abenson

I've had both coils. 15" spiral DD is a back & arm killer to swing unless you get a hip stick. For me it wasn't worth the extra 2" over the 12x15 commander coil. There area few diehard relic hunters that won't use anything else, but im not one of them. The Coiltek 14" DD was my all time favorite coil for relics and its dang near as deep as the 15" DD. The other thing about the 15" Spiral DD is its real sensitive to small stuff, something you don't really need when relic hunting. 22 brass and lead sounds real good with that coil and you soon get tired of digging them. I'd borrow one before you buy one just so you know what you're up against.

I think you're right Simon. I remember reading somewhere that the coil bolts were expensive. I've already lost a washer and had to go to Ace Hardware to find a replacement.

I got interested in gold prospecting when I joined this forum and although I had hunted for gold nuggets before was not all that interested in it until about 7 years ago. The first thing I did after I bought my GPX 4000 was take a class from Gerry, which is actually where I meet Steve Herschbach for the first time. The next thing I did was buy a bunch of books and join a gold prospecting club here in Utah where I found out real quick that Utah doesn't have much detectable gold. So I joined 3 clubs down in Arizona and went to a few club hunts and meet Jeff R. from Dolan Springs I think on this forum. For about 3 years I would go down to the Gold Basin area and meet up with Jeff who really helped me understand the why and where to look for gold and meteorites in the area. I didn't find much in the way of gold, a few small bits here and there but did find a lot of meteorites. As I've gone to more club events and meet more people both on and off this forum I've learned more and more about gold hunting. Since I have to travel so far to get to areas that have detectable gold, 9 hours to Arizona and 6 to Nevada, it was very important to have help to get started so trips wouldn't be wasted not finding anything. I can't thank Jeff R., Steve H. and Steve F. enough for all the help they have given me over the last few years and thanks to everyone else that has contributed on this forum to help me and others learn how to metal detect for gold.

I called Mary at Garrett this morning. She said they don't list the coil bolt and washers on their site and it's not the same as the AT series bolts. You have to call Garrett directly to get one and it's covered under warranty if you break one. Kind of weird they don't have any listed for sale. Also, kind of weird that every coil they sell doesn't come with one.

I'm surprised at the number of people that say they can't tell target size with the Equinox or Manticore. I personally have no issue telling a small target like .22 bullet from a coin or pop can unless it super deep. If you're new to the Manticore it will come with more time on the machine. All of the coils are fairly sensitive to small targets. Lowering the sensitivity can help as well as selecting rich audio profile under your audio type can also help.

Video of the hunt for those that are interested.

I just contacted Joel he's going to get a price and availability. I need to get an extra myself.

I think you're going to have to call Garrett. I don't know of any for sale online. I've heard they're the ridiculous price of $30 for the bolt and washer.

That's weird Jeff. I've not had issues like that at all.

One thing I noticed in your video is that your headphones were trying to connect while you were going over the target in fine mode. The audio actually went blank. But 2 swings into you trying medium the headphones were not trying to connect. I've had this same thing happen when trying to film video where you turn off your headphones but the Axiom is still trying to pair with them and the speaker audio goes blank.

I haven't had any problems running the Axiom DD coils and actually prefer them over the mono for multiple reason. I know in fine mode on my machine there's no hole in the GB that's taking out. 22 brass or lead because I've dug multiples of each on various trips. One thing I would try is a frequency scan. In the video it doesn't appear the Axiom is ground balancing right in fine mode and maybe EMI is playing a part in that. I would try a frequency scan even if there's no auditable EMI being heard. I didn't notice what speed was being used either, I think medium is default, slow might be better as It let's less interference in. Other than that I don't know what be causing the weird response.

The worse part isn't the rain it's the wind out there.

The Roads were good for us but starting Saturday rain is in the forecast for the next 9 days.

We thought it looked like one of Steve's Doodle dogs positioned another way In the tests I've done in my soil type the DD is more sensitive to the small nuggets.

I've had the Axiom for a about 2 months now and up to this point have just been testing it against other PI's on gold nuggets. The weather looked good enough to head to the Nevada desert this last weekend, so I asked Steve & Steve if they wanted to meet up. They agreed. Weather was a little cold at night, still in the upper 20's low 30's, but day time temps were mid 60's. Perfect metal detecting weather! Steve has been using the Axiom for quite some time now and has always said it really is a great PI. I have to agree, especially if you're looking for a multi purpose PI to use not only gold nugget hunting but relic or beach hunting. I really look at the Axiom as being a great replacement for the now discontinued GPX 5000. The Axiom is far better on small gold than the GPX 5000 IMO and hands down just a better setup overall. It's real nice to have all the functions right there available at you finger tips. Wireless headphones, rechargeable battery that lasts 2 days and great ergonomics just add to the appeal. One thing that's real hard for me to do it put time in on a new metal detector when you're at a site you've used other metal detectors on the past that have a proven track record. I had the Manticore and GPX 6000 with as well. So forcing myself to use the Axiom for 4 hour stretches at a time was hard to say the least. Especially when there was gold being found by others in the party. But using the Axiom did not disappoint and I can confidently say it will find both small and big gold about as good as any other PI's I've used. I used the 7x11 DD coil the entire trip, my settings for the most part were fine gold, sensitivity at 5-6 and threshold at 15. First nugget I found with the Axiom came on day 2 as I was exploring some new ground I hadn't detected over before. I saw a dirt pile a few hundred yards away so worked towards it. About 10 feet away from the pile I got the first signal I'd heard in probably 20 minutes. Turned out to be a .16 gram nugget at about an inch. The second nugget came on the morning of day 3 about 3 hours before I had to leave. I was hunting some large piles of dirt that had lots of junk in them. Got a loud high tone that I figured was going to be trash, but dug it anyway. Turns out it was a large 4.1 gram nugget. Man did that make my trip. Obviously I dug a lot of other junk targets on the trip. But when you're digging bird shot, aluminum foil and small wire you know a machine is capable of finding small gold. Best thing about the trip is everyone found gold. I'll let Steve and Steve chime in if they want with their finds.

Nice nugget! Congratulations on the nice find.

I've owned the Manticore since it came out and have at least a couple hundred hours on it. The best advice I can give is, don't assume others peoples settings are going to work for you and your sites. Setting people use in the UK won't necessarily work in the US. Tom Dankowski's setting for Florida beaches won't necessarily work on California beaches, etc, etc. Other people have already said this, you can't run a Manticore setup like an Equinox. The Manticore is a totally different animal and you need to forget what you know about the Equinox for the most part when using the Manticore. Sensitivity and Recovery speed settings on the Manticore are some of the most misunderstood in relation to iron contamination and high mineral ground. In my ground I prefer either General or ATLC when hunting most land sites, recovery at 5 or 6 and sensitivity at 19 or 20. It's stupid for people to say run your sensitivity up to 25 or 30 or whatever if the result is counter productive for the site. I have videos showing how counter productive running your sensitivity up can be on high mineral ground. If I run my recovery too low or sensitivity to high, the Manticore actually loses depth and the target ID is very unstable. So the best advice I can give is either bury some targets or find some targets in the wild and go over them using different settings to see how the Manticore reacts. General is probably the best program to start in if you are new to the Manticore. Start by using the stock settings and make adjustments to target tones to see which you like best 1 region all tones, 2 tones, 5 tones, etc. then which audio theme and audio profile you prefer. once you have it setup for the audio you prefer, then start making adjustments to recovery speed and sensitivity settings over a buried target until you get the best audio and target ID response. The last thing I would mess with is the upper and lower ferrous limits and that's after you have at least 100 hours on it. And finally, take into consideration what software version you are using because there are settings on the new version that aren't on the older version that you may or may not like. Stabilizer is one of those that may or may not help with your sites, I personally don't use the stabilizer. Hope that helps. here's a video showing how sensitivity can be counter productive in a high mineral site.

At Rye Patch I'd start with the 7x11 mono. The deeper coil of the 2 will be the 11x13 DD.

Nice find Jeff, Congratulations!

I don't really care for the Garrett headphones either. I just bought the WR-1 receiver and now use my killer bee headphones which sound much better IMO.

Good choice for the money. The Axiom is rain resistant. It's available in 2 different packages. One of them comes with wireless headphones. The international package comes with wired headphones, not even sure it's available in the US but it might be.

As long as it's detectable, it's big enough for me.

I thought the same thing when I saw the video. Looks too big to be .01. But good video anyway.

Steve I'd say your assessment of the above is pretty spot on. I have a few of those machines and have seen most of the others in field right along side the ones I use. Not having seen of used the E1500, I still think your assessment is accurate. Companies price products the way they do for a reason and I wouldn't expect a 2k PI to outperform a 6k or even a 4k PI.

I've been doing a lot of testing between the 4500, 6000 & Axiom over the last month or so. What I'm seeing is the 6000 is better on small gold up to about the .50 gram point. From .50 grams and up they are pretty equal until the targets really start getting deep, then the Axiom is doing better. Both machines are limited by coils at this point. Smaller coil on the Axiom and it may be right on par with the 6000 on small gold. Same goes for big deep gold. If a bigger coil was available for the 6000, it might be right on par with the Axiom. Now mind you this is not backed by actual in field wild targets, but I still think it's a pretty good reflection of actual conditions. I will say for the range of metal detecting I do with a PI, which includes gold prospecting, beach hunting and relic hunting, the Axiom is the best overall.