Looks Like M8's And M15's Are Starting To Appear

[phrunt]

I have them both now, I haven't even tried them out yet, I need to get my act together.

[strick]

34 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I have them both now, I haven't even tried them out yet, I need to get my act together.

Post the small one to me so I can X ray it...might be a while before you get it back 😄

strick

[phrunt]

8 hours ago, strick said:

Post the small one to me so I can X ray it...might be a while before you get it back 😄

That's increasingly unlikely as I quite like it, I'm surprisingly happy with its small gold performance, it's better than I expected, not Gold Bug 2 good, not Nox 6" good but not all that far behind.  What it lacks in depth it has in sensitivity.    Still early days and opinions may change with time.

Tested it out over some deep coins, struggling to get a reasonable hit on the same deep coins the CTX will hit perfectly and ID well with the 6" coil.  I'll keep playing around with settings and see if I can tweak it up a bit but really who uses a small coil for deep coins, it's the gold sensitivity I'm happy with and they certainly have improved it with the new firmware update.

I have yet to open up the M15., all early days but pretty happy with the M8 so far.

[phrunt]

Ok, great news, the M15 is one deep coil, they've hit a home run on depth with it, on deep coins I can even lift the coil off the ground significantly much like the CTX and still hit the coins, I cannot do this with the Nox 800 and 15x12" coil on the same coins.

My Target ID's and stability are still what I consider quite poor with little to no improvement over the 11" but the depth is great.

No noticeable extra EMI issues over the 11" either in the location I was using it.

Early impression is I like it, and doubt I'll be using the 11" much for my deep silver coin hunting.

I'd like to hear what @Gerry in Idaho thinks of it for tailings piles etc when he gets his hands on one, it seems remarkably sensitive to tiny gold for such a big coil and may well make the Manticore an outstanding detector for that job.  Let's just say you're going to easily be digging #9 lead pellets with it.

[TampaBayBrad]

Thanks for the report Simon. Going to get the 15 for sure now. The depth will help me in dry sand, not so much in the water. The 11" is already reporting some quarters to me that are too deep to dig in the water because of the sand falling back into the hole. Another tool in my arsenal to cover more ground quicker..

[Airtemisa]

Hi Phrunt, I'm going to ask you to focus on a very specific question: how you have tested M8 and EQX06, what differences you feel between those coils? Which one is more sensitive to gold? And deeper? Which one you handle better? Your thoughts on the comparison between them? 

Thanks mate... I know its not easy, but I own the 800 with 6" coil, and would like to know what I could expect with the M8 😉

[phrunt]

Depth is what I'm enjoying about the M15, I'm running it on 15 sensitivity with recovery of 4 in AT General as it gives me the most stable Target ID's and I'm actually very impressed, if I find a target and really zone in on it keeping my swing minimal just jiggling over the target I can get rock solid stable ID's to rival the Equinox 800, barely moving from the number and accurate, if I widen my swing the ID's can get a bit more jumpy but it's very accurate when zoned in.  This maybe to do with the ground or bits of metal/hot rocks in the ground which there is plenty of around being near the river.

I've only been to one field with it so far which is close to the river and does have hot rocks underground scattered everywhere, it's found a few coins there which I was happy with, probably nothing to do with the coil or detector, it's hard to cover every possible bit of ground and know that I've been over that exact spot before.

No silvers yet unfortunately! 

I'm running the @Doc harness system the Swingy Thingy with the Qweegle Bungee with it, I don't overly need a bungee system with the Manticore and 15x12" as to me it's a super light setup but I've only just received the harness and bungee setup and wanted to try it out.  I must say the package is good, I never liked the Minelab harness, too big, bulky and annoying but this Doc harness is small, compact and you barely notice it there and it's so quick and easy to unclip the detector using a single hand, it may yet convert me to being a bungee and harness user as I've always resisted in the past hating the things on me and just put up with the swinging without.

Something I should point out about the Doc system is it holds my pants up, My wife always complains when I'm detecting I always have a plumbers crack, or coin slot as I like to call it hanging out the back of my pants when I'm digging even with a belt done up so tight I can barely bend over, problem solved with the Doc harness and its pants clips, she will like that 🙂

My Sphinx 03 fits on there well, also simple with it's auto turn on and off magnetic feature.  

I may have found a good combination for these silver coin hunts now to compete with my CTX and 17x13" with this Manticore + M15, harness and Sphinx combination, time will tell if it gets me to put down my CTX, my silver coin count over the coming weeks will be my decider, I'm finding AT High conductor too wild on the ID's to be suitable when I have to be selective about digging holes so I'm sticking to AT General.

31 minutes ago, Airtemisa said:

Hi Phrunt, I'm going to ask you to focus on a very specific question: how you have tested M8 and EQX06, what differences you feel between those coils? Which one is more sensitive to gold? And deeper? Which one you handle better? Your thoughts on the comparison between them? 

Thanks mate... I know its not easy, but I own the 800 with 6" coil, and would like to know what I could expect with the M8 😉

It's all very early days as I've only just got the coil but on a #9 pellet the Nox 800 with 6" is getting better air test depth when in usable sensitivity settings which for the Nox is maxed out and the Mantiicore about 26 sensitivity before it's too unstable, in saying that if I redline the Manticore sensitivity (putting up with the instability) then the Manticore can equal the Nox 6" on the pellet.  I have a few spots I can run maximum redline on the Manticore so I expect in those locations it will perform very well by comparison to the Nox seeing the bigger coil gives slightly better ground coverage yet similar sensitivity.  I've tested various size tiny nuggets and both are performing similar which is an achievement seeing the Manticore has a slightly bigger coil.

On gold nuggets they both seem very competitive, I really think the Manticore now has potential to be better than the Equonox for prospecting as long as coil size isn't a factor, the M8 coil has quite a square nose so isn't overly good for poking and prodding like the Coiltek 10x5" for the Nox.  I need to do a lot more messing around and gold hunts with the M8 to get a better feel for it, especially in different locations, but so far so good, I think it's great.  For someone with a Nox and 6" doing prospecting already there probably isn't overly a need to change and it's not going to be a big jump in performance if anything much at all, especially for the price.

I do think the Manticore is deeper than the Equinox on larger targets with the M15, the M8 like all similar sized coils on most other detectors including the Nox 800 lacks the depth I require for coins around here with only the CTX doing well with small coils on deeper coins. 

[Airtemisa]

Many thanks Phrunt. I hope receiving an M8 in the next weeks, so I'm impacient to test it. As Manticore is incredible in beach and underwater, I would like to test MTC in the same scenario with M8... It might be a laser 😋

[TampaBayBrad]

Thank you Simon for the early impressions. Sounds good so far.....

[KDX]

@ phrunt  If the bigger coil gives you more depth and you can run lower sensitivity for a higher degree of ID accuracy, that is nothing but a win/win situation in my books. Or did I read that wrong?