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I don't know if the kit is the same, but the MS3 system that comes with the Axiom is JUNK. It is so weak and directional that it drops out if you set the detector down next to you to run a scoop over the coil.! Or if a large bug gets between the detector and the headphones it seems. Don't even think about any Proprietary Systems like these that require you use ONLY Their headphones, you can buy a Low Latency Bluetooth Transmitter much cheaper on Amazon, then use ANY low latency Bluetooth headphones or any other low latency devise you want.

Thanks for the heads up on PVC Jasong. I’ll make sure that I’m careful with its use. I work in a well ventilated area so that helps but I wouldn’t like to be doing this too often after what you said. Looks like the polycarbonate might be a better long term choice. Now that I have a couple of spare skid plates, I won’t have to do any more work on this for quite a while. Peter, the skid plate is flat on the bottom but one photo gives the impression that it may be domed. I must have angled to coil slightly so that it gave that impression. I did notice that this morning after I’d posted. My bad, sorry.

I’ll bid 300.00 . Chuck

I'm considering getting an ms3 z-link kit to go cordless. Please comment with your thoughts and experience with this setup.

Nothing would surprise me anymore, what is odd is they never touched the 13x11 just that 18 inch coil.

I have a lot of ground to cover

Well done🙂 Is the skid plate dead flat across the bottom Les or is it dome shape?

That's a nice result, good work! Just be careful with PVC though, I'm not usually one for nanny warnings but it emits pretty nasty gases at temps that I'm sure a heatgun will get to, at least the surface of the PVC. Hydrogen chloride is hydrochloric acid when a liquid, and carbon monoxide can kill with no ventilation. That's why it's not used for 3D printing anyways. Polycarbonate should be safer. I think TPU would make an interesting skid plate, or even entire coil body requiring no plates, plus way quieter, but it's pricey.

I hope someone wasn’t expecting something to be shipped in it, then when they couldn’t find it they went on to the next one. That would’ve been pretty bad!

Save some money and get a Minelab Vanquish 540. It is SMF and I find quarters at 16" in wet saltwater sand with it. Drives the XP and Equinox guys nuts!

PLEASE PLACE BIDS IN THE CLASSIFIED SECTION Back in March, Max Paulan - and his Minelab America warehouse crew, sent me 22-machines for veterans battling PTSD. A new X-Terra 705 Gold Pack was in the mix. The machine is too specialized to send to a new veteran hobbyist. Steve has given me his permission to auction off the machine in the classifieds, so I can raise money to buy Vanquish, or X-Terra Pro machines for our veterans. I am starting the bidding at $250.00 and bids should be made in minimum increments of $10.00 or more. The highest bid by 1pm EST, Sunday, May 12th, will win the machine. (Photos in classifieds)

You don't actually know what happened or where so best bet is to just go through the process and try and get it resolved. Good luck - that sucks. From https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-178?language=en_US Tort Claims - Claim for property damage or loss, or personal injury, or death If you would like to make a claim for property damage or loss, or personal injury, or death resulting from the negligent or wrongful acts or omissions of an employee of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), you must file an administrative tort claim against the agency. CBP processes administrative tort claims in accordance with the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. § 2671, et seq. Claimants who wish to file an administrative tort claim against CBP should complete a Standard Form 95, Claim for Damage, Injury, or Death and submit it, along with the required supporting documentation, to the CBP port of entry, Border Patrol station, CBP pre-clearance location, or other CBP facility nearest the geographic location where the incident is alleged to have occurred. If the alleged incident occurred at an International Mail Branch facility, please submit the SF-95 and supporting documentation to your nearest CBP port of entry or Border Patrol station. To obtain a mailing address for CBP ports of entry, click here. To view a list of mailing addresses for Border Patrol Stations, click here. Claimants filing an administrative tort claim against CBP should thoroughly read and comply with the instructions listed on the back side or second page of the SF-95. It is the claimant’s responsibility to provide documentation supporting the allegations made in the submitted claim. Supporting documentation includes, but is not limited to: witness statements, police reports, and evidence substantiating the dollar amount claimed (e.g., estimates, quotes, invoices, and/or receipts). Failure to submit evidence substantiating the allegations may result in delay or denial of the claim. Once a completed administrative tort claim and its supporting documentation have been submitted, CBP will investigate the facts presented and examine the legal basis for the claim. Any claim for $10,000 or less will be investigated and reviewed by CBP’s Office of Assistant Chief Counsel, Indianapolis. Any claim exceeding $10,000 will be investigated and reviewed by CBP’s legal counsel office nearest the geographic location where the incident is alleged to have occurred. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. § 2671 U.S. Customs and Border Protection has six months to investigate, review and adjudicate a claim. All decisions will be forwarded to the claimant by mail. From https://www.justice.gov/civil/documents-and-forms-0 Standard Form 95. Standard Form 95 is used to present claims against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for property damage, personal injury, or death allegedly caused by a federal employee's negligence or wrongful act or omission occurring within the scope of the employee's federal employment. These claims must be presented to the Federal agency whose employee conduct gave rise to the injury. Standard Form 95 is not required to present a claim under the FTCA, but it is a convenient format for supplying the information necessary to bring an FTCA claim. Please note that a completed form must state a claim for money damages in a “sum certain” amount (that is, a specific amount) claimed for personal injury, death, or injury to or loss of property. In addition, if a sum certain is not specified in Standard Form 95 block 12d, or in accompanying information, a submission cannot be considered a valid presentation of a claim. The completed Standard Form 95 must be presented to the appropriate federal agency within two years after the claim accrues. Download Standard Form 95 Here

PLEASE PLACE BIDS IN THE CLASSIFIED SECTION Back in March, Max Paulan - and his Minelab America warehouse crew, sent me 22-machines for veterans battling PTSD. A new X-Terra 705 Gold Pack was in the mix. The machine is too specialized to send to a new veteran hobbyist. Steve has given me his permission to auction off the machine in the classifieds, so I can raise money to buy Vanquish, or X-Terra Pro machines for our veterans. I am starting the bidding at $250.00 and bids should be made in minimum increments of $10.00 or more. The highest bid by 1pm EST, Sunday, May 12th, will win the machine. (Photos in classifieds)

Back in March, Max Paulan - and his Minelab America warehouse crew, sent me 22-machines for veterans battling PTSD. A new X-Terra 705 Gold Pack was in the mix. The machine is too specialized to send to a new veteran hobbyist. Steve has given me his permission to auction off the machine here, so I can raise money to buy Vanquish, or X-Terra Pro machines for our veterans. I am starting the bidding at $250.00 and bids should be made in minimum increments of $10.00 or more. The highest bid by 1pm EST, Sunday, May 12th, will win the machine. Shipping to the lower 48-states is included. The winning bid is TAX DEDUCTIBLE and can be paid by credit card, check, money order, or Zelle. If you have any questions please ask, and remember that bidding closes at 1pm EST, Sunday, May 12th

I think you need to let go to correlate/interpret what's the 2d screen doing for now and try to learn using audio only to distinguish iron falsing, ground noise and iron especially if you using higher sensitivity.. I by no means an experienced detectorist.. In iron sites I'm using m8 too with enhanced audio/medium profile. For me enhanced audio help me with the targets (stronger tones = at the center of the coil) before I'm using the pinpoint function on co located target.. For sensitivity i run as high as I can before iron falsing usually 20-23 on M8 and 19-21 on M11 with recovery speed of 5/6. I think in iron sites the proper way to learn the machine is using ATLC > AT General > ATHC for my ground and without target trace and red number in the mix.. I lowered the bin for 98-99 because it does help me mellowed down the overall falsing tones and I'm not chasing high conductor.. our valuable are tin coinage in the range of 12 to 60 ID Have you experiment with stabilizer? I didnt use it but many of my detectorist friend use them and its help them a lot from what I hear.. There's a post from Minelab regarding the issues of falsing on Manticore before they release the update which I think its makes clearer picture of what the Manticore is all about Edit: found the post.. copy and paste from Official Minelab response Excessive Falsing in Iron - Minelab Official Response. I contacted Minelab and was happy to receive a very thorough reply: ***The MANTICORE is a very different detector to the EQUINOX, despite some similarities. It was specifically designed with heavily hunted-out sites in mind, which are now much more common for most detectorists, and where finds are becoming increasingly sparse. It is intentionally much more aggressive than the EQUINOX 800, and is designed to stop users on iffy detections more often, but also to provide the user with more information on which to decide whether to dig. We would expect an experienced MANTICORE user to dig iron more often than with an EQUINOX 800, but over time should also find some targets that an EQUINOX 800 might overlook. The consequence is that the MANTICORE can be a more challenging user experience, and we find that most experienced EQUINOX 800 users need to go through a period of adaption to get the most out of a MANTICORE. Heavy iron sites like you describe are very common and a lot of users see this, even more so at European sites where habitation extends back thousands of years in some cases. Some users (more so in North America than Europe it seems) are having particular difficulty with iron. Certain types of iron, combined with low soil mineralisation like what you describe (and is quite common in North America) seem to make this the most difficult. (Interestingly, users in higher soil mineralisation seem to have much less difficulty.) Iron targets often exhibit non-ferrous falsing when the coil is off to the side of the target, particularly when mixed with some ground noise (for example from weakly mineralised ground). With the MANTICORE, the signals are stronger, and so what sounded like a choppy audio response on the 800, can be a stronger, clearer 2 way response on the MANTICORE. However, we find that in almost every case, when the coil is over the center of the target, the response is ferrous. You might say that the EQUINOX 800 choppy audio response is better in the case of iron falsing, and perhaps this is so for iron falsing. But iron falsing is very difficult to distinguish from co-mingled targets, and the EQUINOX 800 will also give you a choppy response on many co-mingled targets, and in many cases won’t be enough to stop you. We can suggest a couple of things that may help. In the short term, on sites like this, I recommend using Pinpoint Mode to locate the centre of a target and quickly checking it again in detection mode with the coil centered on the target. A consistent ferrous response on the center of the target which turns to non-ferrous off to the side is a giveaway that you have iron falsing. A couple of seconds in Pinpoint mode is one of the best ways to distinguish between 2 targets, and one piece of falsing iron. Many experienced users don’t think they need to use Pinpoint, but it can give you more than just target location information. You can also expect a software update in the near future that will provide a setting that helps you distinguish audio signals that have a good chance of being iron falsing. I believe you will find this update will significantly help you in the scenario you describe, and make detecting much easier.***

Phrunt, the multi tool would be a great option for people without a lathe. Thanks for the info Norvic. .8mm does sound a bit thin but it may be worth a try. I think I might look at 1.5mm material to see how it pans out. The PVC has one big advantage and that is the price. You can buy it very cheaply or get offcuts from a plumber for nothing. Weight wise it is 24 grams heavier than the standard skid plate but with the extra thickness, it may not be an issue worth considering. The field test will be the main thing for me. If it stands up to a bit of rough treatment when it gets hit against rocks and tree roots etc, it may be worth keeping.

it's the weekend, and of course the weather is horrible. But these nasty foggy, rainy cool days are good for something. What is that? It minimizes the number of people at public parks, playgrounds, and other areas that are normally full. So OFF I went with the Nokta Legend in hand. What was found is less than stellar but these are coins that came from a place I've hunted for years. There are still more pennies at that place. I got tired of digging them all and the rain came in harder so just time to go. The haul= 3 quarters, 3 dimes, 2 nickels, a fake kid ring, and an odd penny with a cross seemingly cut in it. I don't know how many pennies there are, I didn't count but it weighed my bag down. Of particular interest is one of the quarters and a couple other coins. Heavy iron and they were being masked. The Legend and LG24 helped me hear there was something else besides iron. Digging revealed coins. My goal is to truly hunt this place out, even of pennies. But the place keeps on giving. Crusty clad if cleaned goes right on to coinstar. Any that is rejected gets another more vigorous scrubbing and a return trip at a later date. Only with practice do you learn a machine and also experiment with what it can do. It was fun!

I don't think the export customs do the screening of stuff like the import customs do, at least here, as if I post something internationally it arrives at the mail centre and passes right through straight away to waiting on a flight and is normally off on its way a few hours after arriving, whereas importing stuff sits in customs for a couple of days where it goes through screening. I would think if they were sampling the coil by drilling it like that, it would be done at import customs in the US not export in Bulgaria.

I don't think the export customs do the screening of stuff like the import customs do, at least here, as if I post something internationally it arrives at the mail centre and passes right through straight away to waiting on a flight and is normally off on its way a few hours after arriving, whereas importing stuff sits in customs for a couple of days where it goes through screening. I would think if they were sampling the coil by drilling it like that, it would be done at import customs in the US not export in Bulgaria.

Bunnings sell 0.8mm Polycarbonate in a roll 1.2x1.2m. 0.8mm does sound a bit thin but being PC is tough as nails and outlasts/lighter than factory skidplates that arent made of PC. At that thickness can cut with Wiss snips or similar.

yeah this was nothing but pure vandalism by one of the Customs agents in my opinion, I will be filing a complaint and trying to get satisfaction on this, there was no need for what they did to that coil, I believe they could have ran it through their ex-ray machines and seen that there was no drugs or anything else illegal inside that coil. I could not believe it when I opened the box and seen what they had done to this coil, one 1-3/8 inch hole would have been bad enough but to literally drill 5 3/8 inch holes through the windings inside the coil that is ridiculous to say the least.

Outstanding, PVC's pretty tough, should work out well.

The corrugated tag ends provided an area where pliers could be used to extract the skid plate from the mould. I expected this to be a difficult task as no release angles were placed on either the plug or ring sections of the mould. By moving my way around the mould, the skid plate pulled out without too much effort. The end result showed some promise. The plug was locked into the skid plate due to the corrugations but I thought that this problem could be solved by trimming surplus material using a lathe tool. The ring mould was screwed back onto the lathe and an off cut of material acted to pad the recess. The plug was held in place with the tailstock centre and a parting tool was used to cut the waste away. The skid plate was then removed from the plug. The skid plate was returned to the lathe so that it could be trimmed to the exact height required. When this was achieved, the final test was to see how it fitted to the coil. I was actually surprised as to how well it slipped into place. I think there was a bit of luck involved here as it was a good, tight fit. I reckon I could use the plate without tape. Some tape was applied and the job was done. Looks like it may work quite well. Testing will indicate if the PVC is too brittle and it will be interesting to see how it wears. I may try some polycarbonate in the future to see how it compares. These moulds could be made easily with just a jig saw and a few cramps. Accuracy of saw cuts would determine success if this process was used. I’ll give some feedback in the future as to how the skid plate works. Cheers Les

Not suggesting good or bad about any country, just stating what happened. Cheers

Wow, someone must’ve gotten some sort of a red flag on coil shipments, but testing an item destructively that way and not reporting the damage to you was ridiculous. Submit a form 95 claim to customs for destruction of property- this explains it on their website: https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-178?language=en_US Was the shipment insured? One issue I can think of happening is maybe that they will try to blame the Bulgarian customs office on it if they inspected it before it was exported. You may need proof that that didn’t happen either.