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Vanquish 340 With 8” Coil Rocks!


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That's weird because my Vanquish with the V8 coil only gets 4 out of 8 on my board. The F19 6 out of 8. I'm using old square nails so maybe the difference is in the nails used. But even in field tests the Vanquish is a dog in iron no matter what mode used. The Equinox with the 11 inch coil is way better. Maybe my Vanquish has a problem. But i can't imagine Minelab making the Vanquish a better performer than the Equinox. I haven't been that impressed with the Vanquish from day 1 when it comes to its performance in iron trash. Falses like crazy on deep iron and doesn't unmask very well. No matter I actually sold it last week because I prefer the Equinox and i can only swing one detector at a time.

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We're talking about metal detectors under $400 here. So the topic is getting off track, I'm partially to blame. I will say the Vanquish 540 is an excellent machine and it comes stock with the V12 coil not the V8, that's an accessory coil. So with that in mind you're pretty limited on the sites you can hunt successfully. Great beach machine for depth and stability also a great coin machine for parks. Take it to a trashy relic site or ghost town and it's going to be out of it's element. Get the V8 coil on any of the Vanquish detectors and it will perform a little better.

Entry level machines give entry level performance. Although some are clearly better than others. As for all the Fisher Garrett, Minelab and Whites machines I've used in this price range, I'll take the Vanquish hands down.

Site selection is going to determine what you use. If you just want to hunt modern coins almost any metal detector can find them. If you're going after older coins, relics, and gold nuggets then you just might have to consider spending more than $400. Sure you can find some old coins, relics, jewelry, etc. with a low priced detector. I know lots of people that have. If a metal detector that costs less than $400 is all that's in your budget, then learn it well and enjoy your time outdoors. Also, visit this section often, there is some great advice from very knowledgeable people.

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Hi,

Not keeping this topic on $400 or less detectors is partly on me too since I mentioned the F19/G2+.  I guess I'm still miffed at the price of the "New" Bounty Hunter Time Ranger Pro set by FTP. In my opinion (which isn't worth much...) the Time Ranger Pro should be priced at $299 to $349. It is almost worth that price just for the outstanding all metal mode that it has. However, with the 11x7" coil that comes with it, unless you are hunting in areas with targets well spaced and fairly shallow............otherwise, good luck! That coil is a real dog in thick iron or aluminum trash, suffers from EMI and ground noise and produces major jumpy target IDs in discrimination mode. If the Time Ranger Pro came with wireless audio and the 10X5" coil for under $400, it would be major land/dry-damp sand hunting competition for both the Simplex and Vanquish models priced similarly. But, it doesn't. And I could throw the Teknetics Patriot into this conversation too, but it comes with the same coil😪 A buyer of a new Time Ranger Pro or Patriot would find out really quickly that they would need to buy a better coil and the price goes over $400.

 

Jeff

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34 minutes ago, abenson said:

We're talking about metal detectors under $400 here. So the topic is getting off track, I'm partially to blame.

 

11 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Not keeping this topic on $400 or less detectors is partly on me too since I mentioned the F19/G2+.

IMO, you guys are a bit too contrite.  (As always, though, Steve H. is the final arbiter.)  It helps to know what a detector is good at and what it's not so good at.  Comparing to more expensive detectors, even when the features under comparison favor the >$400 detector, still helps many buyers.

 

40 minutes ago, abenson said:

Site selection is going to determine what you use. If you just want to hunt modern coins almost any metal detector can find them. If you're going after older coins, relics, and gold nuggets then you just might have to consider spending more than $400. Sure you can find some old coins, relics, jewelry, etc. with a low priced detector. I know lots of people that have. If a metal detector that costs less than $400 is all that's in your budget, then learn it well and enjoy your time outdoors.

What I've found in my area is that old sites (something like a 75 year cutoff), whether public or private, are going to have iron nails, and lots of them.  You can still find old coins amongst the iron if the site hasn't been hunted much by others.  That happens surprisingly often since most detectorists don't want to deal with nails.  But as the low hanging fruit gets harvested (even by you!) then better separation becomes important.

I've learned a lot reading this thread, and some of that is about detectors over $400.  Thanks to all who have contributed.

 

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Thank you all for the added info in this thread.  Information is power.

 

For my urban coin/jewelry hunting locations, this setup so far works perfectly for me.  I don’t deal with littered iron, so it’s a non issue.  As far a recovery speed, I really don’t feel the need for anything faster.  All targets are very close together.  I had zero issues picking out a good tone.  

I guess someone could use another machine right beside me to show me that it did better in some way.  I don’t see the need for that.  In that time I could have dug up 15-20 targets lol.

 Someone told me about a year or so back to stop analyzing every little detail about what does what and just have fun and dig.

This setup for me just feels right, and fun.  

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The “new” Bounty Hunter Time Ranger Pro is a F19 and at $399 I figure that puts all F19 detectors in this under $400 category now. Anyone paying more for another variant at this point is.... just paying more. Though getting it with a different preferred coil may still make that a better option.

For what it’s worth, in my ferrous and hot rock separation testing the FT 19 kHz machines are top performance. It’s all about using the right coil. A F19 with a NEL Snake will equal or beat other top performers, which often are forced to run larger coils. Some may say that’s cheating... I say use what works best and if a F19 with a Snake outperforms a DEUS with a larger coil then that’s the way I roll. I’m not much into being “fair” when it comes to performance.

I disagree about any of the FT 19 kHz units and EMI susceptibility. They are some of the best VLFs I’ve ever used in EMI regardless of coil.

Really off subject though.... this thread is about the Vanquish and small coil, and where comparisons really do go astray is bringing the Equinox into the discussion. The Equinox is simply way more expensive and darn well better outperform a Vanquish, though the performance for many applications is near equal. There does appear to be a disparity of views on how well it does in dense trash.

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Today afternoon ... after work I did a short comparison of my Teknetic G2 detector separation on 13 "Ultimate coils and also a small 3.5x 7" coil Nel Snake / cors chrew / .. in my standard
  deep and separation test ..

  Detector setting :, sensitivity 100, discrimination 40 ..

  Results of depth and separation:

  Teknetics G2 + .. 13 "Detech Ultimate Coil ....
   has reached 4-to 4.5 points out of 8 max. On this large 13 "Ultimate coil you really only get the average separation ..
But deep profits increase by 3-5 cm compared to the Standard 11 "DD coil ... for targets like small and medium sized coins .. /up to 23cm for small/13mm silver hammered/ ..and up to  35cm for medium sized  /50eurocent/ coin..-but it is already a border signal with ID...

Tek G2 + ..3.5x 7 "Nel Snake Coil ... achieved excellent separation results ... 7.5-8 points out of 8 max ... and works great with this detector in the iron.

The depth of detection will be up to 14cm.. for  small/ 13mm  hammered/coin-...and up to18 cm on medium sized/50eurocent/ coins ...
 

IMG_20200326_173202.jpg

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Even though there was somewhat different opinion from minelab Vanquish 340 users on how well this detector can detect in the iron and divide these views into two groups of views. some are very satisfied with the detectors.......and also those users for whom this detector has only average separation properties....

My latest comparison of Vanquisha in the "Monte" nailbord separation test on a low conductive 5 gram nickel coin and a 5 gram high conductive silver coin revealed the fact .... both sides are right.

Detetkor Vanquish 340 -a V10 coil I tested on all 3 programs..Allmetal, Jewerly, and also Coin program.

The results of the separation test are surprising.

 The 5 gram silver high-conductivity coin gained only a "Average result" in the nailbord test .... 5.5 points of 8 point max...!

5 grams of nickel low-conductivity coin got " excellent result" in nailbord test 7.5-8 points out of 8 points Max .. !!!

This detector is excellent for separating low conductive objects .... !!!


The detector worked best on separation in All metal y Jewerly ...Jewerly program in some cases ... it helps better to highlight good signal between iron and iron than Allmetal ....but I wouldn't take it as a rule, rather as an alternative ... for a better verification of a suspicious signal ..

The Coin program was significantly weaker in the separation.

.IMG_20200329_181014.jpg

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After 6 hours of field testing on an iron infested area , for me the vanquish ( I have the 540 ) has good iron separation properties but not excellent . It is a little slow ( low reactivity ) and it is quite noisy/unstable on such areas  , with either the V12 or even the V8 coil. And it is not so easy to pick up the correct signals from the audio  , compared to specialized detectors like the Deus/Orx or the Tesoro Lobo.

For info I am currently testing the vanquish on a path  that has been used by hundreds  soldiers during the 1st ww , so a lot of iron trash , this in addtition to the older or more recent iron pollution. So it is a very difficult area , ideal for testing detectors  … I have been there 3 times up to now with the Vanquish V12 and V8 , I will now change and try the Deus HF at the same place , so that I will be able to compare them together .

However , as long as you are back on less iron trashed areas , the Vanquish re becomes excellent …

Anyway I like this machine. For example yesterday evening I tested the backlight , it works perfectly.  It seems that everything has been very well designed on this detector . Very easy to use , deep machine , very compact in a rucksack… Just I would have liked a special "heavy iron trashed" mode like the "FA" mode of the Teknectics T2 , but still happy with the Vanquish without that ...🙂   

 

 

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11 hours ago, phrunt said:

if they could somehow make a F19 type detector with blue tooth wireless audio for those that like headphones and the features like back light,...

Not quite sure I interpreted what you said correctly.  The Fisher F19 does have backlighting options, which its close relative, the Gold Bug, doesn't have.  But, yes, the other features on your wish list (Bluetooth wireless, depth of the Teknetics T2) are lacking.  It's interesting that the Gold Bug family have the built in idiot-proofing of maxing out the gain/sensitivity internally before you "get into the noise" as opposed to letting the user choose.  I wonder if relaxing that restriction would give depth approaching the T2.  And if so, is it a simple mod or would that require further design changes to allow its implementation?

 

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