Jeff McClendon

I didn’t say you can’t use ultra fine for coins. Ultra fine just opens the door to a wide range of tiny targets including shallower natural iron and manmade trash targets in the ground potentially sounding off and mimicking actual deep target responses. I had just the opposite experience with in the ground wild targets. Bigger targets could be detected easier and deeper with medium sized mono coils using fine, normal and large.

Hi Joe, I don’t have an Algoforce anymore so I can‘t double check this next statement. I always did the recommended automatic ground grab ground balance. I never tried to manually adjust it and I don’t know if that is possible. Did you calibrate the coils you are using? Also, are you following the pinpoint mode instructions that are in the manual carefully? If you are using a medium sized coil like the Minelab 11” mono I would be in Fine, Normal or Large for detecting coins. Using Ultra Fine just brings every speck of iron and aluminum into the picture. Ultra Fine will detect the magnetite in your soil too. Fine, Normal and Large will ignore those sub 0.1 gram targets. Using Ultra Fine definitely puts the AlgoForce into a mode that backs up your statement earlier “So, it’s a GOLD machine only”. No it isn’t. PI detectors that have a dedicated saltwater beach mode like the AlgoForce does are meant to be used for other types of detecting too. Large also has the ability to change the pulse delay even more so that you can tune out an even wider range of small targets and responses from high mineralization. I kept my pinpoint audio on Classic and just concentrated on the ID numbers. I did not try to analyze the pinpoint audio at all for any kind of target discrimination other than target size and depth. I did not try do use the Classic tone for conductivity identification and I didn’t use 5 or 100 tones in pinpoint. Maybe I should have but that opportunity did not happen. I sold my AlgoForce due to its insensitivity to really small gold targets compared to the Axiom and Goldmonster 2000. I thought it was excellent for larger targets but I didn’t get to try out the pinpoint audio choices much like 5 and 100 tones. Like I said earlier, the only type of audio I used for conductivity and shape discrimination was the actual motion detecting mode audio. Most US coins and regular shaped items like pull tabs had clear high low or low high audio patterns in detecting mode audio and fairly repeatable target IDs when switching to Pinpoint mode.Yes those IDs could change with depth in mineralized soil but they did not fluctuate much. Nails and steel trash would often have doubled audio responses in detecting mode and target IDs in pinpoint mode that fluctuated more than coins even on deep iron. For Whites coils, I just added some more spacers or used a thicker spacer.

The GM2000 10x6 is going to happen. Don't turn recovery speed down. Turn it up a little. In really mineralized gold prospecting areas I have to ground balance after almost every target with detectors like the Equinox.

You can try slightly raising the recovery speed. Gold 1 and Gold 2 are already set at 6 and 4 but try it anyway. You can also try turning OFF tracking ground balance and just do button press ground grab ground balances when needed. Tracking ground balance may not be able to keep up. There are many places that I go for gold prospecting that I can barely run the 6" coil at 16 to 18 so running the 11" coil at 12 to 14 makes sense actually. That 11" coil will still hit sub gram gold and specimen gold at those lower sensitivity levels.

I am not referring to the static pinpoint audio. I am only asking about the PI type motion detecting audio that can have high tone followed by low tone or the opposite on non ferrous targets and doubled responses on iron depending on depth/size. That audio information combined with the non motion pinpoint target info could help with iron / non iron decisions.

I keep at least one set of wired ear buds in my car at all times that work with most of my detectors along with an adapter jack. I have the proprietary audio dongle for Deus 2 also. That's because I have definitely been there and done that enough to learn my lesson!!!!

Do the audio responses offer any possibility of discriminating between deeper iron and high conductors in your soil conditions? Does deeper iron have more than two responses per one direction sweep and deep coins just have two? Does the pinpoint target ID give solid and consistent numbers on deeper iron or do they fluctuate? How about on deeper high conductor coins?

On the 7” zinc penny? Yes but Legend 1 with its 11” coil was right there with a close second. On the 9” clad quarter? No. Legend 1 with 11” coil and Legend 2 were more consistent.

Excellent video. Thanks for posting it Simon.

Steve hunts Chesapeake Bay and the Virginia Beach, Virginia areas of the Atlantic coast. I have hunted there too. There are some black sand issues at some of the Virginia beaches and enough mineralization to make 12" deep coins and rings have either very low or very high non ferrous target IDs or iron target IDs even using the latest SMF detectors.

This is a short 2 minute, two USA coin depth test video. This ground is moderately to highly magnetite mineralized which definitely effects the target ID and tone accuracy of these detectors on these two targets: 7" US zinc penny and a 9" US clad quarter. Up and down averaging of target IDs can be seen. These two targets have been in the ground, undisturbed for 5 years. This is a worse case scenario with really bad ground and fairly high EMI. These detectors are pushed to the limit on these targets. If I can get any accurate information out of them on these targets, they will perform fairly well around here. Recovery speed, iron bias, sensitivity, discrimination and frequency weighted programs are as similar as I can get them. Each is in either 5 or 6 tones. Legend 2 goes last in the video and it's mineralization meter is activated and can be seen as a bar graph next to the horseshoe with nail icon lower left on the display. Legend 1 is tested with the newer 12X9" LG30 coil and the original stock 11" round LG28 coil. Both Equinox models and Legend 2 are tested with their stock 11" coils Target ID in air tests for a US zinc penny are: Equinox 800=19-21, Equinox 900=62-64, Legend 1=41-43, Legend 2=76-78 Target ID in air tests for a US clad quarter are: Equinox 800=29-31, Equinox 900=88-90, Legend 1=49-51, Legend 2=89-91 All four detectors have been noise cancelled and ground balanced prior to testing. There is wind noise and EMI present.

I added the following information on Gigmaster's comments for the video above. Glad I remembered it and did some further testing. Hi Bill (S. CA), I remembered (somehow) that US wheat penny composition changed several times. The earliest wheats up until 1942 were 95% copper and %5 tin. Then there were the 1943 steel ones, then from 1944-1946 they were %95 copper and %5 zinc and 1947-1958 %95 copper and %5 tin and zinc. Each of those different types have different target IDs on the latest SMF detectors including Legend 2. Some of my pre 1942 wheats on Legend 2 can read as low as 73 depending on wear, most are 78 to 81 and some zincolns can also be read as high as 79/80 in air tests. The 1944 and later wheats are pretty consistently in the 83 to 85 range in air tests. As for zinc pennies, 1982 zincs can be either copper or zinc so they have to be weighed. It would be amazing if Steve just happened to pick a pre 1942 wheat and 1982 non zinc "zincolns" for his air test video.

Zincs on these detectors do not read like dimes. Some of their target IDs can definitely stretch into the dime range but they also can read much lower than dimes even on the same sweep depending on depth and mineralization. As Steve said in his video, he may have used copper Memorial pennies instead of zincs or just got them mixed up. I have not seen any zincs in short range air tests read as high as Gigmaster's supposedly did and I have tested at least 20 of them along with digging too many to remember with Legend 2. In Park M1 they air test at 2 to 4" between 75 and 79. In Beach Wet like Steve was using they air test between 73 and 76. Wheats air test between 80 and 84 and I have tested dozens of those too. Same for copper Memorials which air test between 82 and 85. Same for clad dimes. So maybe Steve got those targets transposed.

I noticed it the first time I hunted with it. It was much worse in the beginning and Nokta really worked a lot on the ID mapping. Still some more improvements need to be done in my opinion an ALL non ferrous targets. Steve mentions it several times in the two saltwater beach/surf hunts he has posted. So has Basstrackerman in his posts on this and other forums. Hopefully the next public software update release addresses many of the previously reported issues including this one mentioned by Steve. At least where I detect, US zinc pennies are the nemesis of the Manticore, Deus 2, Legend, Legend 2, Equinox models and other detectors. None of them can consistently clean up their target responses on the very dynamically rotting Zincolns. Maybe it can't be done. For me anyway that wide spread of target IDs easily identifies that target as a zinc penny.

Those are the weights that I get too. The good news for Legend 1 owners is that the original Legend 1 with stock 11" coil weighed 3 lb. 4.6 oz!!!! That is more than my Manticore with the M15 coil which weighs 3 lb. 3 oz. Nokta really shaved off the weight for Legend 2 so that it's at least in the same ballpark as its direct competition.