Coiltek Nox 10x5 Coil - Lord Of The [junk] Rings

[Chase Goldman]

Spending a few days at the beach and managed to get out for a few hours to bond with my Coiltek Nox 10x5 coil (really 9.5 x 5).  Only have had a chance to hunt two or three times with it.  Have now had a couple 2 to 3 hour runs with it.  Once in a park and now this beach run.  Though no spectacular finds with it so far, it is hitting keeper targets well with decent depth/sensitivity, ID stability, and it pinpoints well.  Love the light weight coupled with the tight swing ability and OK swing coverage.  I will probably be selling my 6" round because it no longer serves a purpose for me.  This coil combined with my Zlobrik telescoping CF shaft forms the basis for my tote anywhere light weight Equinox kit.

I'm relic hunter, not a proficient beach hunter, and knowingly did not optimize my probability of success (went out with rising tide, light beach day, hunted primarily the towel line, went with a low[er] coverage coil etc.) because of time restrictions - had other family activities planned.  Anyway, nothing spectacular. Plenty of clad, some junk rings and the only thing of perhaps relative value, what appears to be a silver, engraved Toyota key fob or medallion. Weird item, but definitely silver backed and heavy at .8 oz.  Trash ratio was pretty good, only fooled in a couple of junk items like the washer, vape, the screw top (natch), a pull tab that rang up a solid 13, the drywall anchor insert, a disposable contact lens foil pak, a freshness seal (great solid 7 target ID but the tone is light vs. a ring)   and the rusty tent stake that was falsing off the bend. That silver medallion fooled me too as I thought it was just another clad quarter (hadn't noticed the VDI above 35) and the junk rings sound great too. The other items were iffy probable junk that I dug just to confirm suspicions.  Used Beach 1 primarily, though I could have gotten away with just about any other mode because I did relatively little wet/saturated sand swinging (high surf line was really sanded in with minimal cuts and steep slope).  The key on the bottlecaps was running iron bias F2 at max 9.  They were unmistakable after that.

Anyway.  I had fun and like my light weight Nox setup.

 

[Dug D]

Thanks Chase, I have been hoping for a real use report with pictures. The trash to good target ratio looks really good.  Do you think depth is a little better or worse than 6 inch ?

[F350Platinum]

Still a fun day! You made almost $4 👍

The freshness seals in Savannah were 1 to 5. Yours must be better quality. 😀 Can't wait to get notified my 10x5 is in.

[water spider]

a short 10 and a wide 5, iron bias f2 maxed out at 9. separation and recovery speed overall?

[Chase Goldman]

30 minutes ago, village said:

a short 10 and a wide 5, iron bias f2 maxed out at 9. separation and recovery speed overall?

Yes, Coiltek is pushing it on the coil dimensions.  It appears to have the same footprint as the XP HF elliptical coil.

I may be misreading the true nature of your question, but I presume you are alluding to concerns regarding separation/masking with high iron bias settings.  I am not really worried about masking or separation at the beach in general but regardless of that, I think the the concerns I've seen expressed regarding iron bias and masking are overblown.  I am not afraid to use F2 iron bias for what it is, a great way to mitigate falsing and it does it well with minimal downside at the universal default of 6 and I have no qualms pushing it higher in low risk situations such as my beach run.  Bottlecaps are unmasked for what they are at IB F2 at 6 (with horseshoe on) and legitimately a non-issue at higher settings.  With IB F2 at 9, I was still able to zero in on keepers with coil wiggle if they happened to be near ferrous trash.  Varied recovery speed from 4 to 5 but did not see much difference either way.

As far as the coil is concerned great separation, great pinpointing.  Depth is decent for its size and to answer a previous question, yes, it appears to be deeper than the 6-inch round.

HTH

[water spider]

thank you Chase for the great info. i have been timid to use IB F2 but now i am eager to explore it more

[Dug D]

Thanks Chase, for the depth comparison. I'm with you on IB, I can run near zero, take a lot of time and dig out deep square nails and not find much of anything, run IB up midway I cover more ground and find good targets. My own feeling is the adjustment may go to 0, but that is likely too low, for most all locations I hunt. 

[Jeff McClendon]

Looking forward to getting one of these coils when the next batch hits the US. It looks like an excellent sized coil for small gold nugget prospecting in higher mineralization. My 6" Minelab coil does very well but the addition coverage and possible depth would really help. The only time I run F2=0 is when I am gold prospecting for very small gold nuggets in really bad dirt. Turning up the iron bias will result in tiny gold turning into tiny iron. Can't have that.

[F350Platinum]

7 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

The only time I run F2=0 is when I am gold prospecting for very small gold nuggets in really bad dirt. Turning up the iron bias will result in tiny gold turning into tiny iron. Can't have that.

Jeff, have I missed this point somewhere? I run F2=3 a lot (max on the 600), especially where there are a lot of bottle caps.

If I'm really gonna miss gold, I'd like to know. 🤔 I have found tiny silver...

Just hoping I'm not opening a can. 😬