Happy_Hour
New member
You brought up some great points. Let me add a few comments between the lines here if I may...I think between the two of us, we could add a lot to the instruction manual that wasn't there in the first place LMAO! I wish I'd had someone to tell me some of these things back in 1992. It's a lot to take in anyhow, though...so here goes...
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
I'm not completely certain on that, as I am not hunting in the same places/conditions with my 66 as I did with my 65 - but I can tell you that I got freaky depth on coins with the 65... oddly enough, the deepest coin that I actually measured (I had a big@ss trowel with a ruler etched into it) was a silver nickel at exactly 10"...
My deepest was a Seated Half at around 14" (may have been just a hair shallower than that, but not much. It was in the last scoop of dirt--and it was the deepest hole I ever dug for a coin, so I went to the car for the tape measure). As I recall, the '65 was a little deeper than the '66 on CW relics--and I assume it was comparable on coins.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
I do agree with you about dimes, though, however there was one morning that I hunted after a very heavy rain (I was actually recovering coins in water-filled plugs) in which I found 6 Barber dimes on an old school field that gave me nothing more than a sweet, tiny scratch, and it was only due to experience (and the fact that I was just on fire back then )
I had a similar experience after a rain. I'd hunted an old baseball field close to where I grew up back in the mid '90s, and I'd pulled lots of wheats and some Mercs, plus a SLQ, Buffalos, and some other nice coins out of it...I went back there last summer (at least 12 years later) and hunted it again--and it had just rained. Got 6 silver dimes--all Mercs--from that area I had gridded as a teenager. Now I'm sure most of it could be experience...but here's the thing: There were only THREE wheats for that hunt. So that tells me that the 1266 is hotter on Copper than Silver Dimes. If I'm in a site that is producing old relics and coins, I ALWAYS hunt it at least once after a good rain. The silver Half-Dimes I've found all sounded good on the machine--but that's because they were in plowed fields and more shallow. They read in the aluminum range on the 1266.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
As far as an overall consensus on it as a coin hunting machine, it will hunt deep - the only thing (at least for me, anyway) is that I cannot say with certainty that it's the best machine for hunting in urban, trashy areas. If you're not used to it, or don't have the patience for all the noise it can make, it has the capacity to drive you insane. I still reach my threshold for it's noisiness at times, and just have to switch 'er off and find another spot to hunt.
Agreed. This is NO Cherrypicking machine. You must be prepared to take your time. You don't have to dig everything with it--I used to hunt with my dual disc on 7 and 10, as you do--but then I got wise to missing nickels, gold, half-dimes, bullets, relics, brass, etc. So I hunt with Disc1 on 4.75 or just a hair below 5.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
It does indeed have an affinity to iron, and will sniff it out deep. It also has an affinity to the tiniest of objects, which can be a plus, however, you can adjust it to ignore smaller items and focus more on coins.
Yes, the machine likes iron--which is part of the reason it can't be beaten for relic hunting! If you're in a park, or hunting a yard, you already know where the site is. If you're finding a spot from a Will, Deed, Map, or Research--you Don't know where it is--untill you hear the chatter of the iron patch on the 1266. On many other machines, an iron patch will cause the threshold (if it's turned up) to "null out." And so you will hear it perhaps due to the Absence of the threshold tone. On the Fisher, the opposite is true--the iron (and other partially discriminated targets--break the audio threshold, and become little "chirps" of sound. I like it. I don't have to listen as hard until I hit the iron patch.
So yes, the Fisher does love Iron--and you'll be digging some Big Iron if you own a 1266--but you don't have to. Iron has a peculiar pattern of what I call "slight decay" in the signal as you thumb the Disc knob...and it is unmistakable. I usually dig anyhow, just to be sure, but it comes in handy.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
One peculiar idiosyncrasy it has is that at a certain depth (i.e deep), even discriminated objects will occasionally hit as a good target.
And likewise, sometimes good targets will hit as trash--Especially if your disc is high! That's why I now hunt with it low--and I think that's part of the reason I got those deep silver dimes from the pasture (1940's ballfield) mentioned above.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
[Regarding pinpointing - this is one of the 66's BEST features. A nice feature of it's pinpointing abilities is that you can "shrink" the pinpoint signal down by repeatedly toggling while lowering the coil to the ground. I can usually hit my coin dead-center with my screwdriver - unless the coin is sidways - and in that instance, I usually end up going down to my elbows just to finally notice the Lincoln penny on the side of my plug about 4" down. You can also determine depth with some degree of accuracy using pinpointing, as well as eliminate larger objects by lifting the coil.]
LOL I agree with you--although we evidently pinpoint in different ways. I do "de-tune" with the pinpoint, to cut the size down--and you can do it very small which makes the pinpointing dead-on--and the 1266's high-pitched "Whine" will tell you when the target is an overload signal on a pinpoint (took me a year to figure that one out--since it wasn't in the manual. LOL) So yes you can tell size and depth with pinpointing and lots of practice on the 1266. I'd love to go out with a measuring tape and go head-to-head against someone with an ID machine and see if I could hold my own on accuracy.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
Hunting for gold (jewelry) with the 66 can honestly be tricky and frustrating. Being an analog machine with virtually no ID (built-in), once you've accepted nickel-conducting objects, you're digging almost everything from small bits of foil, can-slaw, screwcaps, and aluminum in general, at any depth. I have not been able to successfully find a dual-disc setting that allows me to weed out the junk. Please, if anyone has any insight on that, let me in on it.
FisherMan, I think part of the reason you find it hard is that you don't "thumb the knob" while sweeping over a target. You seem to use the dual disc feature more. I use the dual disc sometimes--but only when I'm trying to compare lead and brass on a CW site, or a coin signal from a non-coin anything... Thumb that knob, dude! Iron nails tune out at 4 or so, Nickels at 5.5, Small lead around the same, Brass at 6.5 or so, aluminum at 8 or so, and the rest holds more or less steady all the way up--including Big Iron. I also think part of the issue is that you don't regularly hunt in that disc. range. So you have less practice at that type of hunting. I don't have to dig much aluminum if I walk out in a park and want to dig only Nickels and mid-range targets. Foil, yes. Can-slaw, no.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
As far as sensitivity settings go, I have not seen how adjusting the sens. affects depth to any viable degree. The main thing that adjusting the sens. settings affects is the size of the objects it's seeing. Most gold jewelry objects are generally at least somewhat coin-sized, therefore finding a sens. setting that eliminates most smaller-than-those objects is advantageous when searching for gold.
The sensitivity knob I'm sure changes the depth a bit...but you're right. It doesn't change it a huge amount. But lowering the sensitivity Does deprive you of one type of valuable knowledge...and that's tone quality. Yes, the type of beep the 1266 makes changes if you pull the sens. knob out or push it in. Signals are less apt to break the audio threshold, and they start sounding more like the background "chatter" that you're trying to distinguish them from--which is bad news! When you lower the sens., it also takes away another valuable property of the beep which I use to judge depth--and that's the "edge of the sound." A coin signal has a "round sound" always--if it is at average depth or shallower. "Bap Bap" There is a sharp onset and a sharp cut-off in the sound. Other decent targets have this sound. It is one thing to listen for that makes your mouth water when it blurts out of the background chatter. A deep target--even a coin--has a different sound. "Wah Wah" Slower onset to the beep and slower release. All of my belt plates and buckles as well as that deep Seated Half and countless IH's sounded like this. When you approach and exceed the 10" mark with this machine, that is a dead giveaway. And you lose it if you lower the sensitivity. Now will you lose those targets if you lower the sensitivity? Buckles and Plates, certainly not. Will they sound as good? Probably not. Now, the deep IH's? Who knows.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
There are a couple of things that I just plain don't care for about the 66, and those are - its weight, and its tendency toward interference when near power lines and some types of buildings (and, just about any other metal detector or cell phone made - my cell phone makes it go nuts, so I usually don't carry it with me while hunting unless absolutely necessary). I was hunting some old easement in a downtown suburban office area yesterday, and in one spot it was talking to me so bad that I had to leave. It will usually remain quiet in these areas while you're swinging it, but when you stop to dig, it will buzz like a swarm of angry bees, and is just irritating beyond belief.
Yes, it does experience some interference--and electric fences and power lines are the most problematic in my experience. I have been on the cell phone with mine and it was fine. I regularly hunt with it around a Tesoro Cibola, Whites XLT, Whites DFX, and Ace 250 and I experience no feedback of any kind. With another 1266, 1265, 1270, or '66-XB you might as well forget it though!
And yes, when you have the sens. cranked it does chatter away when you lay it down to dig. You just have to back the sens. off a bit usually (that's what I do) when you lay it down. Problem solved.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
Regarding it's weight, well, it's just a beast. I'm not sure what the specific weight is, but compared to other machines, it's built like a brick $hithouse, and will wear you out fast if you're not used to it. I can swing it for several hours before I get fatigued, but I still do get there. And unfortunately, given the way it's constructed, there really isn't any pragmatic way of rigging a way to hip-mount it.
When the 1266 was made, it was one of the lightest detectors on the market. The '66 weighs 3.9lbs., and the '66-XB weighs 4.1lbs. To put that in perspective, the Whites XLT is also 4 lbs. (The old Eagle Spectrum...now THAT was a BEAST!). I'm sure that the DFX and MXT are around the same weight--all the same as the 1266, even though they are later machines. (I don't know how much those last two I mentioned weigh--it used to be that weight was a consideration on buying a machine--and all brands listed their weights!--but now the White's website doesn't say...) So it's not that bad, really--when ya consider that there are EIGHT AA batteries in it. They were built well, so you'd get decades of use with no repairs needed--just like the Whites machines.
Oh--and one thing you forgot that's GREAT about the 1266--The BATTERY LIFE!! 60-80 hours of hunting time for each set of 8 AA's
I get 40-50 with my rechargeables now.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
I'm not completely certain on that, as I am not hunting in the same places/conditions with my 66 as I did with my 65 - but I can tell you that I got freaky depth on coins with the 65... oddly enough, the deepest coin that I actually measured (I had a big@ss trowel with a ruler etched into it) was a silver nickel at exactly 10"...
My deepest was a Seated Half at around 14" (may have been just a hair shallower than that, but not much. It was in the last scoop of dirt--and it was the deepest hole I ever dug for a coin, so I went to the car for the tape measure). As I recall, the '65 was a little deeper than the '66 on CW relics--and I assume it was comparable on coins.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
I do agree with you about dimes, though, however there was one morning that I hunted after a very heavy rain (I was actually recovering coins in water-filled plugs) in which I found 6 Barber dimes on an old school field that gave me nothing more than a sweet, tiny scratch, and it was only due to experience (and the fact that I was just on fire back then )
I had a similar experience after a rain. I'd hunted an old baseball field close to where I grew up back in the mid '90s, and I'd pulled lots of wheats and some Mercs, plus a SLQ, Buffalos, and some other nice coins out of it...I went back there last summer (at least 12 years later) and hunted it again--and it had just rained. Got 6 silver dimes--all Mercs--from that area I had gridded as a teenager. Now I'm sure most of it could be experience...but here's the thing: There were only THREE wheats for that hunt. So that tells me that the 1266 is hotter on Copper than Silver Dimes. If I'm in a site that is producing old relics and coins, I ALWAYS hunt it at least once after a good rain. The silver Half-Dimes I've found all sounded good on the machine--but that's because they were in plowed fields and more shallow. They read in the aluminum range on the 1266.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
As far as an overall consensus on it as a coin hunting machine, it will hunt deep - the only thing (at least for me, anyway) is that I cannot say with certainty that it's the best machine for hunting in urban, trashy areas. If you're not used to it, or don't have the patience for all the noise it can make, it has the capacity to drive you insane. I still reach my threshold for it's noisiness at times, and just have to switch 'er off and find another spot to hunt.
Agreed. This is NO Cherrypicking machine. You must be prepared to take your time. You don't have to dig everything with it--I used to hunt with my dual disc on 7 and 10, as you do--but then I got wise to missing nickels, gold, half-dimes, bullets, relics, brass, etc. So I hunt with Disc1 on 4.75 or just a hair below 5.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
It does indeed have an affinity to iron, and will sniff it out deep. It also has an affinity to the tiniest of objects, which can be a plus, however, you can adjust it to ignore smaller items and focus more on coins.
Yes, the machine likes iron--which is part of the reason it can't be beaten for relic hunting! If you're in a park, or hunting a yard, you already know where the site is. If you're finding a spot from a Will, Deed, Map, or Research--you Don't know where it is--untill you hear the chatter of the iron patch on the 1266. On many other machines, an iron patch will cause the threshold (if it's turned up) to "null out." And so you will hear it perhaps due to the Absence of the threshold tone. On the Fisher, the opposite is true--the iron (and other partially discriminated targets--break the audio threshold, and become little "chirps" of sound. I like it. I don't have to listen as hard until I hit the iron patch.
So yes, the Fisher does love Iron--and you'll be digging some Big Iron if you own a 1266--but you don't have to. Iron has a peculiar pattern of what I call "slight decay" in the signal as you thumb the Disc knob...and it is unmistakable. I usually dig anyhow, just to be sure, but it comes in handy.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
One peculiar idiosyncrasy it has is that at a certain depth (i.e deep), even discriminated objects will occasionally hit as a good target.
And likewise, sometimes good targets will hit as trash--Especially if your disc is high! That's why I now hunt with it low--and I think that's part of the reason I got those deep silver dimes from the pasture (1940's ballfield) mentioned above.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
[Regarding pinpointing - this is one of the 66's BEST features. A nice feature of it's pinpointing abilities is that you can "shrink" the pinpoint signal down by repeatedly toggling while lowering the coil to the ground. I can usually hit my coin dead-center with my screwdriver - unless the coin is sidways - and in that instance, I usually end up going down to my elbows just to finally notice the Lincoln penny on the side of my plug about 4" down. You can also determine depth with some degree of accuracy using pinpointing, as well as eliminate larger objects by lifting the coil.]
LOL I agree with you--although we evidently pinpoint in different ways. I do "de-tune" with the pinpoint, to cut the size down--and you can do it very small which makes the pinpointing dead-on--and the 1266's high-pitched "Whine" will tell you when the target is an overload signal on a pinpoint (took me a year to figure that one out--since it wasn't in the manual. LOL) So yes you can tell size and depth with pinpointing and lots of practice on the 1266. I'd love to go out with a measuring tape and go head-to-head against someone with an ID machine and see if I could hold my own on accuracy.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
Hunting for gold (jewelry) with the 66 can honestly be tricky and frustrating. Being an analog machine with virtually no ID (built-in), once you've accepted nickel-conducting objects, you're digging almost everything from small bits of foil, can-slaw, screwcaps, and aluminum in general, at any depth. I have not been able to successfully find a dual-disc setting that allows me to weed out the junk. Please, if anyone has any insight on that, let me in on it.
FisherMan, I think part of the reason you find it hard is that you don't "thumb the knob" while sweeping over a target. You seem to use the dual disc feature more. I use the dual disc sometimes--but only when I'm trying to compare lead and brass on a CW site, or a coin signal from a non-coin anything... Thumb that knob, dude! Iron nails tune out at 4 or so, Nickels at 5.5, Small lead around the same, Brass at 6.5 or so, aluminum at 8 or so, and the rest holds more or less steady all the way up--including Big Iron. I also think part of the issue is that you don't regularly hunt in that disc. range. So you have less practice at that type of hunting. I don't have to dig much aluminum if I walk out in a park and want to dig only Nickels and mid-range targets. Foil, yes. Can-slaw, no.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
As far as sensitivity settings go, I have not seen how adjusting the sens. affects depth to any viable degree. The main thing that adjusting the sens. settings affects is the size of the objects it's seeing. Most gold jewelry objects are generally at least somewhat coin-sized, therefore finding a sens. setting that eliminates most smaller-than-those objects is advantageous when searching for gold.
The sensitivity knob I'm sure changes the depth a bit...but you're right. It doesn't change it a huge amount. But lowering the sensitivity Does deprive you of one type of valuable knowledge...and that's tone quality. Yes, the type of beep the 1266 makes changes if you pull the sens. knob out or push it in. Signals are less apt to break the audio threshold, and they start sounding more like the background "chatter" that you're trying to distinguish them from--which is bad news! When you lower the sens., it also takes away another valuable property of the beep which I use to judge depth--and that's the "edge of the sound." A coin signal has a "round sound" always--if it is at average depth or shallower. "Bap Bap" There is a sharp onset and a sharp cut-off in the sound. Other decent targets have this sound. It is one thing to listen for that makes your mouth water when it blurts out of the background chatter. A deep target--even a coin--has a different sound. "Wah Wah" Slower onset to the beep and slower release. All of my belt plates and buckles as well as that deep Seated Half and countless IH's sounded like this. When you approach and exceed the 10" mark with this machine, that is a dead giveaway. And you lose it if you lower the sensitivity. Now will you lose those targets if you lower the sensitivity? Buckles and Plates, certainly not. Will they sound as good? Probably not. Now, the deep IH's? Who knows.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
There are a couple of things that I just plain don't care for about the 66, and those are - its weight, and its tendency toward interference when near power lines and some types of buildings (and, just about any other metal detector or cell phone made - my cell phone makes it go nuts, so I usually don't carry it with me while hunting unless absolutely necessary). I was hunting some old easement in a downtown suburban office area yesterday, and in one spot it was talking to me so bad that I had to leave. It will usually remain quiet in these areas while you're swinging it, but when you stop to dig, it will buzz like a swarm of angry bees, and is just irritating beyond belief.
Yes, it does experience some interference--and electric fences and power lines are the most problematic in my experience. I have been on the cell phone with mine and it was fine. I regularly hunt with it around a Tesoro Cibola, Whites XLT, Whites DFX, and Ace 250 and I experience no feedback of any kind. With another 1266, 1265, 1270, or '66-XB you might as well forget it though!
And yes, when you have the sens. cranked it does chatter away when you lay it down to dig. You just have to back the sens. off a bit usually (that's what I do) when you lay it down. Problem solved.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X
Regarding it's weight, well, it's just a beast. I'm not sure what the specific weight is, but compared to other machines, it's built like a brick $hithouse, and will wear you out fast if you're not used to it. I can swing it for several hours before I get fatigued, but I still do get there. And unfortunately, given the way it's constructed, there really isn't any pragmatic way of rigging a way to hip-mount it.
When the 1266 was made, it was one of the lightest detectors on the market. The '66 weighs 3.9lbs., and the '66-XB weighs 4.1lbs. To put that in perspective, the Whites XLT is also 4 lbs. (The old Eagle Spectrum...now THAT was a BEAST!). I'm sure that the DFX and MXT are around the same weight--all the same as the 1266, even though they are later machines. (I don't know how much those last two I mentioned weigh--it used to be that weight was a consideration on buying a machine--and all brands listed their weights!--but now the White's website doesn't say...) So it's not that bad, really--when ya consider that there are EIGHT AA batteries in it. They were built well, so you'd get decades of use with no repairs needed--just like the Whites machines.
Oh--and one thing you forgot that's GREAT about the 1266--The BATTERY LIFE!! 60-80 hours of hunting time for each set of 8 AA's
I get 40-50 with my rechargeables now.
Quote Originally Posted by FisherMan_1266X