vferrari
Silver Member
- Jul 19, 2015
- 4,910
- 8,377
- Detector(s) used
- XP Deus with HF/x35 Coils and Mi6 Pinpointer/ML Equinox 600/800/ML Tarsacci MDT 8000 GPX 4800/Garrett ATX/Fisher F75 DST/Tek G2+/Delta/Whites MXT/Nokta Simplex/Garrett Carrot
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Went relic hunting in Central VA on a highly mineralized plowed field yesterday. It was raining, so I decided to pull out the MX sport to see what it could do plus it allowed me to test it under rainy conditions and helped me get used to the various tones, adjustments, and display. As far as "in the rain" performance, obviously, no issues. I had the WP headset attached and it sounds great. The large display was great in that water droplets did not distort key indications, so loved that. I had the 6x10 elliptical coil on the machine since I had been doing some testing on the tone "smearing" issue in my yard, which BTW was really a non-issue with that coil. I will go back an do some more rigorous testing suing the stock and 9.5" concentric coils to see how they behave with the current firmware. Back to the relic hunt, although the elliptical was probably not the IDEAL coil for these conditions it should have been serviceable, and I confirmed that. I was able to ID some iron and confirm by digging what I might otherwise pass over, there were plenty of hot rocks around which I got used to how they rung up on the Whites. Mainly used the relic program. I switched over to the 9.5" concentric after awhile to get some run time on that coil but before I did, confirmed that both the elliptical and concentric could see a test CW bullet buried about 4 to 5 inches in that soild, which is all the performance I expected to get out of the MXS under these soil conditions, probably even with the stock coil. I did not test the stock coil as I did not want to spend all my time schlepping back and forth the car for three coil changes. The stock coil probably would have been the best for the job, but this was more about getting run time on the new accessory coils and relic mode than it was about squeezing max performance out of the MXS. Like i said, based on my test bullet runs, if I passed my coil over a CW bullet I would have expected the MXS to detect it with either accessroy coil at about 4 to 5 inches which is ok performance under these conditions. I apparently did not pass my coil over a cw bullet with the MXS - thats my story and I am sticking with it lol! I was not really disappointed with MXS performance. The smaller coils definitely make this a well balanced machine I can swing for hours. I would consider the overall experience inconclusive as far as the MXS is concerned. When it stopped raining, I pulled out my goto relic machine of late, an XP Deus and 9" coil and in about the same time in the field as I had swung the MXS I found three CW bullets (I did not cover the same ground with both detectors so this was not a "what did the Whites miss" comparison, to be clear, besides I would expect a detector package that costs twice as much as the MXS to have some performance advantage).
BTW, if you are going with the MXS for a variety of different uses (e.g., beach detecting, coin shooting, relic hunting, prospecting, etc.) and want different coils for those jobs, I think the Whites MX Sport pack deal (9.5" concentric and 6x10 DD accessory coils, accessory bag, and hat) for about $280 is a good deal, that's how I purchased the accessory coils for my MXS vs. buying them individually.
Finally, a question - when in the field, was frequently using the tracking button [holding it down] to perform a ground grab as the soil ground conditions varied significantly and locked the ground reading since the field was highly mineralized. Whenever I performed a ground grab, I merely got a "grounding" indication and number that would steady out, but I never got the GRABBd indication as stated in the manual. After reading about ground tracking under mineralized conditions, I found that I may have been not using optimal techniques to deal with the mineralization (the Deus works differently), but I still never got the GRABBd indication. Any thoughts/feedback on ground tracking and ground grabbing actual indications with the MXS would be appreciated. Thanks.
BTW, if you are going with the MXS for a variety of different uses (e.g., beach detecting, coin shooting, relic hunting, prospecting, etc.) and want different coils for those jobs, I think the Whites MX Sport pack deal (9.5" concentric and 6x10 DD accessory coils, accessory bag, and hat) for about $280 is a good deal, that's how I purchased the accessory coils for my MXS vs. buying them individually.
Finally, a question - when in the field, was frequently using the tracking button [holding it down] to perform a ground grab as the soil ground conditions varied significantly and locked the ground reading since the field was highly mineralized. Whenever I performed a ground grab, I merely got a "grounding" indication and number that would steady out, but I never got the GRABBd indication as stated in the manual. After reading about ground tracking under mineralized conditions, I found that I may have been not using optimal techniques to deal with the mineralization (the Deus works differently), but I still never got the GRABBd indication. Any thoughts/feedback on ground tracking and ground grabbing actual indications with the MXS would be appreciated. Thanks.
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