midalake

Van wanted me to say the oldest coin is a 1793 8 Reale

All of my salt beach hunting is done in Tracking Ground Balance.

Well my hunting Bud is Van Rijn Stewart who is putting likes on here. I am not there yet....he would never take me to a spot this good! 🤣 [kidding] Actually, it is hard for me to hunt with him. I am over 6 hours away at the beach. I don't have the proper equipment, boots, thorn guards, rattle snake protection......etc. Maybe one day I can get out in the Mexican wilderness and do a little swinging. I would not mind a few Cobs and Reales.

Posting for my good hunting friend in Mexico! Last week I went to a Hacienda that has been hunted many times by my friends and me. We occasionally have found some old 1/2 real coins and relics the place has lots of iron and modern trash. So I decided to take a walk up the hill to have a better view of the land I continued metal detecting with my D2 in high conductor mode on top of the hill I got a splatter signal that register in a 80s signal thinking it was just another junk signal but decided to take a look at it. I made a small hole about 3" deep and found a 1/2 real coin but my pin Pointer was beeping all around the hole and I started to find coin after coin at that point I thought I was dreaming in slow motion. I found a stack of seven 8 Real coins nicely put vertically in the ground and more 1/2 real and 2 real coins splatted around the hole. There is one, a provisional Zacatecas 8-Real coin and two coins that have a counter stamp to show the issuing authority from opposing forces. These in particular are VERY RARE! All in total: 25 Real coins! I started detecting with my father when I was 12 years old, over 40 years later I still love it!

Thats fine. I am always open to tips and changes. I fully understand that advice may not work in my location.

I was working crappy black sand the same time you were. While I don't consider 50 hours [or so] in this stuff makes anyone an expert, I was NOT impressed with the D2. I found iron was upscaling and nonferrous was greatly downscaling. It was next to impossible trying to figure out a target that would not TID. In one hand beach pitch worked on one target then another identified better in diving mode. The kicker is the D2 has issues with giving a good 360 response on nonferrous that will not TID. This is a FACT and have compared this directly to the Equinox on over 100 wild targets. I too have a new year's resolution to work with this machine [D2] to find the magic sauce to better determine deep nonferrous that will not TID. I will ask anyone again>>>Any tips???

Nice ring, yes there are stand outs. But if one wants to put odds in their favor and cover lots of ground there will be tradeoffs.

I think you answered you own question. Dig everything 19 and below if you want to make tracks and cover lots of ground. In what? 4 years now the gold ring above 19 escapes me.......I have not even found one that rung-up that high. I also never skip any signals 19 and over.

My brain and fingers were not aligned. I have made the correction to "ferrous"

I cannot help you on the "tones" I only hunt in one tone. Going to make it simple because I know you have lots of experience. With respect to beach 1&2. It comes down to the sensitivity you can run. Example: If you can only get to a sensitivity of 18 in beach 1 but can run 22-23 in beach 2. Beach 2 is your choice hands down. No question Beach 1 will be very chatty in wet/water sand contact. Volume: If you're running with the horseshoe mode on, [which I recommend] then the volume control should be effective with both ferrous and nonferrous targets. I run mine at 25. The only way you can skip zincs or copper is by full TID lock. Gold will come in on the Equinox between 1-22. You will get VERY FEW gold over 19 in reality. Above repost off friendly but will add: Yes, Horseshoe accepts all metals [nails included] In discrimination mode you will get nulls on nails and Horseshoe mode can also get a choppy null-ish signal. There is just something about Minelabs that do not like Iron even in all metal modes. The Sovereign worked like this as well. With the horseshoe mode on ferrous will break down at some point on a 360 look of the target.

I contacted XP with two questions over 1 year ago........Still waiting for a response.

If you have a mineral rich environment>>>>>Sensitivity is EVERYTHING if you can improve on it. In my experience [no matter the detector] High mineral dirt cuts detection depth and the ability to identify targets by TID correctly. Detector settings are even MORE critical. Punching through high mineral dirt is the only way to improve on deep or fringe targets. Ever notice in high mineral dirt how there are "very few" fringe targets? {I do} That is because the detector just plain cannot see them. The settings I recommended above come from more than 2 decades of water detecting in a moderate Black sand environment.

Humm OK If you get the Equinox back out...... Since your mineral content is so high[black sand? iron?] I would treat it like saltwater hunting and use Beach 2. Especially if your ground changes go to tracking GB [this is a must] D2 as well......and if you think you are in a spot where the GB changes>slow down. I actually think you are not running IB and recovery enough. Sensitivity RULES with the Equinox. Your sensitivity would be unacceptable to me. You can gain sensitivity by running IB and recovery at 6 both. [I run the FE version of IB]. Do you run the horseshoe on or off? I would try horseshoe on>this really separates the sounds for the ferrous and nonferrous bins. Noise cancel with coil in the air holding very still. The NOX might feel like a new detector on these settings?

Were there any rains since you been there with the Equinox? Also, what were your settings on the Equinox? Especially IB, Recovery and Ground Balance type.

😊 Of course, no Manticore here yet. If you're looking to duplicate/mimic outcomes one of the creators told me Equinox Beach 2 and Surf & Seawater are very close frequency/build wise. Impressed you can run 25 sens in Beach General. In my location> that would exceed my expatiations.

I like your style!

What part of the beach and what mode/s

Your price for admission in Texas is too much for me Dan.......🤣

What's the story behind that?

It really comes down to what your use will be? If you have no interest in the gold modes that come with the Equinox 800, then I would say the 700 would be just fine!

The beaches I hunt in Mexico are full of coins. Most are modern day but do pull an older one on occasion. Luckily, all the coins are ferrous except for the ten and twenty peso coin so I am able to stay away from digging the small denomination coins. When I was digging everything, I would get $300-$400 usd equivalent in just 3-4 months of detecting.

With all detectors there is no way to tell the difference by ear of a pull tab and a piece of gold. Some detectors will put pull tabs at a certain number. In my area pull tabs come in at 14 on the Equinox, they will bounce a little on numbers depending on depth and amount of time in the ocean. If my conditions set-up with small waves I get many pull tabs to come into the wash zone. On those days I skip solid 14's. But luckily this might only happen once a month. So, after some time on the machine, you might be able to skip a few. Gold can TID on your Equinox from 1 to 22. My own personal style is not to get hung-up on numbers. With modern multi-frequency detectors my goal is to remove all non-ferrous targets from the beach. So if I think a target is non-ferrous>it is coming out!

Digging it ALL, is your only way to learn!! You will set your own parameters.

The coin is a combination ferrous outer ring and non-ferrous center. On the Equinox they bounce all over with the short ferrous ID range from -4 to-7. I dig a few by signal size once in a while. But as we all know the Equinox does not size targets well by sound. These coins are all over on the D2. Right now, my hunting style on the D2 has my iron tone/vol at 1. They fall solid in the iron bin, so I do not even hear them. My hope for the Manticores expanded iron range is it holds a better range number and paints them on a certain spot on the screen. If so. I can notch that location on the screen.

I am interested in the manticore's ability to separate out those non-ferrous coins in Mexico. I think this is where the ferrous limits will shine. I look forward [if possible] to identify the Mexican 5-peso coins which is about 50 cents local worth. Right now, I have to pass these up with the Equinox and D-2. I am guessing on a yearly basis I am leaving $150 worth of these in the beach.