Bill (S. CA)

Yesterday I decided to take my Legend to the beach for a morning low tide hunt.  I had not had the opportunity to do this due to work and pet issues for a good month so my Legend had changed a bit.  Specifically I was now running the new software V 1.11 and also had replaced the upper shaft, arm cuff and coil with the upgrades now available from Nokta Makro.

After hunting for a good three hours (more on that in a bit) and heading back to the car, something struck me.  The Legend, in its new configuration, is a radically different metal detector than the version that was released back in December 2021/January 2022.  I field tested that metal detector for Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine for their October 2022 issue.  The Legend at that time was an excellent metal detector.

In fact, I think it would be fair to say that Nokta Makro could easily have locked the early version of The Legend and then later this year come out with a new, updated version.  I thought back to so many manufacturers over the years who would take a model of detector, sell it a year or two,  then make a few changes to it and add on "+," "II," the word "pro," etc. 

But Nokta Makro chose not do to do this which is, I think, remarkable.  The Legend is faster, has more options, and is noticeably lighter than it was a year ago.

Forgive my soapboxing here, I'm not an advocate for any manufacturer, I just use what works for me.  But I thought this aspect of The Legend has been overlooked and deserved to be mentioned.  The Legend is not a year old detector.  If you have one and update it you have essentially a brand new model Legend.  Further, if you are contemplating a Legend, do not assume it is a year old design.  It is not.

Now to the beach hunt.  The new carbon fiber shaft, lighter arm cuff and LG30 coil make The Legend noticeably lighter and the balance is fine as always.  I met up with a buddy who was using a new model detector with a harness and I asked him to check out the weight of my Legend.  He did and was genuinely astonished, commenting that it didn't even weigh a pound.  Yeah, I know it weighs more that that but you get the idea.

That's the weight part of the new Legend.  As to hunting at the beach, I was able to hunt the wet sand at full sensitivity (30) with only minor chirping.  And I did not have to use the beach stability to calm the detector down.  Like in my field test last year, The Legend provided excellent depth on coins and low conductors.  However there was one noticeable change.  Another buddy had found a very small junk chain with a different brand detector and asked me to try to read it with my Legend.  At the time I was running the sensitivity at 28 and when I swept the coil over the chain I got only a small chirp.  Frankly, I would have walked right over it.  I decided to bump the sensitivity up to 30 and try again.  To my surprise, the chain hit hard, even when I raised the coil a couple of inches.  From that point on I ran The Legend at 30.  For those of you who are beach hunting with The Legend, I would recommend trying to run at 30 if you can.  I did not expect this much of a performance increase going from 28 to 30 and it may impact your ability to find fine chains.

For the day I had a pouch full of clad, a light suntan and a smile on face.  The Legend and I will be back out there again soon.

I know where you are coming from.  I'm 66 years old and still work six day weeks.  Spare time is hard to find.

When you are able, would love to see you using your detector.

Bill

Personally, like many of you veterans, I hunted without a pinpointer for many years and recovered targets just fine.  Admittedly nowadays I can't believe that I did without one for so long but the fact is if you keep your search coil near the hole to scan the pile, and you are good at target recovery, you generally won't have much trouble pinpointing.  I still remember my first pinpointer, can't recall the brand but it was an early version of the White's Bullseye.  It looked like a pack of cigarettes with a stick shoved into it on one end and i think it had a light on it.  It worked as I recall.

Nowadays I still use my black Garrett Propointer.  I have a Carrot but it stays in the box unless I am water hunting.

Oh, advice?  Practice target pinpointing with your detector and don't depend on the poinpointer to do your job of locating the target.  I used to tape a coin on the back of a piece of cardboard and  would pinpoint with my detector.  Then I would push a pin through the cardboard to see if I was right on the coin or not.  You might be surprised to see how often you miss, I know I was.

Last thing, I do get a kick out of folks who use their pinpointers to dig.  Really?

Personally I would be very interested in Geotech's (Carl) thoughts on this.

Not to bash anyone but these "gee, I'm seeing a lot of a certain detector for sale" posts show up every time a new detector comes out.  These sales mean nothing.  Lots of guys buy new detectors, try them and then sell them right away.  These are the same guys that squeeze chocolates in a box to see what is in them and then put them back.

I think your post shows how many of us are a bit surprised that the Equinoxes we have run for years now still missed stuff.

I remember the White's guys used to think that they had cleaned out all of the parks.  Then came the Explorer.  Same thing.  Then came the Etrac.  Same thing.  And finally the Equinox.  Yet the Deus II and Manticore  are proving that there will always be good stuff to find.

I'm not familiar with this detector but found this on YouTube. The fellow obviously knows the detector pretty well and to be honest, it looks intriguing and fun to use.  I hope you can put up some pictures or videos (a phone shoots HD, save your money on a camera to start).  Not every older detector is a wall hanger, a lot of them still work and find things!

Thanks for posting.

Bill

6 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

You'd be amazed how big the market is for basic detecting. Of course the Apex is not for you Jeff - that was never its intention. And of course there are not a lot of Apex users on this forum. Nor Ace users nor Garrett users in general. People here make them quite unwelcome. If you are not running what people deem to be the best (what THEY use) then you are a second class citizen. Threads like this always end up making it clear at some point.

I tried twice to start forums here focused on budget detector users, but they went nowhere, as the high end owners just hung out and kept saying how they could not own those machines, because, god forbid, they lacked a ground balance, or certain custom tone settings. No focus on simply how to get the best out of whatever a person owns. I could own an Ace detector and still do better than most because I know the dirty secret. It’s not the magic detector. It’s the user, the hours, and the right location for whatever detector it is you own.

People should go to the Garrett Searcher Archives and spend an hour just looking at finds made by Ace series detectors. These detectors have been hugely popular and make tremendous finds for people. I used an Ace 300 versus a Vanquish on numerous “found target comparisons” and what impressed me most was how good the Ace was, just the opposite of what you’d think reading comments on this website.

Steve brings up a very valid point with regard to high end users driving off the entry level folks.  The Ace line to me is tort of the VW Beetle of metal detectors.  Nothing flashy, at times put down, but fun to run and it gets the job done.

Case in point since Steve mentioned the Ace 300.   Through some buddies I met this older guy (80+) who, despite having plenty of dough and can afford any of the new multi's, will only hunt with his Ace 300.  My friends told me that at the parks he is simply unbeatable and they all swing Eqinoxes and Deus II's.  I accompanied him on a gold prospecting trip and while we all had high end PI's and gold machines, he had his Ace 300.  None of us found gold but he found the same amount of junk that we all did.

I would say with regard to the Apex, just keep in mind that Garrett introduced it as part of the Ace line.  From there judge it accordingly.

I'm glad that you started this thread, Phrunt.  Like you, I saw the Garrett video and am pleased that Garrett is promoting what I think is a very good detector that has been overlooked with all of the other multi-frequency machines that have been released over the past couple of years.

I field tested the Apex for Western and Eastern Treasures and liked it a lot.  On saltwater beaches it is a sleeper detector, one that gets good depth, especially with the Reaper coil.  Inland I found it to be capable but the Apex had a tendency to be overwhelmed in high trash, with the iron audio being more or an encumbrance than an advantage.  There is an update to the Apex that improves performance in this area:  https://updates.garrett.com/updates/

Funny how I was just thinking of rolling out the Apex and giving it another go and then this video popped up.  Steve Moore of Garrett actually hunts with their metal detectors (check out his Axiom videos) so these videos are not going to be a talking head show and will be worth watching.

Hopefully the reintroduction of the Apex will get it some well-deserved attention plus open the door to Garrett's next multi-frequency detector.  I hope that Garrett continues to use the Apex display disign - I think it is the best one out there.

Bill

Steve,

I think you concept is a good one.  A probationary period with limited new member rights isn't asking too much of people who genuinely want to join your forum.

Bill

13 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Same as the Equinox 700/900, target ID 25/26

Interesting.  I'll have to look for those numbers with my Legend.  Think I was digging too many 23/24 ID's.

20 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I have hunted around 50 Denver area parks regularly and thoroughly with an Equinox 800 since getting one back in mid 2018. I have hunted some of those same parks and exact same areas recently with the Legend, Deus 2 and Equinox 900 and I have been removing lots of nickels with each detector that I just couldn’t definitively pick out of the adjacent aluminum trash with the Equinox 800. There were just too many overlapping aluminum targets that shared the Equinox 600/800 12/13 target ID area. With the Legend, Deus 2 and Equinox 900, the nickel target ID area is not nearly as crowded with other overlapping trash target IDs. Nickels and gold rings with similar IDs are super easy to hear with these expanded target ID detectors.

Ah, I knew you would chime in, Jeff!  What are you finding the nickels come in at on The Legend?

Oops, forgot to mention that the 27's were on the Manticore.

I have several buddies who own both the Deus II and the Manticore and the number of nickels they continue to pull from heavily hunted parks is just astounding.  These parks have been hit and hit hard by every detector including the Equinox.  I personally have hunted several of these parks with my Equinox and my Legend and usually come away with a ton of tabs and just a few nickels.  Do you guys think this is due to the expanded TID on the Deus II and the Manticore?  Perhaps the averaging that goes along with lower number TID scales is being nullified to a degree by the 0 - 100 scales on these two detectors.  A buddy of mine dug 11 nickels in an hour and a half at a pounded park yesterday and he said every one came in at a 27.

Bill

Deus II.  Hands down no brainer decision.

11 hours ago, midalake said:

Stability setting??? Like recovery speed? 
 

 

Yes, maybe? But does the frequency weighting favor gold?  In that wet/black sand zone.

No idea. These sort of questions are above my pay grade, Midalake!

Here's a screenshot of the page in the manual that discusses this feature.

On 3/28/2023 at 5:25 PM, midalake said:

Hey Bill

You may be one of the most experienced beach hunters that have a Legend>>>>show us the way! 

 

Well I don't know about that but I'll try to share some info.  Today I took my Legend out and did some air testing with several gold targets.  I was in Beach Wet, Sensitivity at 18 due to EMI, and ran several gold targets under the coil, changing the stability setting on each one, starting at 1 and going all the way up to 5.

You will see three photos: 3 - rings (2 - 10k, 1 - 14K),a 10K gold cross, and a small 10K gold earring.

The Legend would hit the gold rings solid at every setting from 1 - 5.

It would only hit the cross on 1 and 2.  By 3 it was an iffy signal that I would most likely ignore.  At 4 and 5 the detector did not see it.  I did try running the sensitivity up despite the EMI and it made no difference.

The small earring gave a repeatable signal up to 3, then vanished at 4 and 5.  Again, increasing sensitivity did not make a difference.

I have run my Legend in heavy black sand with a sensitivity of 28 with very little falsing at a stability setting of 1.  Coin targets and bits of cans hit solid and deep.  I wish I could tell you that gold did the same but I am in the midst of a "low conductors are always crap" streak so you know how that goes.   My advice on Beach Stability is to run it at 1 and only adjust it if absolutely necessary.  If you do have to increase it, I would go no higher than 3 and would try to stay at 2 if possible.  But whatever you do, DO NOT run The Legend with the preset value of 5 if you want to find small gold.

Lastly, if any of you were readers of Western and Eastern Treasures Magazine you may recall that I did a field test on The Legend for the October 2022 issue. Thanks to the latest update V1.11 The Legend is a radically different and more powerful detector than it was prior to the update.  Back when I field tested it in August/September, it was very capable at the beach but could not compete with the multi-frequency heavy hitters.  That is no longer the case in my opinion. The depth and stability in the wet sand is noticeably different and in comparing signals with buddies using the two current multi-frequency kings of the beach The Legend matched every signal.  The Legend is a serious contender for beach hunting and right now it is my machine of choice.  I am anxious to try the new LG30 coil which I hear is quite good.  When I get my hands on one I'll share my results with you folks.

Hey George.  Interesting pickup.  What do you have in mind for this unit?

Bill

9 minutes ago, PI-Man said:

Bill great comments — not toxic.   That is why I prefer just a few manual knobs to mess with instead of all the software.  Less hassle and forces you to utilize just a few settings and learn the machine.  The TDI SLs are always my go to detector everything else is a bonus.  Glad I couldn’t update my V3i software I am still learning it since it came out.  Haha

I just want to know why the Manticore brand new out of box on the park  program with no adjustments smoked me on my D2 park program no adjustments and same targets.  Lol 

My biggest problem with XP is the software updater to run on different platforms (Mac/pc) and if that hasn’t been addressed yet well…..to me that’s a tell tale sign it takes them a long time to produce something.  Maybe they only have 1 developer working for them.  Now in my eyes if they promoted a product that was supposed/sold to be upgradable well bad on them then they should have known people would ask.  That goes for any company.  I am sure something will come eventually.  

I'm totally with you about the knobs and I completely agree about the V3i. I no longer have mine because my head never stopped hurting!

I've debated throwing in on this topic because sometimes these types of discussions can become toxic.  So I will state right off the bat that this is only my opinion.

With that being said...it was only a few years ago when detectors could not be updated.  We bought the detectors, figured out their warts, shortcomings AND advantages and learned how to use them.  That's just how it was.

Now we have detectors that can be updated and that is for the most part a good thing.  But keep this in mind: manufacturers are under no obligation to update their products. They could easily lock these new detectors and move on to the next one.

Instead they choose not to and suddenly there is this backlash where some folks feel that they are entitled to updates immediately and continually.  To call a new detector a "beta" is grossly unfair.  Unless a manufacturer releases a beta update to solicit user feedback, it is absolutely absurd to think that any company would knowingly release a flawed detector.  I can tell you first hand that these detectors are tested and tested and retested, both in the lab and in the field.  That doesn't mean that they are perfect and in fact they may have bugs that were missed.  It only means that in the company's view the detector is ready for release. 

Further, while it is easy to say "oh, Detector X needs this feature because it has a problem in this environment," making that statement assumes that updating software on a metal detector is as easy as changing out a car battery.  Please.  For example, to add an iron filter may sound easy, but to do it in a way that works and that doesn't compromise other aspects of the software and detector performance is no easy task.

My advice: use what you have and learn it's pros and cons. Submit feedback to the manufacturers if you wish and post those results if you want to.  But leave companies like XP alone when it comes to the updates.  If and when one shows up use it.  But  until then, use your Deus II and learn it.  I can tell you that my buddies who have them are killing it in multiple environments and are continually learning how to tweak their detectors to get better results.  I wish I had the dough to buy one.  From what I have seen it is an amazing detector as is.

Bill

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Do you run your tumbler outside?  (I'm not so fond of ammonia fumes....)

The tumbler is sealed and there are no fumes at all.  I just run mine in my garage on a workbench.

Buy a cheapo Harbor Freight Tumbler (https://www.harborfreight.com/3-lb-rotary-rock-tumbler-67631.html), some aquarium gravel, Dawn and liquid ammonia.  Fill drum 1/2 full of coins (separate pennies).  Add a shot glass of Dawn and a shot glass of ammonia.  Toss in one handful of gravel.  Tumble for 3 - 4 hours.  Done.  I've been doing this for years.  It's inexpensive and cleans all but but the worst zincs right up.

FYI I have the dual drum but the motor gets tired after a few years and now I can only do one full drum at a time.  Better to save the $20.00 and get the single drum.

Thanks guys, that is what I was thinking as well.  I just need to go through my Legend and check the presets.  My preference would have been a median setting of say "3" but I get their apparent logic.

Has anyone played around with the stability setting in Beach Mode?  The manual kind of contradicts itself on this setting when it states on Page 17:

The stability can be set between 1 to 5. The default setting is 5.
Level 5 will offer maximum stability. As the stability is increased
though, the signal of lower conductors such as gold with 11 ID may
diminish and the chances of missing these metals will increase.

As a beach hunter I am after gold as I think most beach hunters are so why would the default be the maximum value that might cost you the good stuff?  I'm going to do some testing myself on small gold and change the value to see what difference it makes but I'm curious if anyone has any experience with this setting.

19 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Bill, version 1.11 software also has Park defaulting with 2 tones, recovery speed 5 and iron filter on 8. I think Beach still defaults to 2 tones also.

I can only speculate. Park is probably used a lot by new users and beginners. Having Park Multi on 2 tones (ferrous/non ferrous) recovery speed 5 and iron filter 8 really simplifies things for a new user.

Personally, I would probably hunt saltwater beaches in default 2 tones or the 2 tone Pitch audio anyway so that one makes sense to me.

 

Jeff,

The problem for me with 2 tone is that if you hit a zinc penny field (like I did yesterday) and hunt by tone you have to check TID on every hit.  Once I got back to 6 tones I could avoid them.   The Legend is interesting in that it hits chewed up zincs as 38's and good ones as 41's. 

Bill