Critterhunter
New member
As a prelude to this tiny field report, keep in mind I've owned a lot of machines over the years, and yet only about 2 of the best of them could muster about 7.5" deep on a silver dime in my mineralized soils and beaches. Only once I went Minelab did I break that barrier, and the GT has pushed those depths even further beyond belief for me, even using the stock 10" Tornado coil. 
The 12x10 seeming to punch even deeper is just icing on the cake at how this GT impresses the heck out of me in it's depth/stability in my soil/sands.
Also, no great finds to be had in this field report, as it's only meant to go over how deep this stinking machine is for me *in my soil*. It's just something that I have to share because I just continue to shake my head in disbelief over what the Sovereign will do in my soil or on my beaches. Sure, it's impressed me time and time again with it's depth and unmasking ability, but I just never seem to get over it and want to share the shock and awe.
Gridded out a good chunk of a small beach at a small nearby lake today with GT and 12x10. The swimming season closed on labor day so you can show up on this beach mid day without issues hunting, otherwise it's morning only. It's a very small beach but I wouldn't be able to grid the whole thing in one visit. Only about 1/3rd of it in about the 3 hours or so which is all I can stand in this kind of heat and humidity. Had to push myself to not quit until I got that grid pattern down I marked off between some landmarks so it would be easy to pick up where I left off next time I go back.
Started my grid pattern from the water's edge and it was obvious somebody had already worked this beach because there were hardly any shallow signals. But, whoever it was was passing on those iffy tiny bits of aluminum about pea size or so, and I always scoop those iffy junk signals on the beach in hopes of a tiny gold earring, a gold chain, or perhaps a gold ring that has a crack in it. If a ring isn't a complete loop it will often give a real sick sound and jumpy ID. Using a long handled scoop is so easy anyway that it makes no sense to pass up any signal above iron, no matter how bad it sounds.
About 10 minutes into my grid I started coming upon deep signals that hit hard and fine and IDed perfect on the meter with just a little wiggle work. After a short amount of time I already popped 3 or 4 nickles and several round and square pull tabs at very deep depths. Not all of these gave a total lock on ID (many did though) but the volume was low enough to know they were fringe depth targets that should be giving me a problem with an ID lock and probably not just tiny bits of junk that will do that. That's one of the keys to being picky when you want to on land. If the audio sounds loud enough that the target shouldn't be fighting you to lock into an ID then you can bet it's a odd shaped piece of junk or something tiny and odd in shape. The volume on these ones that wouldn't lock on told me they were deep enough out of range that the ID might not lock on even on a round object like a ring or a coin.
This beach is fairly mineralized and not only that but there is a very nearby building about 60 yards away with some heavy power lines going into it, so I had to keep the sensitivity at 3PM to keep it stable. Despite that, the GT and the 12x10 was punching deep. Obviously much deeper than whoever had worked this beach, because several of those real deep ones were nickles or round or square tabs that gave rock solid tones and IDs that nobody would pass up hunting for gold rings, so somebody else probably wasn't able to see that deep. And most of my targets today came in the 7" or deeper range, so I'm guessing this guy was maxing out in this mineralized sand at just about 7" deep with his machine's ability. Not surprising, because every non-Minelab I've owned would struggle to get that deep in my beaches on a dime. Only a few of the best machines I owned could reach around that depth in my soils or sands on a dime sized target.
I'd say 2 or 3 of the nickels and about that many tabs were so deep that I was pretty shocked the ID was a lock and the tone so strong and robust even with the sensitivity at 3PM and the minerals in the sand. In fact, I was so wanting to know how deep these puppies were going to be when I scooped deep and still didn't come up with them at such a low sensitivity and yet they were hitting hard, that I stuck my Pro Pointer in the hole to see just how deep they were. The Pro Pointer is 9" long, and 2 or 3 of these targets were right around 9" in depth, with 2 or 3 at about 10 to 10 & 1/2" deep! That's with good strong tone and locked ID (the ID locked on most anyway I'd say)!
Yes, I'm sure they were that deep, because this sand was wet and wasn't crumbling at all, and I was taking just a tiny bit of sand out with the scoop at a time once the hole was so deep to see just exactly how deep they were going to be. When I hadn't come up with them yet and the hole was already getting past 8" or so I wanted to be careful and see just what was going to happen.
So don't fear running your Sovereign at lower sensitivity settings to get it to stop falsing or to keep the threshold from dropping out when minerals or EMI are real bad, and this was a double whammy where I had both issues pretty bad at this site. In fact, as I gridded closer to the building the EMI started to become a problem again so I dropped the sensitivity all the way down from where I had it at 3PM and the machine was still unstable, so I flipped it over to Auto and still it wasn't going to settle down. So, for the first time in probably about a year I decided to try noise band 1 and the machine settled down so I was able to bring sensitivity back up to where I had it at 3PM and it was stable again thanks to switching bands. Don't forget to try that if lowering sensitivity isn't helping. If I can't get the machine to settle down when I'm down to about 5PM on the dial or so due to EMI I'll usually try Auto first, and if that doesn't work then I'll try band 1. I hate leaving band 2 just because I know it matches the charts on the mid range conductors like nickels better.
So while I didn't get anything but some round/square tabs, some other trash, and a handful of coins, I was still happy to see the GT and 12x10 was punching a good bit deeper than whoever worked this small beach. Not only that, but those deepest 9 to 10 & 1/2" targets such as a few of the nickels were sitting right in about a 2" band of darker sand, meaning it had some black sand running through it at the bottom of the hole past the regular sand, which was also mineralized. Some of these deepest targets will well into that deeper blacker sand, but we all know black sand is the worst for any machine, and despite that BBS did it's job, which they are known for in handling the worst of soils or sands.
By the way, what's with round tabs still showing up at even a small beach like this? This is a small fresh water lake, so no tidal action or storms to move the sand around with wave action. It always blows my mind that round tabs still pop up in huge numbers at all my beaches, well away from where any water could possibly be moving the sand around. I guess it's two things- Guys who don't dig but only the nickel zone looking for gold rings (which is a big mistake because way more read in the foil zone then even the nickle and tab zones combined), and probably the other factor is that not to many people are hunting my beaches using a BBS machine.
The 12x10 seeming to punch even deeper is just icing on the cake at how this GT impresses the heck out of me in it's depth/stability in my soil/sands.Also, no great finds to be had in this field report, as it's only meant to go over how deep this stinking machine is for me *in my soil*. It's just something that I have to share because I just continue to shake my head in disbelief over what the Sovereign will do in my soil or on my beaches. Sure, it's impressed me time and time again with it's depth and unmasking ability, but I just never seem to get over it and want to share the shock and awe.
Gridded out a good chunk of a small beach at a small nearby lake today with GT and 12x10. The swimming season closed on labor day so you can show up on this beach mid day without issues hunting, otherwise it's morning only. It's a very small beach but I wouldn't be able to grid the whole thing in one visit. Only about 1/3rd of it in about the 3 hours or so which is all I can stand in this kind of heat and humidity. Had to push myself to not quit until I got that grid pattern down I marked off between some landmarks so it would be easy to pick up where I left off next time I go back.
Started my grid pattern from the water's edge and it was obvious somebody had already worked this beach because there were hardly any shallow signals. But, whoever it was was passing on those iffy tiny bits of aluminum about pea size or so, and I always scoop those iffy junk signals on the beach in hopes of a tiny gold earring, a gold chain, or perhaps a gold ring that has a crack in it. If a ring isn't a complete loop it will often give a real sick sound and jumpy ID. Using a long handled scoop is so easy anyway that it makes no sense to pass up any signal above iron, no matter how bad it sounds.
About 10 minutes into my grid I started coming upon deep signals that hit hard and fine and IDed perfect on the meter with just a little wiggle work. After a short amount of time I already popped 3 or 4 nickles and several round and square pull tabs at very deep depths. Not all of these gave a total lock on ID (many did though) but the volume was low enough to know they were fringe depth targets that should be giving me a problem with an ID lock and probably not just tiny bits of junk that will do that. That's one of the keys to being picky when you want to on land. If the audio sounds loud enough that the target shouldn't be fighting you to lock into an ID then you can bet it's a odd shaped piece of junk or something tiny and odd in shape. The volume on these ones that wouldn't lock on told me they were deep enough out of range that the ID might not lock on even on a round object like a ring or a coin.
This beach is fairly mineralized and not only that but there is a very nearby building about 60 yards away with some heavy power lines going into it, so I had to keep the sensitivity at 3PM to keep it stable. Despite that, the GT and the 12x10 was punching deep. Obviously much deeper than whoever had worked this beach, because several of those real deep ones were nickles or round or square tabs that gave rock solid tones and IDs that nobody would pass up hunting for gold rings, so somebody else probably wasn't able to see that deep. And most of my targets today came in the 7" or deeper range, so I'm guessing this guy was maxing out in this mineralized sand at just about 7" deep with his machine's ability. Not surprising, because every non-Minelab I've owned would struggle to get that deep in my beaches on a dime. Only a few of the best machines I owned could reach around that depth in my soils or sands on a dime sized target.
I'd say 2 or 3 of the nickels and about that many tabs were so deep that I was pretty shocked the ID was a lock and the tone so strong and robust even with the sensitivity at 3PM and the minerals in the sand. In fact, I was so wanting to know how deep these puppies were going to be when I scooped deep and still didn't come up with them at such a low sensitivity and yet they were hitting hard, that I stuck my Pro Pointer in the hole to see just how deep they were. The Pro Pointer is 9" long, and 2 or 3 of these targets were right around 9" in depth, with 2 or 3 at about 10 to 10 & 1/2" deep! That's with good strong tone and locked ID (the ID locked on most anyway I'd say)!
Yes, I'm sure they were that deep, because this sand was wet and wasn't crumbling at all, and I was taking just a tiny bit of sand out with the scoop at a time once the hole was so deep to see just exactly how deep they were going to be. When I hadn't come up with them yet and the hole was already getting past 8" or so I wanted to be careful and see just what was going to happen.
So don't fear running your Sovereign at lower sensitivity settings to get it to stop falsing or to keep the threshold from dropping out when minerals or EMI are real bad, and this was a double whammy where I had both issues pretty bad at this site. In fact, as I gridded closer to the building the EMI started to become a problem again so I dropped the sensitivity all the way down from where I had it at 3PM and the machine was still unstable, so I flipped it over to Auto and still it wasn't going to settle down. So, for the first time in probably about a year I decided to try noise band 1 and the machine settled down so I was able to bring sensitivity back up to where I had it at 3PM and it was stable again thanks to switching bands. Don't forget to try that if lowering sensitivity isn't helping. If I can't get the machine to settle down when I'm down to about 5PM on the dial or so due to EMI I'll usually try Auto first, and if that doesn't work then I'll try band 1. I hate leaving band 2 just because I know it matches the charts on the mid range conductors like nickels better.
So while I didn't get anything but some round/square tabs, some other trash, and a handful of coins, I was still happy to see the GT and 12x10 was punching a good bit deeper than whoever worked this small beach. Not only that, but those deepest 9 to 10 & 1/2" targets such as a few of the nickels were sitting right in about a 2" band of darker sand, meaning it had some black sand running through it at the bottom of the hole past the regular sand, which was also mineralized. Some of these deepest targets will well into that deeper blacker sand, but we all know black sand is the worst for any machine, and despite that BBS did it's job, which they are known for in handling the worst of soils or sands.
By the way, what's with round tabs still showing up at even a small beach like this? This is a small fresh water lake, so no tidal action or storms to move the sand around with wave action. It always blows my mind that round tabs still pop up in huge numbers at all my beaches, well away from where any water could possibly be moving the sand around. I guess it's two things- Guys who don't dig but only the nickel zone looking for gold rings (which is a big mistake because way more read in the foil zone then even the nickle and tab zones combined), and probably the other factor is that not to many people are hunting my beaches using a BBS machine.