silver umax or Compadre

[banshee89]

Hello all, I have been metal Detecting for about 4 months now with a bounty hunter tracker. I have had great luck with and have learned that I like analog machines. Most of the areas I have hunted around here are not hunted out and I have found many coins with it. It has been a great machine but I am ready for something that goes a little deeper, Has analog controls, and a little better discrimination would be nice...... although I have read there is no magic bullet when it comes to can tabs. Not to mention my 9 year old son has expressed an interest so I could give the BH to him.

I am primary interested in coin shooting and never on beaches or in water. I was looking at getting the Silver Umax as the controls and operation look close to the BH design..... but..... looking at the reviews the Compadre is a beast for coin shooting. Should I spend the extra and get the Silver or will the Compadre do just fine for just coinshooting? Should I look at some higher models? Again, I could spend the money but I hate wasting money and if the Compadre is just as good at shooting coins why get a more expensive unit? I am happy with the BH 8" coil and what ever unit I replace it with will have an 8" as well...... and around here I dont see the need for changing coils...

?

 

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[fella]

I have a 8" Compadre. Hardly EVER gets used! In areas it work in, it works fine. However in areas where emi is an issue (about half of the places I'd take it), it's completely useless because it doesn't have a sens adjustment. Turn it on and it just chatters away non stop. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably get the Cibola just for the PP. However between the Silver and useless half the time, I'd take the silver. But if for whatever reason you decide to go with the Compadre, opt for the 5.75".

 

[rainyday101]

I have a Silver and love it. Depth in my mild ground is 7 inches, maybe 8 if conditions are right and the ground is moist. I'm with Fella on this one, I would opt for a Silver because of the sensitivity adjustment. If you can swing the extra funds and want deeper, step up to the Cibola. Call a forum sponsor listed here to get a better deal.

 

[Hot zone]

The Tejon is more spendy... But it is the best detector I have used to date and one that I am not likely to outgrow... Having two discriminators really gives you options...( if you were looking to find a gold ring that was lost, adjust disc one to accept gold and disc two to just blank it out) ... A 3 way toggle switches disc 1, disc 2, and all metal...
manual 3 3/4 turn pot for ground balance adjusts to a wide range of conditions!
I purchased a like new used one for $429 on EBay...

 

[luvsdux]

The Silver is more versatile than the Compadre in that it has an external sensitivity control and you can interchange coils. Both pluses for a moderate increase price.
luvsdux

 

[digger27]

The Silver does have a moderate price increase but even though you don't want to change coils now that might change in the future and that added sensitivity adjustment might also come in handy.

That being said, I have hunted with a 7" Compadre for 3 years with the sense turned all the way up to about max and my experience seems to be slightly different than others.
Except for only one site where I did have to turn the disc up to zinc to quiet it down I have NEVER had any issue with EMI at all the many different sites I have used it and that number would be high.
A few issues near some power lines but it was still usable and rare in most cases.

I also used an 8" coil model for several weeks last summer and had no issues with noise at about 1/2 a dozen spots it was used, the thing went deep with factory settings and rapid recovery and target separation seemed to be very close to the extreme levels I have with my 7" coil.
Hunting in a few very hevy trash sites didn't seem to be a problem, but using smaller coils is still the way to go at sites like those because masking can still be an issue.

The only thing I did not like about that larger coil is the disc was sharp but it seemed to be a bit less sharp that my older model but not a deal breaker by any means, and in heavy trash it appeared to work just about as well as the smaller coil versions.
This is important to me because I never set that disc knob at one setting but I am the kind that thumbs the knob up and down to figure out every target before I dig so a razer sharp disc ability is paramount for me to do this in the most quick and efficient way possible.

If you cover large areas the larger coil model would be a better choice, the smaller coil if you hunt mostly in iron laden or heavy trash sites and the larger coil if you hunt a mixture of both.
This is if you don't decide on the Silver and in that case I would start with the standard coil but highly recommend thinking about purchasing a sniper coil in the future if you hunt heavy trash areas a lot like I do.

I have used both that Compadre and also a Vaquero with 3 different coil options, have many hundreds of hours experience with each unit and easy and efficient coin shooting is just one super power that they both seem to possess so I assume that will hold true for all Tesoros up and down the entire line.

 

[supertraq]

compadre has ed-180 disc which should be on all the tesoros as far as i'm concerned...