My First Impressions Of The Manticore

[Skate]

My first day in the dirt with the manticore was today. Hunted an avocado orchard that used to be ranch homes. Tons of metal in the ground. My biggest obstacle was forgetting there is a 2D screen. I'm not a regular screen user but rather a sound/tone digger. It took about 5 holes of crap to remember to look at the 2D screen for input. That's when it changed. I ended up digging 6 coins (I had to take a 1/2 hour phone call in the middle of my hunt and I only had two hours) and every coin rang up on the center line in the 2D screen. Nice little circle blobs, every one of them. I also continued to dig good tones that had 2D signatures that were around the line, a little misshapen, a little oblong and they all were junk. A few old bottle caps also came in on the line with a nice circle so the 2D line isn't perfect but it's a difference maker. 

I had 3 hours at the beach also with it this week and it was sanded in so unless it can reach 36" I wasn't going to recover a lot. For my wet sand it only quieted down when running ground tracking on. I could ground balance all day and it was super noisy but as soon as I turned ground tracking on it simmered down. 

I'll take it to a private park that I have picked over for the past 4 years and see if I can shake anything out of it. So far I like it so we'll see if I can actually get the coil over something of value. 

[Compass]

5 hours ago, Skate said:

My first day in the dirt with the manticore was today. Hunted an avocado orchard that used to be ranch homes. Tons of metal in the ground. My biggest obstacle was forgetting there is a 2D screen. I'm not a regular screen user but rather a sound/tone digger. It took about 5 holes of crap to remember to look at the 2D screen for input. That's when it changed. I ended up digging 6 coins (I had to take a 1/2 hour phone call in the middle of my hunt and I only had two hours) and every coin rang up on the center line in the 2D screen. Nice little circle blobs, every one of them. I also continued to dig good tones that had 2D signatures that were around the line, a little misshapen, a little oblong and they all were junk. A few old bottle caps also came in on the line with a nice circle so the 2D line isn't perfect but it's a difference maker. 

I had 3 hours at the beach also with it this week and it was sanded in so unless it can reach 36" I wasn't going to recover a lot. For my wet sand it only quieted down when running ground tracking on. I could ground balance all day and it was super noisy but as soon as I turned ground tracking on it simmered down. 

I'll take it to a private park that I have picked over for the past 4 years and see if I can shake anything out of it. So far I like it so we'll see if I can actually get the coil over something of value. 

Funny but I also took my Manticore to a park near my home for its first dirt hunt today. I got 3 good coin targets but stopped digging for them when i realized that I didn't have my pinpointer with me. I left after about 15 minutes, went home  and never found my pinpointer. I hunted the dirt for years without a pinpointer and never gave it a second thought but now I can't hunt in the dirt without it. If I can find my pinpointer I'll go back tomorrow to dig those targets!

[bklein]

You need a pinpointer pinpointer.

[KDX]

I agree that there is definitely a lot to learn with this one. I think I'm going to stick to ATG in the dirt and try to get that mode figured out before I try different modes.

[TampaBayBrad]

On 11/30/2023 at 6:36 PM, Skate said:

My biggest obstacle was forgetting there is a 2D screen. I'm not a regular screen user but rather a sound/tone digger.

Hearing the iron grunts should tell you it's not a coin without looking at the screen. Go into the "Ferrous Tones" section of the menu to adjust them. I hunt in all metal on the beach and usually just keep on swinging if I hear iron grunts. I keep their volume at half of what my regular volume is.

[TampaBayBrad]

On 11/27/2023 at 8:29 AM, Compass said:

I just completed my 3rd hunt with the Manticore. It is a very small sample size but here are my initials thoughts on the detector.

It seems more powerful than the Nox 800. I haven't seen any extreme depth but, to me, it hits much harder and more definitively on targets. The handle vibration feature further enhances this sensation as well, IMO. 

I keep forgetting to look at the 2d screen but I like the combination of tones and black/red TID numbers which really help the non-ferrous targets jump out.

2 of these first 3 hunts were in the salty wet sand of back bay areas and other hunt was in shallow fresh water. The Manticore performed similarly well in both environments. Many times already have I heard/found good targets amongst other nearby targets both ferrous and non-ferrous. On 1 particular spot I had a persistent 80's TID peeking through a number of lower fluctuating TIDs. I scooped up a pencil fragment with its eraser holder followed by a small lead fishing weight before finding the last target in the hole - a clad dime.

I have yet to find gold with my Manticore but I have found silver on each of my first 3 hunts with it. My most recent hunt yielded a 1928 penny,  1920 & 1944 dimes and a 1919 nickel. I don't think any of my other 7 detectors could have found all 4 of these coins which I think is an indication of the Manticore's ability to sniff out desirable targets. 

Much more testing is needed but my early results are encouraging.

 

Good job Compass. You're going to like the machine even more the longer you use it.

[Compass]

4 hours ago, TampaBayBrad said:

Good job Compass. You're going to like the machine even more the longer you use it.

Thanks TBB, I took the Manticore to a park today for it's first real dirt hunt. I learned a few more things about the detector which I will post about later. I'm more of a beach hunter than a dirt hunter but using the Manticore has been a lot of fun no matter where I use it.

[Skate]

Had it out now for 6 hours in the dirt. Just like with the beach, I spent the 1st 45 minutes ignoring the 2D screen, not because I wanted to but because I forgot it was there. I'm normally a tone hunter and if sounds good I usually dig it but after seeing the 2D screen and digging some iffy signals/splotches I can say the 2D is amazing. I went back to an old dairy site I'd hit with my XP2 and 900 several times. Littered with nails everywhere so much so that you would think the cows were squirting them rather than milk. Using the 2D screen as my final decider of dig/no dig, I pulled up 6 wheats and a 1926 Merc. I guess I'm not too proud to say I missed these before as I'm a fairly good and successful detectorist. I did get fooled on a few good 2D hits but overall if you can get the tone, and swing angle to match up the 2D will give you the final say. Almost flawless I'd say.

Here's what I did notice about the 2D screen and how to use it. Give it time to figure out what's under the coil. Walk around the target and allow the 2D to paint the picture. One target took a few passes to paint a solid ball on the line as it was mixed in with other metal junk. It finally showed up amongst the trash which was all over the 2D screen but my wheat was right there on the line while it took a moment to lock on to it and then it was clear as to what was under the coil. 

For reference, I was in AT High conductors all 6 hours in 5 tones. As someone who has successfully used a bunch of detectors over the years, the Manticore is shaping up to be a winner. Minelab may be a terrible company when it comes to caring what the customer thinks but they have built a winner in the Manticore. 

[Compass]

Never found my pinpointer but I did find my spare car keys that I have been missing for a while! 😄   I wound up going to Bass Pro Shops and getting a Minelab Pro Find 35 pinpointer which is quite nice - loud and accurate.

On my first real dirt hunt with the Manticore I hunted 3 hours in an older park. I didn't feel like digging trash on this day so I focused on high conductor targets with TIDs 70 and above. I left the detector in Beach High Conductor mode where it has been for my first 3 hunts since I like the way the machine responds in that mode.

In 3 hours I found 6 clad quarters, 12 clad dimes, around 10 copper pennies (no wheats), a couple of zinc pennies, 2 keys, 3 or 4 sprinkler heads (mid 90s TID) and 2 pieces of trash - a washer and a brass fitting. I was really hoping for silver but pretty happy to not find much trash. Of course, I don't hunt this way at the beach where I pretty much dig it all but it's nice to have this option.

I didn't dig any crazy deep targets but most were deeper than I was expecting judging from the audio. So far, I really like the strong audio response to targets on the Manticore. It really belts out a high tone on non-ferrous targets. Like Skate, I also have to remind myself to look at the 2D screen because the audio is so convincing most of the time.

I have still yet to test the Manticore on some of my highly mineralized beaches and in deeper water but, so far, I am really pleased with it, especially, since I'm still learning to use it and haven't even hunted with the 15" coil yet. 

[phrunt]

Don't let that 2D screen and centre line fool you, yes good stuff OFTEN comes up along the centre line, but just like any discrimination it can get it wrong and does, if I only dug targets sitting on the centre line, I would have missed many silver coins by now.  The messier the target gets off that centre line the less likely it's the coin unless it's just surrounded by trash but if it's a reasonably solid blob but not on the centre line it's mine for the digging, sure the closer to that line the better and more likely but certainly not only sitting on it.   The CTX was the same, everyone was always digging the 11 and 12"s, as they were the definition of the centre line on the CTX however it doesn't take all that much for a 12 to become a 10, or an 11 and 9 or 13.  Orientation in the ground, nearby targets, anything can do it.