steve Herschbach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Trac Lock may not be needed for most but I will
> not buy without it. Make an MX6 with lock and a
> ground grab and I will get one.


steve!..ya got a long wait!..if they put "loc and grab" on an m6,
thy will 'screw" up their line-up!..too much redundancy!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

Well here is another bit of info for you guys.

I hopped onto the pulse machine wagon again...went with an older Minelab pulse machine. It is a GP Extreme....where the GPX machines have a digital menu, this one is still analog with switches. Same basic controls that do the same thing...just with toggle switches and knobs.

So here is a little background info. The last pulse machine I had, I buried a .69 cal minie ball at around 13 inches in the ground at my house. This was a particularly bad patch of ground I found. It hits 5 bars on the F75 fe meter. Not quite as bad as the Culpeper dirt, but pretty close (Culpeper dirt is 5 and 6 bars...it pegs the meter in some places). 13 inches on a lead bullet this size, is pretty simple for a pulse machine. But very tough for a vlf machine. In fact, since I buried it, as most of you know I got into archery for a few years, and the spot has grown up and I have not been able to locate the bullet since. I remember when I had the Blisstool, I could stand over top of the bullet and get the machine to beep on it...BUT once the machine was setup to find the bullet, it was so out of balance with the ground that you couldn't have really hunted with it like that due to all the noise.

I took the GP over there and had the bullet located in about 5 minutes. No sweat. I marked it...was going to dig it up, but had a light bulb go off. I marked it and came back in...got the F75 and MXT and went to play. I have the Ultimate coil on the MXT right now. I balanced it...ran it over the spot, and got exactly the signal I have been describing on my hunts...audio only...nothing on the screen. But a very good audio signal...if I balanced the machine right beside the bullet, and worked my speed of sweeps a bit, I could get it to jump up in the 50s on ID every once in a while...but mostly audio only. This was in all 3 modes I could get audio. Would have dug it for sure. The F75 was next...which had the Hunter coil on it at first. I couldn't get a sound out of it in either disc mode or all metal mode. Now the thing here is...the machine will air test a minie ball past 16 inches at the same settings I was trying with that coil...but in the ground...wouldn't do it. I happened to have the Storm coil from NEL...which is bigger than the Ultimate. It measures 13x14. I put it on for kicks and giggles...GBed it...and was just barely able to get a signal in all metal.

So I cut a deep plug...easy to do since the ground is saturated here right now. The MXT was now showing positive VDI numbers, as I could get the coil closer to it in the ground. The F75 began to get better too....all metal side was giving a good audio signal but reading pretty tight in a small range in the iron range. The older F75s would kind of bounce around from iron and into the positive range...usually in the tab or zinc area on bullets....but this one was sticking to the iron side and not bouncing. But I would have still dug because it wasn't double bleeping. Long story short...I had found my long lost bullet. Since I will be moving to a new town in hopefully a few months, I was trying to recover all my test garden stuff that I have buried like a little squirrel over the years.

And this also just keeps showing me that the MXT Pro and DD coils are a killer combo in my particular soil. Since nobody wants to buy my F75, I have decided to send it back to the factory after the new year, and see how it comes back. I'm not exactly sure if it is/was just a coil problem like they thought. Maybe it will come back and blow the MXT out of the water. Who knows. For now...super impressed with the MXT Pro and DD coil. Very interested in trying the NEL coils they have started to bring out for the V3/DFX/MXT.

Good info Daniel. What are the differences in air test with a minie ball with the your MXT and F75??? In disc and AM.

In the air...the F75 has it beat by several inches in both modes. I will get some good measurements for you later and post them in here. I was a little worried when I air tested the MXT because it doesn't do well at all in the air compared to the F75.

Hi Daniel,,,I really appreciate the time and effort it takes to do these tests....One request if I may....Could you take the 75 and set it up to just barely knock out a pull tab when waved a few inches away from the coil....Now while you are doing this, slowly increase your span away from the coil out to the max and see if it starts to pick it up....I'm curious what your findings may be.....I know your mainly a relic hunter but I would like to know your results of this test...Thanks Daniel....JJ

I love the MXT and love the Pro the best of the MXT series...

I have found alot of Iron relics with it that other units in disc mode wont dig to Boot...

But the biggest drawback to me on the MXT is lack of manual Ground Bal...you can lock it and thats great but in certain dirts I have had problems establishing a perfect ground bal by the bobbing in auto method...so when I did lock it it was either negative or positve but never dead on...

thats one thing that can seperate a good machine from a great machine ...manual adjustable ground bal...

Keith

If anyone knows how to make the MXT Pro work in the bad dirt, it would be Monte V Berry, very friendly guy to talk to about detectors.

Yes Monte is very Knowledgable for sure!!

The reason I require a manual Ground balance for SOME site's is I have complex dirts in that alot of my sites are conglomerates of different soils mixed....years of farming and Logging the soils has created weird spoil... when using auto track it causes it to stay to busy and overtrack but locking also poses problems as it is often too positve...I like to add DDs and underset my ground on these type soils.. and thats one of the downsides to not having the ability to set it where I want...

By the way theres areas around here I can never get the Pro Xl to ground balance right....too bad they never had the DDs for it...the 5900 takes care of it though....


Keith



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2014 07:10PM by Keith Southern.

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I love the MXT and love the Pro the best of the
> MXT series...
>
> I have found alot of Iron relics with it that
> other units in disc mode wont dig to Boot...
>
> But the biggest drawback to me on the MXT is lack
> of manual Ground Bal...you can lock it and thats
> great but in certain dirts I have had problems
> establishing a perfect ground bal by the bobbing
> in auto method...so when I did lock it it was
> either negative or positve but never dead on...
>
> thats one thing that can seperate a good machine
> from a great machine ...manual adjustable ground
> bal...
>
> Keith


good point keith! my gut "feeling" is whitey probably believes it is NOT
needed because they may think the "up dated" auto is "dead nuts" on?,and there fore "gets" it right
every time!..just a thought as i don't know to a certainty!

(h.h.!)
j.t.
just a thought!..don't know to a certainty!

I've been using the Grab button on the Pro to balance mine, just like pushing the trigger on the F75. Not ran into any issues as of yet. If the dirt changes a lot, you are gonna be reground balancing a lot...no matter if you do it manually and offset it or if you let the machine do it via a "fast grab" button or trigger. In either case, the detector is going to let you know when the ground has changed and the balance is off. I have places here that I can't walk 10 yards without the ground changing and needing to be rebalanced. And I've had some places where I could balance when I turn it on and never really have to touch it again. Culpeper dirt is probably the worse I have been in. In some spots, you can't take 5 steps without the machine hitting a positive or negative spot in the ground. That is 5 and 6 bar ground though (on the F75). The worse I have here is 5 bar...most is 4. I don't know how the MXT handles up there though. I know before the pulse machines got really big, most people had the MXT and 6x10 DD coils on them so I'm assuming they must have held their own as far as VLF machines go. But it sure didn't take people long to jump on board the pulse wagon. Which that is my thought process too...if the ground is that bad where you are having to offset things to get a VLF to run...chances are you are better off with a pulse machine in there anyway. That's what I have done now. I have a heavy hitting VLF machine that seems to be getting really good depth and IDs well...and for the bad ground I have the Minelab GP Extreme. It may not go as deep or be as smooth as the newer GPX series, but it's better than a VLF in bad soil any day of the week.

Hi Old &B. , If your pinpointer don,t play good with your MXT, just flip it in Relic mode when you pinpoint, then you can flip it back to coin. It works like the MX5 . I had trouble with all pinpointers till i frond out about the flip.

I will do some more testing when I get back from hunting and put the D2 on there.

I did the air test thing with the MXT Pro with the Ultimate 13 on it. I did it two different ways. I tested where the objects will still give a high pitch tone and where they only give an all metal response.

Relic mode. 0 disc. +3 gain.

Quarter - 14" with high tone. 17.5" with just a standard tone.
Nickel - 14.5" with high tone. 18" with just standard tone.
Minie - 14.5 with high tone. 19" with standard tone.

This is almost the same as the F75 in BP mode 99 sens with the 12.5x8 coil that I have. I don't have an Ultimate coil to compare.

It looks like the MXT breaks off giving the high tone at about the same spot...in the 14 inch range...but will go much deeper than that if you are investigating all metal tones.

Off to go hunt now. New Years Day tradition. Gonna play with the GP Extreme and MXT today.

Had a pretty decent day today just out and about enjoying hunting by myself. I went to a little camp site in town and hunted another section of it that has given up only a few goodies; not as much as the rest of the camp. My old deer hunting instinct kicked in today...as I got out of the truck and started towards this part of the camp, I noticed a big rub on a tree where a deer had plum tore the tree up. I walked down to check that out, and while I was there, started detecting there. My first signal of 2015...rang up with a nice audio signal and was reading "bullet" on the MXT. I cut a plug...target still in the hole. I really like it when the target is not in the plug, and is deeper in the ground. When I got it out of the hole and saw it laying there, I thought it was a button. Then I saw it was a coin. Woo hoo! Indian head cent. I THINK the date on it is 1888. Or 1868. It is in really good shape for our soil here...it usually eats these things up really bad. It just so happens the only piece of corroded junk it has on it, is on top of the 3rd digit of the date. That made my day regardless of condition.

I hunted down in that area the rest of the hunt. Dug a couple shotgun hulls and that was it. Moved back to the other area of the camp and hunted around there. Dug a trashed rosette over there. The lead was gone out of the back of it and it was hit hard by something.



I changed locations...went back to the place I dug the button and epaulette piece last week. Here I didn't use the MXT. I wanted to run the GP Extreme there to see if I had missed any deep bullets or maybe a deeper piece of epaulette. I must have worked that spot over pretty good; didn't get any signals there other than shallow iron that blanked out. I have one more day off before I have to go back to working 7 days a week. I don't know whether to go detecting at some other places or go fishing for crappie. Hard decision. I might try to do both. Who knows.

Lotta rain headed y'all's way!!!! It's already here. Well, at least my G2 will pick up deeper signals in wet ground (for some reason). GREAT FIND on that Indian Head!!!! I LOVE finding those!!!!
I have found silver dimes in old woodlots where i find old shotgun hulls (the brass parts). I think that when hunters from yesteryear where digging in there pockets to reload their shotgun or 22 rifle, they accidentally would pull dimes out!!! I have found more than one silver dime in those situations!!!! Anyway, great field report. You are making me want to spring for an MXT Pro something fierce!

Well Kevin you were right. The rain has kept me inside most of the day. So much for plans today.

I did get to do those D2 coil air tests though.

Here is that info:

D2 10" coil. Relic mode. 0 disc. +3 sensitivity.

Quarter - 12" high tone. 15" with standard tone.
Nickel - 12.5" high tone. 16.5" with standard tone.
Minie - 12" high tone. 16" with standard tone.

------------------------

As you can see, there is about 2.5 inches difference between the two coils at the same settings. Since the Ultimate is lighter weight than the D2 and goes deeper too...it's a no brainer which one I have attached to the unit. I just wish I could get out there and hunt with it one more day before I go back to work work work and no life.

Hi Daniel,,,hey good info,,,if you get any spare time see if you can perform a test on the 75 I requested above....Thanks...JJ

Jimmy - I didn't mean to act like I ignored you. My F75 is on its way back to Texas right now to be checked out and hopefully made to be like Keith's. I requested that mine be made like his or as close to it as they could duplicate. lol

Daniel what is the difference between your F75 and Keith's?