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So An Mcore, Deus 2, And T2 Go For A Walk At The Bullet Site


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It has to be the T2. All metal is very hot on this detector.

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A place where the GPX beeps and you dig the Deus 2 stays calm... Deus 2 is the most disappointing machine for me lately. I'm moving to Manticore, I hope it can offer more than the D2. One thing I noticed about the Deus 2 is it works nice for really small coins but not a huge upgrade considering the cost vs other machines.

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32 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Great report Daniel, thanks. I have just two comments to clarify a couple things for people who only hunt lower mineral conditions.

This is what I saw with Equinox and was why early on I recommended not using real low recovery speeds in bad ground. This conflicted with advice coming from the low mineral camp to run very low recovery speeds. That’s fine in moderate soils. In extreme ground, it will cost you. Why? Hunting extreme ground is like hunting a bed of nails. Too low reactivity lets the ground mask everything while faster recovery speeds or reactivity allows for better see through capability. But too high is not good either of course. To quote myself from 2018 “Lower settings = more depth and faster settings = less depth is totally wrong unless you detect in the air.” 

Long story short very low recovery speed or reactivity can hurt depth in very high mineral ground and/or hot rock situations due to ground and hot rock masking.

It should be obvious that large coils “see” more ground. In extreme ground and on a single target, increasing the coil size increases the amount of ground the detector has to deal with, while the target size remains the same. The ground in these cases is an undesirable target, and you are making the ratio between the desired target (bullet or gold nugget) and the undesired target (ground and hot rocks) worse by using a larger coil. This leads to the counterintuitive situation where in the worst ground, going to a smaller coil will actually increase target definition and perceived depth over the larger coils. Large coils may actually overload and lose all ability to detect at all, unless transmit power can be reduced, which effectively reduces depth, but allows the detector to function. The Equinox Beach 2 mode does this automatically and despite the name is a fallback mode for extreme ground of any sort.

And so long story short again, stick with stock coils or go to smaller coils in extreme ground. Larger coils may not only not add depth, but can actually lose depth in the worst ground!

So I wasn't loopy?! Haha I figure somebody that's not hunted bad dirt would have a hard time believing my post.  Thanks for the reinforcement!  

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26 minutes ago, Daniel Tn said:

So I wasn't loopy?! Haha I figure somebody that's not hunted bad dirt would have a hard time believing my post.  Thanks for the reinforcement!  

There is a general communication disconnect between people who only hunt in moderate to low mineral ground, and those who mainly hunt extreme mineral ground.

People read depth quotes given from low mineral ground and think their detector is broken. "Gee, my detector only hits a dime at 7" - what's wrong with it or my settings?"

People from low mineral land tend to love air tests. People in extreme ground tend to scorn such tests.

The low mineral people tend to struggle to figure out why anyone would use a PI detector and even argue against their use.

When placed in bad ground low mineral people will often do exactly the wrong thing and then wonder why they are having no success. I see this often in gold prospecting when people who have hunted coins in turf or Florida beaches try to find gold nuggets for the first time. Wrong detectors, wrong coils, wrong settings, wrong technique. The worst ones to teach are often the ones who have been at it the longest since they have the most to unlearn. It's hard to break old habits. With newbies at least I don't have to fight ingrained misperceptions.

It's literally like people speaking two different languages at times, with both misunderstanding the other. Some of the stupidest arguments about metal detector performance come when low mineral people compare results with high mineral people and both call the other a liar. :laugh:

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I still have a T2 classic and use it mainly for mineral readings at my sites. Rarely use it anymore for anything else, but in the past I was pretty impressed with the depth it got in all metal mode. My dirt is also 4 bars so I had a pretty good idea about how each of the units would handle. I also use FAST as my main program to build off on the Deus 2, usually run 2 or 3 tones, reactivity at anywhere from 2-3 depending on the site, bottle cap reject OFF, Silencer 0, Sensitivity is site dependent, under ground balance there is a function called ground stabilizer you can from 1-3. It's worth experimenting with this as it can clean those deep signals up a bit. Also I've been playing with notch disc and it can do the same thing, clean up those iron buzzy deep targets and ID.

On the Manticore I'm still learning it but recently just started diving into the disc patterns and ferrous limits settings and those appear to be cleaning up those deep targets in my dirt as well. So far only been using High Conductor but I'm thinking Fast might be a better opinion to try next time as there may be some unrecognized blow back happening on High Conductor in high mineral dirt. Been running 1 region all tones, recovery at 3, stock ferrous limits with all metal OFF (so no iron is heard)Audio theme normal in profile medium. Also running some disc patterns and those are site dependent and appear to be helping with iron masking of targets.

These newer machines like the Manticore and D2 (explorer, eTrac & CTX also had this trait) have something special going on when using notch features IMO. Unlike the older machines where if the target ID was pulled down by iron, notch would take out the target. Now the target will still pull past the notched out targets and register with a audio and ID response. I've seen this multiple times with the D2 and now I'm starting to see it with the Manticore.

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13 hours ago, abenson said:

I'm betting the T2. But it's only saying yes there's a target down there. D2 will hold an accurate ID the deepest, by all metal I'm assuming you're using relic mode disc at -6.4. Prospecting mode on the Manticore? Ferrous limits on or off?

T2 is pretty straightforward as to what settings would be. But on the other 2, there are many settings that can be used and possibly change the outcome.

Agree, but one thing though.  D2 Relic mode is an IAR vs. Disc mode so you can only set IAR 0 through 5.  As Dan mentioned, he went to one of the disc modes  (Sens FT) and went negative disc.  T2 is a classic.

4 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

Started with a custom program based off Sens FT factory mode with no discrimination (-6.4) and Audio Response set to 6 so that I could hear things a bit better without modulation, reactivity at 1, and sens up in the mid 90s.  That was a starting point...in my test garden at home, this done extremely well.  At the bullet place...not so well.  I tried a number of things actually...from increasing the reactivity speed, lowering sensitivity, different programs, etc.  I did find out that if you go too low on reactivity, you actually LOSE the signal in this dirt.  Going higher/faster in reactivity seems to give a better signal...there is a sweet spot and if you go too high with it, it also washes out the signal.  I could do things to make it worse, but nothing to really make it leaps and bounds better.

Dan - I take it you left it in default FT.  Pitch (perhaps with some disc) and  might (or might not) have made a slight difference on getting a signal, but wouldn't have changed the overall result with T2 taking the prize and really there is no point wasting time going through all the permutations on the D2.  You are spot on regarding getting the right sweet spot on reactivity in that dirt.  

Maybe a little surprised D2 relic did so poorly.  One thing with D2 relic is that with mineralized ground especially, 00 registers as a (non-ferrous) phantom pitch tone (but its just a ground feedback or micro ferrous response) even with IAR applied (which gets you iron volume for TIDs below 00).  As a result, you have to notch out 00 to get rid of this annoying behavior.  Again, this just helps with hearing non-phantom target signals but wouldn't affect overall performance.  And again, wouldn't have likely changed your conclusions or the strength of response on the signals you were able to hear.

Thanks for controlled run through.  I'll be using the Axiom in Culpeper this year.  But will be packing a D2 in my day pack.  This will give me some ideas on different things to try with the D2 in the field as a change of pace backup machine.  If I could "pack in" the T2, I would definitely consider it :smile:.

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