Detector showdown results - relic hunting

Man I have been dying to get out and dig. W've had 3 weeks of some terrible weather....cold, ice storm, three rounds of snow, and now its warmer but raining. I was wanting to get out bad. I finally caught a break this morning after work. Went to my civil war firing range site with 4 and 5 bar dirt. Very severe dirt. As close to Culpeper soil as you're gonna find.

My hunting buddy accompanied me. He brought his Teknetics T2. And I had a whole truck full of detectors. The MXT with Ultimate 13 coil, CTX with 11" coil, and my GP Extreme with 11" coil.

The objective today was to section off a spot. Then hunt it with all detectors. Mark the signals we felt were bullets. Then compare before ever digging anything up...then after its all said and done, measure every target for depth, which takes a bit of work in itself. This is VERY time consuming. We hunted for approx 4 hours and marked 17 bullets, 9 bent nails, and 3 shotgun shells.

The CTX performed the poorest. Out of the 29 targets we had marked, it reported a signal on only 2 bullets and they happened to be the shallowest. One at 4 3/4 inches the other at 6. This was with open screen, fast off, and trying several of the ground filter modes. The majority of the targets are 8+ inches. I let it run in auto to see where it wanted to run at Auto+3. And it was 6 or lower. Bad soil for sure.

The T2 actually performed 2nd best. It and the MXT are close...but consider the MXT had a 12x13 coil on it vs the stock coil on the T2, and in my opinion it swings the favor towards the T2. I wish the T2 would have had an Ultimate coil on it. Now I will say that all but two of the bent nails were located with the T2, and it was giving an iffy signal like it would do on most of the deeper bullets. So, depending on how you look at it, you might see it that the T2 was easily fooled vs the others. Of the 17 bullets, it gave signals on 9 of them. But the deeper ones bounced all over in the iron ID range and would jump into the non ferrous range on occasion. He couldn't get 8 of the deepest bullet signals at all, which is just 3 less than the MXT with the bigger coil. He could only run the T2 at 75 sensitivity to keep it on the edge of stable and erratic, and he hunted in all metal. If you used disc mode with enough disc to knock out small nails, then the results are drastically different. The T2 then would drop to the same level as the CTX, as all the deeper signals would have been broken up like they were iron.

I used the MXT at 0 disc in relic mode. With GB locked. I would do it manually with the button. Now what I noticed with it was that it wouldn't give a visual ID for the deeper bullets. It would be audio only and it would be a good signal. If it showed up on the ID, it was a combo of different ID ranges. Some of the shallow ones read way high...actually IDed as a buckle. The rest either read as bullet or button. The iron ID was pretty doggone good on it. I could only run the sensitivity at the triangle zone...wasnt stable in the + numbers. It was able to get 11 of the 17 bullets and was the finder of the 3 shotgun shells; they sounded the same as a bullet to me. The GP machine gave them the high tone...so it knew they were low conductive vs the bullets that gave the low tone.

The clear winner (no surprise) was the Minelab GP pulse machine. It just handles the bad soil smoothly and goes deeper on all counts. The iron break works but not as great as the GPX machines. I got fooled by three of the bent nails that did give iffy signals but I wouldn't have dared pass them up. I did figure out that I could move 90° to the target center, and if it was a nail, the pinpoint spot would move whereas the bullets stayed in the same spot from all angles.

Was fun just to get out. I did lock my keys in my truck and luckily for society, I am not a crook or people would be in trouble. Normally I have a spare in my wallet but I had given it to my wife and she never gave it back. I was able to get in my Tundra in about 15 seconds without busting a window, calling a locksmith, or ripping the door off. No coat hanger either. A well placed pocket knife is all. Here was my take. I gave all of them that I found to the landowner. My buddy kept some since he is newer to diggin.

The CTX is my weakest link right now. It is probably the one machine I have really liked and wanted to work out for me but even though its a step or two ahead of the eTrac...it still falls short in heavily mineralised soil. Not just relics...seems it has a 6 to 7 inch limit here in the ground on coins too. So keep your eyes peeled on the forum. There may be a CTX hitting the market soon.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2015 10:20AM by Daniel Tn.

Hey Daniel,

Good Report.
Thanks for taking the time to write it up AND to do all the testing!

Yay...hoop hoop...I'm DEE LITE TED the T2 was 2nd best! This is a fabulous machine and they 'broke the mould' when they made this one!

OK, so the pulse machine was the best but I ask you a Q. here: how many can afford one of those?
Yeah, the CEE TEE EX was 'thew worst'? No surprise here.
Few years back on head to head Tests in Bulgaria with LOTS of Eastern European machines it was abysmal!!

Good Hunting

Des D

Good post I enjoyed it...cheers.

Yes very enlightning. I have been thinking about a ctx but it's a whole lot of money and I had what I consider a bad customer service experience from ML. I did enjoy your read and I wish I had the patience to disect machines and targets. It is a great way to learn and I thank those that give us the gory details. I asked in another post and don't know if you saw it but what part of Tn. Do you live? I thought near me ( jackson) as we have infamously made that list. But by the dirt readings I' m guessing Middle Tn ?

Excellent write up Daniel -- very informative. Not surprised on the T2 performance but am with the CTX

I can't wait to get out and do some testing myself here soon ;-)

Got an F19 I'll be testing at an old city dump site possibly as soon as mid to the end of next week from the looks of things!

Dan what setting were you using on the CTX?

Did you try or use Ground Coin and manual GB?

Also wonder how the small coil would have done. Most likely not any better but maybe no worst either.

If the CTX was recommending a sens.setting of 6 what was it running at in A+3 ?

Man I glad we don't have that bad of soil here.

That was a good write up.

Hi Daniel was the T2 a SE and if so was it being run in boost.? Also if it was an SE was it a unit with DST Too? If not the new T2SEV2, do you think the higher sensitivity that can be used with those units would of improved its performance?

As you know I have a T2SEV2 and MXT Pro in my stable good to see they did so well.

Thanks for the report.

Bryanna - Nebraska

Current - New to me but not new MXT Pro and T2 SE2 - Previous Minelab Sovereign GT, Minelab Safari, Whites DFX, Whites Eagle Spectrum
Smile its a good for you!

Daniel, my hunting buddy has the CTX also, but the areas that are bad, he has to run in manual sensitivity. I know that will greatly increase the falsing and chatter, but he seems to find a lot running manual instead of auto sensitivity.

Great report Dan thanks for taking the time and helping all us out. Question: Have you had the opportunity to compare your Extreme to a TDI--I have both and know you had a TDI once upon a time. Thanks,Gene

Comparing a PI to a VLF is apples-to-oranges; yet, really 'drives-home' a educational point!

Good report/post.

Daniel,

Nicely written! I specifically appreciated the non-biased approach by stating the difference in coils, etc. Thank you for a well thought out and time consuming evaluation. And kudos for giving back to the land owner, it helps our hobby more than people know. A good read.

Travis

Dave Johnson designed/engineered the MXT for White's back in the year 2002, for a 13 year old design, it seems to hold up well.

I have read that the aluminum sheet metal body that White's uses does a lot to shield the instrument from EMI.

Of all the metal detectors I have used and owned, the metal bodied one are less prone to EMI. JMHO

Several questions about the CTX. Will try to answer as best as I can.

I said that I ran it in Auto +3 just to see where the unit wanted to run on its own, and the highest it got was 6. I don't know if they altered how it works from how it was on the eTrac, but running in +3 was actually an offset to run 3 points higher than what it was showing as recommended. So in this particular case, it was showing a high of 6...which would be the base line of where it wanted to run....then you add 3 to that for the offset for the +3. So basically it was topping out at a sensitivity of 9. IF I understand it correctly. It may be that it was actually running at 3...then with +3, it was making it 6. That's not the only thing I tried though. I tried running manual sensitivity as high as I could without it falsing on the ground, and also manual GB a lot. That is something I noticed I had to do every few feet it seemed like. Whatever the case, and no matter the sensitivity, the depth still seems to peak at about 7 inches in this soil. That's the whole thing to wrap your mind around....everybody's soil is different. I choose this site as a testing site for the very specific reason that it IS the bad soil. I like to see what each machine can do under the worse case scenario I can throw at the machines. You honestly go down there expecting the machines to do bad in it...and when they do good, it is quite a thrill. I have been talking through messages to a guy named "sube" from the forums and YouTube. He seems to be the guru on the CTX and he shared a lot of good info about it for me for tweaking on it and such. He told me to try it in Auto +3 with seawater enabled...that he was always able to get more depth out of the machine in mineralised ground with seawater enabled. I tried it both ways. Also tried all the settings for the filters....including both ground and ferrous conductivity.

Regarding the T2 itself. It is a standard model T2...non boost and non DST. The reason he was having to run the gain so low was because of the ground itself. There is very little EMI present at this site. We're talking about a 30 acre hay field in the middle of the country. Running a high gain level on this site will cause the machine to go into a very unstable platform...and you hear a lot of noise from the ground itself. Lots of chatter and "cold spots" in the ground where it changes so much. You can raise the coil and the noise goes away. Start swinging the coil and it returns unless you drop the sensitivity. BP mode only amplifies the problem. That has held consistent for the F75 and T2 that I've owned over the years. This field has at least 4 different soil types in it. There is a section of woods on it, in which the ground is almost greyish colored with lots of rocks. Detectors don't seem to do as bad up there as they do out in the field itself...I guess maybe the fertilizer in the fields doesn't help any either. They dump loads of chicken and pig dung on it to help the hay grow fast and thick...and mercy me does it do the trick. LOL.

The Extreme is new to me. I got it for a really good price and couldn't pass it up. I have had all 3 of the TDI platform machines...the regular TDI, the TDI Pro, and the TDI SL. And I've also had a whole gaggle of coils that I tried on them at this very site. Though not at the same time. The SL was my least favorite of the 3 TDIs. It was okay for what it costs....but it did lack the punch of the other two IMO. With that said...I tried the 14 inch mono Razorback on the TDI Pro, and found it to be the deepest combo that I found for the TDI on these bullets. The TDI with the 14 mono would be close to what the Extreme is achieving with the 11 inch coil. BUT...you at least have some form of iron disc with the Extreme. Balance...I think the TDI is more balanced when you put it on a straight carbon rod.

When it comes to the Extreme vs a GPX. Well Mr. Candy has made a significant improvement from the Extreme to the GPX platforms. The GPX's run a LOT more smoother and more stable. Plus, having the GB button on top of the handle is a HUGE plus. I had to balance quite often down at the site I hunted, and I hated having to flip the toggle switch, pump the coil til things smoothed out, and then flip the toggle switch back...and then repeat it all a few yards distance away. Much easier just to hold the little button down on top of the handle....pump coil up and down...and release the button. The GP Extreme has a preset gain, that is NOT adjustable. I'm not sure where it is in relation to the GPX. I have a hunch that it is probably where the GPX's preset is...which was at 8 if I remember right...been a while since I ran a GPX so don't quote me on that. You could bump the gain up on the GPX if the site allowed, and squeeze out some more depth out of the machine. They also have advanced the iron discrimination on the GPX machines vs the Extreme. The iron break/null sound is more distinct on the GPX machines and they also discriminate down deeper. I am actually on the lookout for a used but authentic GPX 4500 or 4800 for those very reasons. The GP will do well for me until then...especially for the price. I can't complain at all about the performance of it. But having come from using a GPX before using a GP...I know what the differences are, and I was a bit spoiled.

On a side note to NASA Tom's comment.

We knew going down there that the pulse machine was going to excel in the bad soil. That is how we always do the tests though. We often have one machine that we will use as the "pointer" machine to initially locate the targets. Then we mark them via little flags...easy to stick in the ground and remove. And don't get lose like a golf tee.

In how a pulse and vlf machine works...they are quite different. But when it comes to hunting applications...well everybody wants the best tool for the job, and detectors are just tools. The main thing that a hunter wants, is a machine to tell him/her whether something is a good signal or bad signal in the ground. Dig or not dig....and then to go deep enough to get the majority of those good targets. Whether it be a pulse or vlf...it really shouldn't matter what it is, as long as it puts more finds in the pouch at the end of the day.

The fun begins when you take the machines you are really testing, and go back through the same area to see if your pointer machine missed anything. Then you go to the marked targets and begin comparisons; trying different settings, etc. The hardest part is probably the digging. To get a precise depth reading...you can't just stick the shovel in the ground to the hilt and see what comes up. The digging is probably the more time consuming. Once you leave though, you have a pretty good idea of what each machine can and cannot do in those soil conditions.

Over the years, in the pre-pulse machine era, we had our favorite pointer machines we would use. And there have been a few down through the years that surpassed our pointer machines. One of the biggest ones that caught me way off guard was the Whites V3i. I had became pretty doggone good with the F75 at that point of my life and when I went down there with the V3i and tinkered around, it REALLY came to life and actually beat the socks off the F75. And on the flip side of that; you would have thought the VX3 would have been very close to the V3i. But it wasn't even in the same ball park.

There was a time when we'd go to this site and just dig bullets like mad. We were new to relic hunting and were tickled pink to be finding civil war bullets. We wouldn't leave til we had 100. There's still a bunch down there but they aren't as easy to get now days. The 100 bullet days are probably done for it. After the thrill of finding shot bullets wore off...it became a site I would go to just to test detectors and to take people to get their first bullets, etc.

Interesting observation regarding the VX3/V3i comparison. I also found a marked difference in depth between the two. I had assumed the first VX3 I owned was just not a hot unit, so I sold it. Not being able to stay away from that lovely colored screen I soon bought another, but this time with the sef coil (among others for testing). Overall, a good performer, but never any real depth. Then I (finally) stepped up to the V3i, again, a marked improvement in depth, and separation, I may add. I could never quite acquire the depth and raw power of my F75SE (nor it's ergonomics) with the Spectra, but our soil here in Michigan is very different than that of your area. I suspect the three frequency design was the trump card over Fishers hyper gain platform. I recently picked up my second V3i to test against the Deus here once spring (if it ever) comes... I like the flag idea. Although I do not have a pi to help find the fringe targets, I will definitely be comparing these two machines on undisturbed targets in the field. Hopefully with some video to go along with it. Again, great thread.

Hey Daniel,What about the Whites 5900? Do you still have this detector? It would be fun to see if it could hang with the Big Dogs! Whats up with the Tundra? Come on' American made my Man, Get you a Chevy ,Ford or Mopar!

Harold,ILL. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey Daniel,What about the Whites 5900? Do you
> still have this detector? It would be fun to see
> if it could hang with the Big Dogs! Whats up with
> the Tundra? Come on' American made my Man, Get you
> a Chevy ,Ford or Mopar!

While Texas may sometimes seem like a different country:
"Currently the Tundra is assembled in San Antonio, Texas, USA where production was consolidated in 2008, and the only full-size pickup truck manufactured in Texas."





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2015 12:07AM by Mike in CO.

Thx for taking the time Daniel, interesting read.

Daniel,just saw a 4500 on Robs forum for $2800. Not sure how low he will go.

MichiganRelicHunter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Excellent write up Daniel -- very informative. Not
> surprised on the T2 performance but am with the
> CTX
>
> I can't wait to get out and do some testing myself
> here soon ;-)
>
> Got an F19 I'll be testing at an old city dump
> site possibly as soon as mid to the end of next
> week from the looks of things!


An old city dump site!----I wish you mucho success with that endeavor Wayne.-----I worked one of 'em today & am still trying to get my head back on straight & wits gathered back up! ha ha------Actually it was an old mine camp area & dump site & was using the Deus w/9" coil--could have been worse.------We had the F-19 w/5X10 coil in the rig---wish now I would have tried it to.----Found some neat relic stuff & a couple of coins.-----Hey, any day out swingin's a good day!!

If the soil is as bad as you say, putting the stock 9" on the White's may give you better results. The smaller coil 'sees' less miniralization.

Thanks Daniel, very good information.
I too have wondered if a PI machine would help in the Carroll County area of Virginia.
Don't think I could ever afford a PI machine to try though.
Thanks again.

Well I have my GP Extreme for sale if you might be interested. I've got it and two coils for $1,050. I'm selling off a few things to get back into a GPX.

The CTX 3030 with stock coil and 6 inch coil is also now for sale. Has the wireless module, UR30 phones, LiPo battery, chargers, AA battery pack; everything that comes with the unit new, except the additional 6" coil and a new cover I got for the meter housing and screen. For $1,650 shipped.

If anybody is interested in either of them, give me a shout via PM. I can text ya pics if you would like to see everything.

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

Regarding the 9 inch coil for the Whites. Is that the concentric coil you are talking about, or maybe the D2? We have had previous MXTs down at this site, with a few different coils. We've had them down there with the 9 inch concentric, the 6x10 DD, and now the Ultimate 13. The 950 concentric coil was the worse of all. It wouldn't even hit the 6 inch bullets. In fact...that is the combo that I had when I got my first MXT and was ranting on the forums about how much I did not like it. I had a guy be real vocal about how I didn't know what I was doing with it and that he could come to that site and show me how its done. So I had him come up. And do you know what happened? I started hunting with the detector I had brought with me while he hunted with the other. After a while we met back up and I had a pouch full of bullets. He had nothing. He basically accused me of already having the bullets in my pouch and that I hadn't dug them there that day. It so happened I was getting ready to dig another one and had him check the spot. He tried everything in the world to get his detector to give a signal on the spot I had marked. He then declared there wasn't anything there. I unplugged my headphones and let him listen to my machine. And he watched me dig a 3 ringer about 8 inches deep. Before we could get far, I had located another one and we repeated this dance. He finally got so frustrated he went back to the truck and put his detector up.

BUT...we've had the Whites V3i down there with the D2 coil, and it done REALLY awesome. The key to getting it to do well though was selecting the 7 khz single frequency and then going into all metal audio. If you sped the recovery rate up to just right, you could get awesome depth with the ability to tell what was a nail and what wasn't. BUT the thing that got me was that not only was it giving a good signal on the bullets, but it was doing fairly well on the IDs too. Hmmm now as I ramble, I wonder what one of those would do with the Ultimate coil on it. I have a friend that doesn't detect much anymore that still has a V3i so I may have to borrow it and just go find out.

Great report Daniel. I have a chance to buy a brand new White's MXT All Pro (with round 10 inch DD coil). Do you think that it would go deeper than my F19 w/ 11 inch coil which is slightly deeper than the G2 with same coil. This question seems very feeble, at best. But I have never owned a White's machine. And I really don't have any reason other than they were not readily available at the internet stores where I did business. But I would be disappointed to shell out the funds on a brand new MXT All Pro only to find that there was really no advantage over my F19. And I'm not at all brand-loyal. I like what works best in dirt. My dirt ranges from 2 bar to 3 bar to 4 bar (I have yet to find any 5 Bar) dirt. Thanks. kevin

On the CTX Daniel did you have the ground tracking or off..?

Also I know it hard to do but keep the sens wide open.. the +3 Auto for depth is a no go...

the trick on the CTX in bad dirt ( RED CLAY) is too get it noisy.. feedback from the soil...

And try to pick out the different sound of the target from the the constant ground noise..Afterawhile the legitimate targets will pop out at you..

I know people say keep it smooth and stable and all such of things but over the years in bad dirt with the FBS units i learned they have to be run very hot to get depth in bad dirt...Still think the Explorer XS was the deepest FBS to date..

Keith

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

Keith -- That was with ground balancing manually. Like I said, the Auto 3 was just to give yall an idea where the machine wanted to run on its own. I even ramped it up to 30 manual sens and couldnt even get a threshold break on the bullets past 8 inches. That was with knowing where they were and in undisturbed ground. What I did notice was an occasional deal like what "sube" shows in one of his videos in which he is showing target trace info on the screen with a dime and nail. The machine gives no audio at all with an open screen but still traces the general area of both targets on the screen. My machine was doing that down there...no audio but target trace would show targets as iron in lower right corner and skewed data on the 11-12 cond line. My only guess is that instead of it being a nail, that the ground itself is causing this to occur due to natural iron content. Im not referring to red clay dirt. This dirt IS red but its more like a powder than clay. See pic below for reference.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2015 09:55AM by Daniel Tn.

This has been a good read,nice job daniel. All I'am going to say is the V3i is a better machine then folks realize.
p.s. I have a 10x12 sef if you are interested in trying that coil in your dirt
Corey