So An Mcore, Deus 2, And T2 Go For A Walk At The Bullet Site

[abenson]

I still have a T2 classic and use it mainly for mineral readings at my sites. Rarely use it anymore for anything else, but in the past I was pretty impressed with the depth it got in all metal mode. My dirt is also 4 bars so I had a pretty good idea about how each of the units would handle. I also use FAST as my main program to build off on the Deus 2, usually run 2 or 3 tones, reactivity at anywhere from 2-3 depending on the site, bottle cap reject OFF, Silencer 0, Sensitivity is site dependent, under ground balance there is a function called ground stabilizer you can from 1-3. It's worth experimenting with this as it can clean those deep signals up a bit. Also I've been playing with notch disc and it can do the same thing, clean up those iron buzzy deep targets and ID.

On the Manticore I'm still learning it but recently just started diving into the disc patterns and ferrous limits settings and those appear to be cleaning up those deep targets in my dirt as well. So far only been using High Conductor but I'm thinking Fast might be a better opinion to try next time as there may be some unrecognized blow back happening on High Conductor in high mineral dirt. Been running 1 region all tones, recovery at 3, stock ferrous limits with all metal OFF (so no iron is heard)Audio theme normal in profile medium. Also running some disc patterns and those are site dependent and appear to be helping with iron masking of targets.

These newer machines like the Manticore and D2 (explorer, eTrac & CTX also had this trait) have something special going on when using notch features IMO. Unlike the older machines where if the target ID was pulled down by iron, notch would take out the target. Now the target will still pull past the notched out targets and register with a audio and ID response. I've seen this multiple times with the D2 and now I'm starting to see it with the Manticore.

[Chase Goldman]

13 hours ago, abenson said:

I'm betting the T2. But it's only saying yes there's a target down there. D2 will hold an accurate ID the deepest, by all metal I'm assuming you're using relic mode disc at -6.4. Prospecting mode on the Manticore? Ferrous limits on or off?

T2 is pretty straightforward as to what settings would be. But on the other 2, there are many settings that can be used and possibly change the outcome.

Agree, but one thing though.  D2 Relic mode is an IAR vs. Disc mode so you can only set IAR 0 through 5.  As Dan mentioned, he went to one of the disc modes  (Sens FT) and went negative disc.  T2 is a classic.

4 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

Started with a custom program based off Sens FT factory mode with no discrimination (-6.4) and Audio Response set to 6 so that I could hear things a bit better without modulation, reactivity at 1, and sens up in the mid 90s.  That was a starting point...in my test garden at home, this done extremely well.  At the bullet place...not so well.  I tried a number of things actually...from increasing the reactivity speed, lowering sensitivity, different programs, etc.  I did find out that if you go too low on reactivity, you actually LOSE the signal in this dirt.  Going higher/faster in reactivity seems to give a better signal...there is a sweet spot and if you go too high with it, it also washes out the signal.  I could do things to make it worse, but nothing to really make it leaps and bounds better.

Dan - I take it you left it in default FT.  Pitch (perhaps with some disc) and  might (or might not) have made a slight difference on getting a signal, but wouldn't have changed the overall result with T2 taking the prize and really there is no point wasting time going through all the permutations on the D2.  You are spot on regarding getting the right sweet spot on reactivity in that dirt.  

Maybe a little surprised D2 relic did so poorly.  One thing with D2 relic is that with mineralized ground especially, 00 registers as a (non-ferrous) phantom pitch tone (but its just a ground feedback or micro ferrous response) even with IAR applied (which gets you iron volume for TIDs below 00).  As a result, you have to notch out 00 to get rid of this annoying behavior.  Again, this just helps with hearing non-phantom target signals but wouldn't affect overall performance.  And again, wouldn't have likely changed your conclusions or the strength of response on the signals you were able to hear.

Thanks for controlled run through.  I'll be using the Axiom in Culpeper this year.  But will be packing a D2 in my day pack.  This will give me some ideas on different things to try with the D2 in the field as a change of pace backup machine.  If I could "pack in" the T2, I would definitely consider it .

[JCR]

This is a great how to example that shows the value of real site testing to learn for yourself how to best set up & run on your own ground.  All the written info & secondhand experience available to us nowadays is a valuable jump start, but until you get out there & test for yourself, it doesn’t become real & applicable.  I have done the same type of setup using the Tarsacci as the lead. It is surprising to see what you just thought you knew & other things you hadn’t even thought of.  Thanks for the post.

[Steve Herschbach]

A concern I have with the Manticore believe it or not is the 50% more power thing. Boosting transmit power in bad ground can overload the detector and shut it down. In worst case scenarios the shut down is silent. I've been saying since day one to anyone that would listen that the Manticore is geared more to turf and beach detecting than anything else. It was fine tuned for Florida beach conditions, not high mineral ground. It was fine tuned more for silver coins than for small gold. None of this is surprising to me at least, nor should it be to anyone that listened.

Anyway, it would not surprise me also that what in theory should be the deepest settings on Manticore will backfire in the worst ground.

[Jeff McClendon]

Thanks for the fantastic write-up Daniel.

Thanks to the others that regularly hunt in moderate to high iron mineralization for adding your comments.

It looks like the Manticore can't be setup like an Equinox or Deus 2 with every target accepted with a few other tweaks and excel at high iron mineralization sites like yours compared to detectors with all metal or hybrid all metal modes. That is important information to know for people like me and the places I hunt most often.

That long post I wrote earlier with Equinox related strategies can be disregarded completely.

I agree with Chase, I would have tried Deus 2 wide open discrimination Sensitive (recommended by XP for higher iron mineralization by the way in the manual) using Pitch tones and using PWM audio. 

I am a big fan of Deus 2's Relic mode but not with the default settings. Reactivity 1, Audio Response 6 will absolutely not work where I detect for similar reasons to what you noted Daniel. For maximum depth and slightly better target separation, I have to raise reactivity to at least 2, lower Audio Response to 5 or below and switch Relic Mode's VCO audio to PWM.

Not saying you should have done any of this stuff Daniel. It's just what I have found out for my sites and might help somebody else get an extra 1/2".

[schoolofhardNox]

Thanks Daniel for all the hard work. I too have found that discrimination on is going to be my starting point at beaches and parks. Mineralized soil with the Manticore is probably never going to happen. I'll try what was suggested from Steve and others, but I'm guessing I'll always switch rather quickly to the GPX and not waste time trying to make something out of nothing. If all goes well tomorrow, I will be running disc on the Manticore and a moderately quick pace, chasing that low tide down. I guess we are always hoping that we can just bring one machine to do it all, but that's not how things seem to end up unfortunately. If they could just update that T2 to be a little deeper, the pulse machine may just stay home ?

[GB_Amateur]

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The worst ones to teach are often the ones who have been at it the longest since they have the most to unlearn. It's hard to break old habits. With newbies at least I don't have to fight ingrained misperceptions.

This property permeates all knowledge/learning.  I think it's especially difficult when what was learned early on was the best that could be done for the information available (as opposed to shortsighted/incomplete learning where important info available was ignored or simply missed).  "I did everything right (given the best information available at the time) and I'm still wrong?!"

It's not just highy mineralized vs. non-mineralized detecting, either.  It's the old detector I know inside and out vs. the new detector where if I'm honest, I'm completely ignorant about.  Extreme and exaggerated, probably.  But IMO, carrying too much confidence due to past knowledge is a (figuratively) dangerous approach.  (The real key/difficult part comes from Kenny Rogers ? "...knowing what to throw away; knowing what to keep.")

 

[GB_Amateur]

1 hour ago, abenson said:

So far only been using High Conductor but I'm thinking Fast might be a better opinion to try next time as there may be some unrecognized blow back happening on High Conductor in high mineral dirt. Been running... recovery at 3,...

(Hope I'm not being a pest.  Please keep in mind some of us are 'homebound', either waiting for good weather or waiting for the new toy to arrive.  All we have to do is read, think, and pester.  ?)

I'm focusing in on a couple things, one which Steve said just a couple posts above yours (not quoted here) and what you say about planning on changing recovery speed.  I first summarize the mode defaults for recovery speed (from page 78 of the Manticore Instruction Manual):

2 -- Beach Deep;

3 -- Beach Low Conductors;

4 -- Beach General and Beach Surf & Seawater;

5 -- All Terrain General, All Terrain High Conductors, All Terrain Trash Reject;

6 -- All Terrain Low Conductors, Goldfield General;

7 -- All Terrain Fast.

It seems you've been using a rather slow recovery speed (full range being 0-8).  If these recovery speeds are anything like the Eqx 800 recovery speeds (maybe a questionable comparison, I realize) then I'm surprised in your 4-bar F75 mineralized ground you can even make sense of the signals from RS = 3.  I say that because in my 2-3 bar ground, switching from RS = 5 to RS = 4 made a moderate, noticeable but positive difference.  But taking the next step to RS = 3 broadened the signal to such an extreme level that I couldn't handle it and had to quickly return to 4.

I anticipate your response now may be something like "well that's why I say I'm going to change it!"  Fair enough.  Just kind of wondering why you went from AT High Conductors' RS default of 5 down to 3 and if you noticed any extreme changes (as I did when I went from RS =4 down to 3 on the Eqx).

 

[phrunt]

I'd have to agree us mild soil people speak a totally different language, throw the biggest coil on you can, that's how we achieve depth, except the 15" coil on the T2, that things a shocker ? 11 to 13" round seems the sweet spot for depth on the T2, I've never tried a really large Nel coil though as I couldn't justify the expense for a detector I wouldn't be using..

I get 1 bar on my T2 in my areas and a ground phase of 64, from memory the gold areas were even the same, it's been a long time though I might be slightly wrong.

I did find a photo of my Gold Bug Pro in a gold area around here, and it had 0 bars on fe304 and a ground phase of 48.

and according to the GBP manual

A thread like this is good insight into how the other half live.  I'm not at all surprised about the T2 and depth, it's always been a deep machine, people in high mineral content probably laugh when I keep saying the Ace 300 is a deep machine, but it truly is a very deep machine in mild soils, keeps up with or often exceeds others once it's outfitted with a big coil.