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

[Rick N. MI]

It has to be the T2. All metal is very hot on this detector.

[George Kinsey]

T2 in boost process.

[Daniel Tn]

I will first say, your mileage may vary, and you may never in you detecting adventures, encounter soil quite like this, or this bad.  I'm not an expert detectorist and I don't claim to be. My friend joined me at the bullet site and brought his T2 and GPX along. Hands down, it helps a ton when you have a pulse machine flagging signals there.  The GPX always does flawless at this place, as is always the case with a pulse machine in hot dirt. He marked approx 50 bullet signals.  We left some in the ground that we never got to test over, or to dig. Save em for another day.

He marked signals and I lugged the other detectors around.  Deepest bullet dug was around 14 inches. Average was 8-10 inches.  The objective at this site is to try to learn machines on real world targets. If you saw the picture, there's not much in the way of trash there.  The occasional shotgun shell hull, and 1 horse shoe half, and a stupid 1888 V nickel.  The rest of the signals are pretty much always bullets at this place.  The biggest part of the whole scenario is just getting *a signal*.  It's *not* signal interpretation, where you are getting a signal and trying to decide whether the ID is good enough to dig or not.  No...we're just going for: Does it give a signal at all.  If so...is it iron or non iron? The bonus is always if it does give a good ID. And then from there, what modes/settings can we try to get a better signal out of it? 

Keep in mind all detectors will eventually give an iron ID on non iron targets.  The more mineralized the ground, the faster this happens.  Some detectors are better than others at it, but they ALL eventually do it.  

With that said...today was fun.  Great weather. No time restraint.  We spent about 5 hours there. 

1.  Teknetics T2 -- Obviously it does have a true all metal mode. The ID does work in all metal and from that, bullets would come in the 70s-80s range down to about 6 inches, and then would transition to a iron/70s ID bounce.  The audio always stayed solid, all around.  There were only a few bullets we marked with the GPX that the T2 couldn't get a signal on, and those were the ones 12+ inches deep.  Since most were in that 8 to 10 inch range, they were easily picked off by the T2 and dead giveaways with that "bounce" ID.  It has been years since I have had one of these machines in my hand but still yet, that has to be one of the best balanced machines to ever hit the market.  I tried to buy this one from my buddy but he wasn't having it.  Its just a plain ole T2 without boost mode.  As far as ID goes, it was right there with the D2 but the magic is in that all metal mode.  If not for it, and relying on Disc mode, the D2 and it would be very close with the edge going to the D2.  We've ran boost model F75/T2s there in the past and the boost mode is counter productive by a large margin.  Too much blow back.

2. Deus 2 with the 9 inch and 11x13 inch coils.  I wanted to play around a bit here with some setting and modes. Last time I was there, the D2 did better than the M-Core, and since then, I had played around and thought I had came up with an even better program. 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.  Deepest obtainable bullets via just getting a signal with it were down to about the 9 inch mark. With ID, about 6-7 inches.  This machine, once it transitions from non iron to iron signal...really falls off after that to where you don't get a signal at all. The 9 inch bullets were VERY hard signals to get and I certainly feel that had we not had them marked I would have walked right over em. Coil control was critical to even get *a sound* on the deeper ones. I was actually surprised to learn that the factory Relic mode was one of the worse performing modes I tried on it, even just using it as a base program and tweaking on the other settings. If you recall from the previous trip to the site, Relic mode was the one I was actually using and then jumped to a different program.  As you might expect...or might be surprised to read (depending on what camp you're in)...the coil size differences didn't matter much.  The 9 inch wasn't bad and the 11x13 wasn't an improvement over the 9....they were really about the same.  The 11x13 didn't locate any bullet that the 9 inch couldn't also locate.  If you ran the Audio Response to 6 or so, they were about the same as far as signal strength. 

3. Manticore -- Probably the machine most are interested in right now.  I've hunted with it in mild soil and this bullet field is probably the worse of the soil I will ever hunt in with it.  In better ground...I've dug these same type bullets 9 and 10 inches deep with no problem at all.  Solid 50s ID and great 4 way tones, and could probably get them 11-12 inches.  At this place...no matter the mode. No matter the settings. Once the bullets get past 6ish inches...you're not even going to know something is beneath the coil. Like I said though...in better soil...it rocks.  Very much like the CTX in that regard.  In mild soil and the beach...look out. Probably one of the better machines to come out since the CTX.   From the last hunt at this site, I knew some of the bullets I had found were coming in above the center line in that upper ferrous range.  So I tried opening that completely up.  I wouldn't advise doing that.  I was actually happy to see another post about how running this machine with some disc is better than the open screen.  That's what we ran into as well. Any signal at all gets lost in the barrage of low grunts from the ground if you have no disc aka all metal enabled.  The Goldfield mode with prospecting audio was the closest I figured the machine would have to "all metal".  I wasn't a fan of that at all.  I even tried single frequencies close to what the T2 is, to see if that might make a difference. Nope.  Somebody out there might come up with the secret sauce settings for bad dirt...it sure wasn't me and my buddy today.  I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm drawing a blank on what else could be done.  All Terrain General was the best of the modes tried, with a somewhat faster reactivity of 6.  

Of course everybody is still very much in the learning phases of the Manticore.  I could go to a different site with better soil and all of this be totally thrown out the window.   Anyway, yall have a great day.  

Abenson was right on the money.  When I read his post I just grinned because he nailed it.  I already had this typed out and saved...was just going to wait for a few more to see the post and make some guesses before posting it.  

 

[Steve Herschbach]

Great report Daniel, thanks. I have just two comments to clarify a couple things for people who only hunt lower mineral conditions.

1 hour ago, Daniel Tn said:

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.

This is what I saw with Equinox and was why early on I recommended not using real low recovery speeds in bad ground. This conflicted with advice coming from the low mineral camp to run very low recovery speeds. That’s fine in moderate soils. In extreme ground, it will cost you. Why? Hunting extreme ground is like hunting a bed of nails. Too low reactivity lets the ground mask everything while faster recovery speeds or reactivity allows for better see through capability. But too high is not good either of course. To quote myself from 2018 “Lower settings = more depth and faster settings = less depth is totally wrong unless you detect in the air.” 

Long story short very low recovery speed or reactivity can hurt depth in very high mineral ground and/or hot rock situations due to ground and hot rock masking.

1 hour ago, Daniel Tn said:

The 9 inch wasn't bad and the 11x13 wasn't an improvement over the 9....they were really about the same.  The 11x13 didn't locate any bullet that the 9 inch couldn't also locate.

It should be obvious that large coils “see” more ground. In extreme ground and on a single target, increasing the coil size increases the amount of ground the detector has to deal with, while the target size remains the same. The ground in these cases is an undesirable target, and you are making the ratio between the desired target (bullet or gold nugget) and the undesired target (ground and hot rocks) worse by using a larger coil. This leads to the counterintuitive situation where in the worst ground, going to a smaller coil will actually increase target definition and perceived depth over the larger coils. Large coils may actually overload and lose all ability to detect at all, unless transmit power can be reduced, which effectively reduces depth, but allows the detector to function. The Equinox Beach 2 mode does this automatically and despite the name is a fallback mode for extreme ground of any sort.

And so long story short again, stick with stock coils or go to smaller coils in extreme ground. Larger coils may not only not add depth, but can actually lose depth in the worst ground!

[palzynski]

Not bad for an almost 20 years old designed detector ...   🙂

[eclipse]

A place where the GPX beeps and you dig the Deus 2 stays calm... Deus 2 is the most disappointing machine for me lately. I'm moving to Manticore, I hope it can offer more than the D2. One thing I noticed about the Deus 2 is it works nice for really small coins but not a huge upgrade considering the cost vs other machines.

[Daniel Tn]

32 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Great report Daniel, thanks. I have just two comments to clarify a couple things for people who only hunt lower mineral conditions.

This is what I saw with Equinox and was why early on I recommended not using real low recovery speeds in bad ground. This conflicted with advice coming from the low mineral camp to run very low recovery speeds. That’s fine in moderate soils. In extreme ground, it will cost you. Why? Hunting extreme ground is like hunting a bed of nails. Too low reactivity lets the ground mask everything while faster recovery speeds or reactivity allows for better see through capability. But too high is not good either of course. To quote myself from 2018 “Lower settings = more depth and faster settings = less depth is totally wrong unless you detect in the air.” 

Long story short very low recovery speed or reactivity can hurt depth in very high mineral ground and/or hot rock situations due to ground and hot rock masking.

It should be obvious that large coils “see” more ground. In extreme ground and on a single target, increasing the coil size increases the amount of ground the detector has to deal with, while the target size remains the same. The ground in these cases is an undesirable target, and you are making the ratio between the desired target (bullet or gold nugget) and the undesired target (ground and hot rocks) worse by using a larger coil. This leads to the counterintuitive situation where in the worst ground, going to a smaller coil will actually increase target definition and perceived depth over the larger coils. Large coils may actually overload and lose all ability to detect at all, unless transmit power can be reduced, which effectively reduces depth, but allows the detector to function. The Equinox Beach 2 mode does this automatically and despite the name is a fallback mode for extreme ground of any sort.

And so long story short again, stick with stock coils or go to smaller coils in extreme ground. Larger coils may not only not add depth, but can actually lose depth in the worst ground!

So I wasn't loopy?! Haha I figure somebody that's not hunted bad dirt would have a hard time believing my post.  Thanks for the reinforcement!  

[Steve Herschbach]

26 minutes ago, Daniel Tn said:

So I wasn't loopy?! Haha I figure somebody that's not hunted bad dirt would have a hard time believing my post.  Thanks for the reinforcement!  

There is a general communication disconnect between people who only hunt in moderate to low mineral ground, and those who mainly hunt extreme mineral ground.

People read depth quotes given from low mineral ground and think their detector is broken. "Gee, my detector only hits a dime at 7" - what's wrong with it or my settings?"

People from low mineral land tend to love air tests. People in extreme ground tend to scorn such tests.

The low mineral people tend to struggle to figure out why anyone would use a PI detector and even argue against their use.

When placed in bad ground low mineral people will often do exactly the wrong thing and then wonder why they are having no success. I see this often in gold prospecting when people who have hunted coins in turf or Florida beaches try to find gold nuggets for the first time. Wrong detectors, wrong coils, wrong settings, wrong technique. 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.

It's literally like people speaking two different languages at times, with both misunderstanding the other. Some of the stupidest arguments about metal detector performance come when low mineral people compare results with high mineral people and both call the other a liar. 

[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 .