Best Bang for your Buck!

[Higgy]

If the ATP had an msrp of $449, then it certainly would be the best bang for the buck. Otherwise, its kind of cheesy and weaksauce. If I had a chance for a redo, I'd get a Vaquero.

 

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[atomicscott]

If the ATP had an msrp of $449, then it certainly would be the best bang for the buck. Otherwise, its kind of cheesy and weaksauce. If I had a chance for a redo, I'd get a Vaquero.

I would trade you for your ATP in a hot second if I still had my Vaquero!

 

[Phantasman]

Got it Digger. Mine has the 8", but I'll make it go deeper by readjusting the internal GB because since it is reading the soil as a big huge piece of iron. I'll make it ID deeper too through some re-adjusting internally. Most detector mfg's try to give beginners an all around GB, and that works fine for most soils but not all, and most people just hunt tot lots. We old timers are a different lot though, we want a challenge or two.

I was wondering how you could get the Coinmaster detector to work so good in your highly mineralized NW soils. I had a CoinGT for about two weeks and let it go. I found it noisy and a little on the heavy side. But I could see how and why others liked it. At 65 light seems to be nicer. The LRP weighs 2.2 pounds.

 

[DiggerinVA]

If the ATP had an msrp of $449, then it certainly would be the best bang for the buck. Otherwise, its kind of cheesy and weaksauce. If I had a chance for a redo, I'd get a Vaquero.

And if your XP Deus was waterproof and msrp around $1000 it might have made my list! But opinions vary dont they....

 

[Fletch88]

Yes, a Coinmaster..

I sold my old Whites Classic Il and kind of regret it. Found my first Indian head with that garage sale machine.

 

[LuckyLarry]

There seems to be a lot of confusion here, so please allow me to say a few things:

Most people think that if they buy a detector that it should work exactly the same in Alabama as it would in Colorado, Guam, or Mexico, or Alaska, or... ? But it won't, period. In fact one right outside my front door will work differently than it does in my back yard. There simply are too many variables in the ground or in ambient temperature and humidity. This is why the only (relatively) solid, real, for sure way we can Primarily measure a detector's (likely) capability) as in its ability to always transmit a signal in the same fashion, the same power, the same sensitivity, the same gain, electrical and other transmission always remaining the same every fraction of every second (which never happens), is to set it; Then leave the tuning alone after that, and always have the same batteries that never lose amperage, or voltage, or resistance to temperature, or drain, etc. There is no way in all Hades that we can do all that though, it is impossible, ludicrous, crazy, and ridiculous to even think about that for more than a few seconds.

Some people though do not understand or believe that. But it is true. Then we have detectorist's error, and that can be so varied that we might as well leave the concept at the gate and go have a beer instead, it's a lot more realistic and it doesn't get us into equipment wars, plus it always rewards us even if the equipment is garbage, our batteries are dead, the weather sucks, our someone sprinkled rusty iron filings all over the place.

So assuming that we all agree that we all are intelligent human beings, let's look at it in a practical sense instead: Videos are helpful for rough guidelines, ground test don't mean shift even only 10 inches away, air tests only show transmission radiated power (at the moment), test gardens are even worse than the aforementioned because it takes decades to develop their molecular strata, their magnetic linearity, and user error preference is only good for the person who is using at the moment. Even our body molecular conductivity is all different than someone else's, hence spontaneous internal combustion sometimes happens and we fry. . Every time I see a video, a photo, a test being done, a dork using a metal detector or backhoe or shovel, or a set of charts, I nearly laugh my ashenbecker off, it's all moot, all variable, commonly opinionated, all dependent with way too many factors and variables. So the only and best way to interpret a metal detectors likelihood of "promise" is to take a chance at transmitted power. And the only way we can do that is by hooking up a multimeter or checking the distance from the bottom of the search coil to the edge of the target in question. Fe test bars could be employed as Tesoro often does in their engineering, but that too is not static or precise in any way. We can't guess, we can't speculate, and we can't opinionate accurately. It always comes back to square one, just possibilities and chance, and which variables do we have to work with that are static (that NEVER happens). To think that the results are constant in the ground is a lot like reading Tara cards, a shot at Blackjack or wearing black clothes and playing out on the freeway at night, well below all of our intellectual capabilities. A test in the ground, for example, with two different detectors, with certain results that will duplicate themselves in another areas is simply unthinkable, at best. I've done those types of tests already and with various cheap (and) expensive metal detectors, and it ain't happening baby, sometimes the results completely switch sockets, one outdoing one here but taking a beating there, they don't stay the same. Like I've always said, this hobby is not an exact science, nor is it predictable at all. We ALL take our chances. However there is one caveat, if we always search in the same spot, with the same detector, with the same batteries, and the same temperature and humidity, and the same person does it, we will have more than just those precise air tests to go on, but that isn't going to happen in 8 light years. The best chances are to measure radiated power (air tests), plus hunt in the same area all the time. This is why I always suggest "try before you buy", and buy what others use successfully within your own area of hunting. If you go elsewhere to hunt, it's always a krap shoot for everybody and every machine, yep ALWAYS.

 

[LuckyLarry]

Phantasman, I was a detector designer/repairman and I am currently working on a detector invention. It's usually easy to (re) adjust the cheaper machines..most have potentiometer adjustments internally, but not all do. Some of them have only one pot - for ground balance. Some only have one pot - for threshold (or) ground audio. Some have one of each, all three, including one for discrimination parameters. It's usually alright to experiment, as long as you return to square one and mark the [EXACT] spot or turns before you fool with it, and treat it like it's piece of toilet apaer that you don't want to rip or tear. Most detectors can be adjusted to (your) soil, and that's the best thing to do. Tesoro will match your detector to a soil sample you send them, or at least they used to.

 

[LuckyLarry]

So now we have the French gentleman actually using the lowly Coinmaster. For a cheap machine, it seems to serve him very well.. You folks will be surprised at his finds, and he has other videos of him doing well too.. $30-$100 worth of relics? . Like I said, for the money, how can someone do any better?

 

[Gold Maven]

All the modern machines are ten times better than the best we could find 30 years ago.

Everyone is partial to their own brand, and I'm no exception.

What attracted me to Tesoro is the lifetime warranty, I have abused mine for 20 some years and never had a problem.

 

[LuckyLarry]

I really like this one. In truth, I prefer it for finding old copper coins more than any of my many other ones. However, just like all other brands, there can be a 1.5" difference in depth between one and another of them. One I bought gets 9.5" on a quarter, while 2 others get 8" in an air test. Yes, I bought 3 of them, one for each Daughter and one for myself, and at only $59 I'm going to buy two more of them. I own 25-30 other metal detectors, some retailing for over $1000, but I'm no longer sure of the count. This little thing goes under several different brand names; Winbest, Gold Century, Barska, Navigator, etc, but the circuitry is all the same: Its frequency is extremely low (about 5.6 Khz) so it naturally loves copper and it cherry picks as well as a Tesoro Silver uMax, maybe even better. It only weighs 1.5 pounds. The search rod is a bit short though for my 6' frame. When I go to old school playgrounds I will almost always bring it with me, and in some places it works better than anything else I own, regardless of price. MY cz goes to the salt beaches with me though, and my Garrett Sea Hunter PI goes to the farm fields for finding gold and silver jewelry that made its way up from Mexico. http://www.amazon.com/Winbest-Edition-Metal-Detector-BARSKA/dp/B005MVF0K2?tag=treasurenet01-20 ..

 

[Fletch88]

I really like this one. In truth, I prefer it for finding old copper coins more than any of my many other ones. However, just like all other brands, there can be a 1.5" difference in depth between one and another of them. One I bought gets 9.5" on a quarter, while 2 others get 8" in an air test. Yes, I bought 3 of them, one for each Daughter and one for myself, and at only $59 I'm going to buy two more of them. I own 25-30 other metal detectors, some retailing for over $1000, but I'm no longer sure of the count. This little thing goes under several different brand names; Winbest, Gold Century, Barska, Navigator, etc, but the circuitry is all the same: Its frequency is extremely low (about 5.6 Khz) so it naturally loves copper and it cherry picks as well as a Tesoro Silver uMax, maybe even better. It only weighs 1.5 pounds. The search rod is a bit short though for my 6' frame. When I go to old school playgrounds I will almost always bring it with me, and in some places it works better than anything else I own, regardless of price. MY cz goes to the salt beaches with me though, and my Garrett Sea Hunter PI goes to the farm fields for finding gold and silver jewelry that made its way up from Mexico. View attachment 1109222 http://www.amazon.com/Winbest-Edition-Metal-Detector-BARSKA/dp/B005MVF0K2?tag=treasurenet01-20 .. View attachment 1109226

That would fit behind the seat of my truck! At $59 and 1.5 pounds it's hard to believe it works at all!

 

[LuckyLarry]

This Compass Gold Scanner Pro is the best (all-around) metal detector that I have ever owned, I would not sell it for $2,000, or trade it for any other metal detector made, period. It's FAR superior to any other VLF small gold jewelry or small nugget detector I've seen - or had in my hot hands, and its discrimination abilities are iconic. It will locate a teardrop size gold nugget in the ground at 7-8" in very bad soil, and it was made for that job. My CZ70 comes in at #2 for all-around use, and I have owned a whole lot of various metal detectors. The Compass Goldscanner Pro is a better relic hunter too than any other single or mlti-frequency machine, and its discrimination against iron is unsurpassed. I could sell it for $1200 on eBay in just a couple of days if I wanted to.
These are my best "go-to" metal detectors, and not one brand is better than the other, nothing should be prejudiced in this detector world, brand names don't mean squat, performance does. I did some work for Whites for awhile, but I'm not loyal to it or them, I have no reason to be. Basically, they don't make them any better now and we are at the end of this technology, but they do make them with different toys.. I had an old Fisher ADL DeepSeeker (big box, like this green one here) that has been and would be absolutely unbeatable by any other single or multi freq VLF in high black sand using its all-metal mode, and it was made in the early 70's

 

[DiggerinVA]

Had a very experienced detecting buddy of mine that owned one of the Garrett Deepseekers pictured above. He said it was the deepest machine he ever used in our VA soil.

 

[LuckyLarry]

Hey Digger, that old horse used a "stacked", AKA "tri-planar" search coil, and seriously concentrated, that's why it went so deep. However, those had a very narrow field of transmission, very centered, very confined. But more research engineering is bringing them back again..
) Coaxial

This search coil design has identical diameter transmit and receive windings stacked and aligned on the same axis: the transmit winding is sandwiched by two receive windings in near perfect alignment on center. This creates an electromagnetic detection pattern of more uniform density and performance, and offers the best resistance to interference from high-voltage power lines. The electromagnetic field detection pattern of a Coaxial coil is also cone-shaped.
Because of its specific design, this type is seeing renewed usage only in smallest coils or "mini coils" of 4" in diameter. It would be impractical to use the coaxial coils of larger sizes due to unavoidable increase in coil's thickness and weight.
This type of search coil produces an opposite reaction topside compared to the bottom when sensing a target. If you have the habit of passing a handful of dirt over the top of search coil during recovery to verify whether the target is still in the hole or not (as described in "Plug-Splitting Technique" on "How To Metal Detect" page), you should not do so when using a coaxial search coil.
If a target is accepted on the underside, passing the same target topside will make no sound. The target hiding in the dirt in your hand will seem to "disappear", further confusing your recovery.
Coaxial Search Coil and Its Electromagnetic Field Detection Pattern

​

 

[LuckyLarry]

An update: The Coinmaster arrived today. It air tests between 1/2" and 1" better than those in the videos. It is not a good cherry-picker, but it does have a very wide and deeply radiated field for a detector of its price. I tested it on a copper BB in all-metal and it reads 5" inside or outside, in air, and running in all-metal, but no signal in discriminate on the BB. Five inches in air almost always boils down to around 2.5" around this part of the country, we have a tremendous amount of magnetite in this soil. In Southern Oregon there is a lot of Lodestone, and that is a challenge for ANY detector, so eventually I'll try it there too. It has an affinity for nickels and (so far) is slightly deeper than my Eurotek Pro with its 8" coil. It is more coil-heavy than the ETP. After careful consideration, I find the thing to be an excellent rig for the buck, but it is a bit coil-heavy, and I'm not sure I like that, but I have an easy cure for that, something I've been working on for awhile. Between it and my ETP, I am still undecided about weight distribution and depth, one has one thing good, and the other has another. So far though, I'm somewhat partial to the Coinmaster, but not by much. It's the extra 2 inches depth that lures me the most over the ETP right now, plus the tones don't bounce around as much with it. I'll take a few detectors to the most horrible place in Oregon to search , the Oregon coast beaches, the high black sand high salt ones on the Oregon coast. I'll plan a trip for this weekend.

*No seashore trip yet, but I thought about trying a 4x6" for it. Nope, I'll pass. It does have one quality that I really like, it can be run in all-metal with threshold AND with screen ID, a big plus for salt beach hunting here. If I didn't have a way to lighten the front end though I would pass on the detector.I have a Whites Classic III SL, I wonder how they compare with each other. I think the Classic III will win in real bad soil, it has a salt beach mode.

 

[TallTom]

... I own 25-30 other metal detectors, ...

I'd love to see a picture showing how you have them all stored.

--Tom

 

[Professor of Engineering]

I think the AT Pro and MXT give the operator a good value. I have also heard good things about the Tesoro metal detectors, unfortunately, I've not used them in the field.

 

[LuckyLarry]

I have three buildings Tom; a shop, house and 2-car garage. The best ones stay in the house. I still repair them now and then, and I'm now working on two new detector inventions, work space is a priority.. No photos though, it's sometimes best to keep a lot of things private, including photos..

 

[barrywk]

larry..is there any way that you could make a video showing how to tune detectors...some of us that are pretty handy would love to see and learn that....Thanks...Barywk

 

[LuckyLarry]

I t depends on what you mean by "tune". I don't make videos, but if you wish to properly adjust a detector for your search soil, I would start by typing in the make, model, and contacting the manufacturer. Then do the same for Youtube. There are copyright laws involved, so I am not comfortable showing a video of circuit board diagrams. Simple adjustments (and more) though can be found by searching by specific subject matter. Here is one place to start searching. Find's Treasure Forums :: Modifications Forum