Small Coil Hunt At The Beach

[mn90403]

Yesterday I went to my beach and left the 6" Equinox coil on for an extended hunt.  I had used it a couple of days before on a high iron beach so that I could hear targets clearly.  Yesterday's hunt turned out to be an experimentation of sorts.  What could I really find on a 'tough' beach with the little coil.

I've found gold jewelry on the beach with it before.  When I first got the coil I wasn't able to go nugget hunting so I went to a beach.  Right out of the box as they say I found 4 little gold rings many years ago.  I pretty much put the little coil away over the years in favor of the 15" coil and occasionally the 11" coil.  Coverage is the operating logic to that.  I feel 'naked' without the big coil.

Yesterday I was willing to experiment.  After selecting the frequency and then ground balancing I was able to go to 25 on the sensitivity/gain.  This let me hear my threshold and without chatter so it was a matter of swing speed.  There weren't a whole lot of targets so each time I'd find one I would try to find a patch.  I managed to find a couple of them as you can see and some interesting targets in the 1.5 hour hunt.

 

The rack on the left is one of the largest objects I've found on this beach.  It was down about 8" and it weighs about 5 lbs.  Some of the quarters were down about the same depth.  The knife blades were iffys I think because they are mostly stainless steel.  The silver Thailand earrings were in the wave wash and are very light at 3.2 g and were found together as displayed.

After a bit of learning the capabilities of the little coil again I then wondered what is best.  Do you take a small coil and use it at maximum sensitivity or do you take a larger coil and turn down the gain?  This would go for other types of detecting as well.  

This is certainly a reason to have multiple coils.

 

[Sirius]

I personally exclusively use the 13 in coil cause less swinging means more ground i'm able to cover. But i'm also a novice so I mostly don't know what i'm doing. Plus bigger coils makes it harder to pinpoint the target's actual location so my dig holes tend to get pretty big.

[strick]

Well Mitchell after looking at your finds I think it would be best to switch back to the large coil with the sensitivity adjusted as needed. 🙂

strick

[mn90403]

It was just a bad beach for conditions.  Little waves, a slough, bad tides and not a good wind so ... better luck next time.

Do you prefer little coil high gain or big coil and less sensitivity?  I guess there are not that many Manticore choices yet.

[Valens Legacy]

Looks like a pair of silver earrings was saved, and the rest looks like junk.

Good luck on your next outing.

[mn90403]

There is another thing I can add about the small coil.

There are many more 'iron' targets than the 11" or the 15" because the 8" coil 'sees' a target outside of its ID reach but it can still be a coin or bling.  I use the settings without the horseshoe being on.  It seems overly confusing to describe it.

I wonder the performance of the little coil if the horseshoe were to be on.  You'd have to be on a really target rich beach to find something to dig.  You wouldn't hear all the negative and iffy targets.  Maybe these are the settings I should use for a planted token coin hunt.

[strick]

On 2/5/2023 at 7:31 PM, mn90403 said:

It was just a bad beach for conditions.  Little waves, a slough, bad tides and not a good wind so ... better luck next time.

Do you prefer little coil high gain or big coil and less sensitivity?  I guess there are not that many Manticore choices yet.

I don’t hunt salt water beaches nearly as much as you do. I’ll use the big coil for more coverage although I prefer the 11 inch.  My experience with the larger coils in not much more depth. If things are boring then I enjoy using my TDI pro with the clean sweep coil. I have never used that 6 inch coil on a salt water beach. 

Strick

[schoolofhardNox]

I would think that a 6" coil at max sensitivity would be good on the wet slope looking for chains and micro jewelry. Something I may try when the beach is ripped up from a storm, once the big coil is done searching. Nice score on the pair of earrings!

[mn90403]

I don't know why I'm calling it an 8" coil.  haha  Shows how much I don't use it.

My scoop is 8" and I use that for a depth guage and often times will find deep targets at double scoop depth.  Some of them I give up on sensing it is big junk.

[GB_Amateur]

On 2/5/2023 at 1:29 PM, mn90403 said:

The rack on the left is one of the largest objects I've found on this beach.  It was down about 8" and it weighs about 5 lbs.

Oh, so like a CTX3030 with a dead battery?

Good experimental hunt that paid off (I mean those silver rings...).