First Hunt With The Manticore Gets Some Silver

[Compass]

I went to a small beach that I haven't hunted in years to test my recently acquired Manticore. I wasn't expecting much in the way of finds but I was hoping for enough targets to learn more about the machine.  A few years ago I purchased a Nox 800 and really liked it except I felt that it didn't hit hard enough on targets in "Beach" mode so I primarily used the 800 in fresh water where I could use "Gold" mode. I liked the hard audio punch that "Gold" mode put out. I often thought, "If only this 800 had a little more power in the wet sand and sounded better to my diminished hearing...".

Enter the Manticore. It pretty much does everything I wanted the 800 to do in the wet sand and surf at the beach. It has several "Beach" modes and audio tones to choose from and I found a couple of different set-ups that really suit my hearing and remind me of the performance I see with my pulse detectors. When I used my Nox in the wet sand it seemed that I often had to really focus to pick out deeper targets but the Manticore seems to react much more definitively. I also thought that the target IDs were pretty accurate and I called out my first Manticore quarter with a solid repeatable "88". Shortly after that I got a low "90's" target and I thought to myself, "Could that be a silver quarter?" Sure enough it was and another "90's" signal produced a silver "C" ring.

 The stock 11" coil was surprisingly sensitive to small targets and I found quite a few small lead sinkers but no small foil (if it was even there). I believe that the Manticore will find me  a lot of small gold, especially, when I get the M8 coil. I did test out the 15" coil and didn't really see any obvious improvement in depth but I'm just learning the detector so that may be a factor. I suspect that the Manticore won't replace my pulse detectors on black sand beaches but I'm looking forward to some great hunts with it.

[cuniagau]

And the more you use it, the more you will like it.  It seems to be better than the 800 in moderate black sand but nothing will be as good or better than a PI in the black.  If there had been foil on your beach, you would have heard it.  I got two silver dimes and a small gold ring on my first hunt with Manti back in Jan.  When in the right mode, it is indeed a "Beast"! 

[Dan(NM)]

Nice job and write up, thanks for sharing.

[Compass]

5 hours ago, cuniagau said:

And the more you use it, the more you will like it.  It seems to be better than the 800 in moderate black sand but nothing will be as good or better than a PI in the black.  If there had been foil on your beach, you would have heard it.  I got two silver dimes and a small gold ring on my first hunt with Manti back in Jan.  When in the right mode, it is indeed a "Beast"! 

Thanks Joe, I have a lot to learn about the Manticore but I was very encouraged from my first use of it. I hardly even paid attention to the 2D display since I'm not used to having one. Using this detector in a target rich environment after some sand movement is going to be awesome.

2 hours ago, Dan(NM) said:

Nice job and write up, thanks for sharing.

Thanks Dan, I hope to be posting about some epic hunts this winter with the El Nino impact.

[phrunt]

I suspect the black sand was hindering the M15 coil as it's a good coil in the right conditions and noticeably deeper than the 11".  Great you've got yourself all rigged up to go with a Manticore now, sounds like you'll do well with it.

[Compass]

9 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I suspect the black sand was hindering the M15 coil as it's a good coil in the right conditions and noticeably deeper than the 11".  Great you've got yourself all rigged up to go with a Manticore now, sounds like you'll do well with it.

Thank you Simon, I believe that you are correct about the presence of mineralization affecting my test results. That's encouraging and I will do some additional comparisons in other locations.