3030 or Etrac for Relics? how does it do?

[luked]

how does the 3030 do for relics like civil war relics and so on.
planing on getting a new machine in the next month and wanting to get opinions on the 3030 and Etrac on how they do do relics.
i have a Teknetics Omega 8000. with Version 5 softwear in it and it does well and i thought i would just get the Etrac and use the Omega for my relic hunting and Etrac for coins. but if the 3030 does well for relics i might just get it and sell the Omega
looking for your alls opinions

 

[Nauti]

Why not just get the etrac.......it will find relics and coins and is a lot cheaper than the ctx.Unless you need the waterproof feature of the ctx,the etrac will serve you well.

 

[Daniel Tn]

Some are going to disagree but I am just relating what I have experienced with my CTX.

I do not feel the CTX to be a good Civil War relic hunting detector. The FBS machines IMO, seem to excel at finding high conductive ROUND things. When something is not round and is oddly shaped, they do not respond that great. When I am talking of relics, I am thinking of things like brass J hooks, knapsack triangles, minie balls, etc. None of those things are round and I have been doing a great deal of signal comparing with some other detectors I have. I first thought it was something I was doing wrong with the machine; some setting combo I was doing wrong. I was using 2 patterns...basically Andy's modified relic program that is in his book, and a pattern called the Tadpole pattern I downloaded. I was using the Combined audio and setting the ferrous line down to 32. I've tried deep on and off...ferrous coin, ground coin, tried just noise cancelling and have also tried ground balancing manually. Of the signals I have located with other machines and then tested the CTX on....I dare say I would have only dug maybe 20% of them. I did a video last week of finding Civil War bullets with one machine and then seeing how the CTX responded to them before I dug...and most all of the time, I wouldn't get a signal at all with the above two disc patterns. In an open screen, all I heard was an iron signal and the iron was buried in the lower right of the screen. I would only get an occasional chirp of a signal...usually a one way swing. These bullets I had on video were 8 to 9 inches deep....about the length of my pinpointer. Yet if those bullets had been silver dimes at that same depth, I feel I would have got a better signal on them. I think it is a combo of the conductivity of the bullets and their out of round shape that makes them unfavorable to the FBS machines. That's just my opinion though. I know that day I videoed, I located 14 bullets. Out of that 14, I would have dug just 2 of them with the CTX by it giving a signal on them. This is with the stock coil and running manual sensitivity between 20 and 25. But I did try maxing it out just to see if I could get a better signal on the bullets but I could not.

As a coin hunter in modern trash and older sites, I wouldn't have any other machine with me. And on the beach it excels there too. But when I'm Civil War relic hunting...it is not my first choice or even in my top 5 of detectors.

 

[Ben Town]

I've got a relic site that I've hammered with my Safari "FBS Machine" this past year
It hit lead balls and pieces of lead very well , lots of small pieces of metal and some nice relics.
I ran it wide open full tilt on the sensitivity and all metal mode.
Now I have traded for a CTX and had it at the site one time with great results, I have a 17" coil coming and when conditions allow I will be going over the whole field again .
With the help of the GPS tracking system I should be able to cover it all and not miss any areas .
I feel in my area with its mild soil conditions, the CTX is a great choice for relics and the GPS system can only be a plus.
But as others in this thread have stated , it's just a matter of personal preference.
Good luck in your search, lot s of good machines out there
Also I got a great buy on my CTX , was looking for a E Track originally and settled for the CTX
BT

 

[CT Todd]

Some are going to disagree but I am just relating what I have experienced with my CTX.

I do not feel the CTX to be a good Civil War relic hunting detector. The FBS machines IMO, seem to excel at finding high conductive ROUND things. When something is not round and is oddly shaped, they do not respond that great. When I am talking of relics, I am thinking of things like brass J hooks, knapsack triangles, minie balls, etc. None of those things are round and I have been doing a great deal of signal comparing with some other detectors I have. I first thought it was something I was doing wrong with the machine; some setting combo I was doing wrong. I was using 2 patterns...basically Andy's modified relic program that is in his book, and a pattern called the Tadpole pattern I downloaded. I was using the Combined audio and setting the ferrous line down to 32. I've tried deep on and off...ferrous coin, ground coin, tried just noise cancelling and have also tried ground balancing manually. Of the signals I have located with other machines and then tested the CTX on....I dare say I would have only dug maybe 20% of them. I did a video last week of finding Civil War bullets with one machine and then seeing how the CTX responded to them before I dug...and most all of the time, I wouldn't get a signal at all with the above two disc patterns. In an open screen, all I heard was an iron signal and the iron was buried in the lower right of the screen. I would only get an occasional chirp of a signal...usually a one way swing. These bullets I had on video were 8 to 9 inches deep....about the length of my pinpointer. Yet if those bullets had been silver dimes at that same depth, I feel I would have got a better signal on them. I think it is a combo of the conductivity of the bullets and their out of round shape that makes them unfavorable to the FBS machines. That's just my opinion though. I know that day I videoed, I located 14 bullets. Out of that 14, I would have dug just 2 of them with the CTX by it giving a signal on them. This is with the stock coil and running manual sensitivity between 20 and 25. But I did try maxing it out just to see if I could get a better signal on the bullets but I could not.

As a coin hunter in modern trash and older sites, I wouldn't have any other machine with me. And on the beach it excels there too. But when I'm Civil War relic hunting...it is not my first choice or even in my top 5 of detectors.

I guess I'm going to be "That Guy" to disagree. I have huge hours on a CTX and the Etrac before it. It is my opinion that you can't do much better than a CTX on an old site. Just the ability to see TWO targets at once is a Huge advantage over almost anything out there. For relic hunting why would you hunt with any discrimination at all? You should be digging ALL positive targets.You have no idea what they are.You should be in Manual Sensitivity and it should be up as high as the machine will run stable.Auto +3 isn't a bad way to go either. These settings are site specific of course. Comparisons back and forth between machines is very interesting but not the final word just as air tests are not. It is the first strike of a target in a natural setting that is telling, and that is very hard to recreate back and forth with different units.There will always be some targets that one machine will SEE and another will not.
My settings are in Andy's book.

 

[Daniel Tn]

The patterns I'm running are to just knock out small iron. I've been diggin civil war relics a long time and know what works and what wont. I dig everything that gives a signal above small iron as some of the places I hunt, you will dig artillery shell frags or gun parts/tools. The problem I am getting is...there is no signal at all and or non ferrous targets giving iron signals. How can you dig what you can't hear is there? In short, you can't. The co located target thing is okay in sites that have multiple targets under a coil. In Civil War sites, unless it was a dug in winter camp, there aren't carpets of nails and not many if any co located targets. My soil is bad in some sites...if you go by what setting the machine wants to run at, it will be single digits to mid teens. I run it manual around 20 or sometimes hotter but like I say, I can stand over a target that I know is there and hear nothing on the CTX. I guess if you don't know its there, then you don't know what you are missing. But when you have another machine telling you not only is something there but it is a good target...and then have one machine that calls it iron....unless you are digging all iron signals with the one calling iron (or nothing), you are gonna leave stuff in the ground. I have the CTX and ran the Explorer XS through eTrac prior to it. They can do a lot of great things in certain applications. But IMO Civil War relics are not its best application which is what the OP was asking about. There have been a few tell me I just didn't know what I was talking about that I invited to come hunt with me to show me. I'm never above learning or being taught new things. So after letting them loose on my sites for a while and me running a different machine to their FBS machines...I'd meet up to see what they had found. One tried to say I already had minie balls in my pouch and that there wasn't anything there in the field. It didn't take me long to find a bullet signal. Called him over and let him run his machine over it. He said there was nothing there. I let him listen to my machine and dug a bullet right there. A few yards away...repeated the same thing. I have done this with several people over the years. They all leave scratching their head.

 

[CT Todd]

I didn't say you were wrong. I just have a different opinion. Good luck

 

[sube]

Daniel Did you try with your fe line down at 34 i'm just wondering if the iron in the soil is dragging the co and fe #s down below the 32 line if they are and you locate a bullet it may only give a low tone , are you running any disc at all .

With that said the only pattern that does not use disc is the relic pattern which has the 35 line opened up so iron and all signals come through , have you tried this to see if you can get a signal or pinpoint sizing . The reason I ask is because these 2 modes well read all metal .

I don't think the shape of the bullet has much to do with it it's still pretty round and short target .also what do you mean small iron the 35 line takes care of that the 32 line well take care of nails to 4 inches long Let me know what you find out .. sube

 

[Daniel Tn]

The bullets are coming in on my screen at the 35 line. 35-50 to be exact. The target trace info always puts the target in that bottom right corner. Only occasionally, will I get a one way signal that makes the cursor and tone jump to around the 30 conductive area. More of a thunk/chirp sound than anything. Other machines are not immune to the soil having that effect on the bullets. The Fisher F75 and T2 were notorious for doing it; but on those, you could run a true all metal mode and locate the signals. If the signal didn't give a double blip, then it wasn't a nail and you knew you either had a Civil War bullet or artillery shell frag. Other VLFs have done pretty decent there on the bullets. I had an MX Sport with me the last time I was there and out of 14 bullets that day, it only failed to give a signal on 2 of them, and they were the deepest two. The problem with it, is that it requires continual ground balancing in this soil....every few feet or so.

I can go back to the site any time I want to do testing; all it is, is a Civil War era firing range. It is a couple of open fields that have hundreds of fired Minie Balls in them at varying depths...mostly in the 8 to 9 inch range are the ones that we dig now; but I have dug some that were nearing the 14 inch mark with my pulse machines. The only thing is, that not all my soil is as bad as the bullet fields. I have several other sites that the soil is no where near as bad, where the CTX suggests a gain setting in the low 20s. I can run the machine hotter in those places and have dug some deeper coins with it but not so much in the relic department.

 

[MI-AuAg]

Hello luked,

I don't know how much of your detecting time is spent relic hunting?

Assuming it is a lot, from a cost/benefit standpoint, the Etrac should do you just as well as the CTX for a lesser investment.

I agree with CT Todd, in that, I would also run wide open, with no discrimination. If operating in open areas, where digging with a shovel is not an issue as far as turf damage, dig it all would be my game plan.

If hunting in water, and need of the GPS feature for tracking finds, then obviously the CTX may be the better.

To be honest, if I were primarily a relic hunter, I would have a PI (pulse induction) detector in my arsenal. If discrimination isn't necessary, nothing would detect deeper. Just an option.

Good luck in your choice!

 

[casabisch]

The answer is that both the E-trac and the 3030 will work well relic hunting. The question to better answer for you with relic hunting and a machine would be where are you relic hunting at? Ground mineralization would rule that question more.

And knowing your machine and what settings work for an area have a large amount to do with it working for you. Both the E-trac and the 3030 do make good relic machines as does the XP Deus.


Charlene Sabisch
Treasure Hunting Outfitters
www.treasurehuntingoutfitters.com
"Experience the Thrill of Uncovering Lost Treasures!"

 

[sube]

Daneil said The problem with it, is that it requires continual ground balancing in this soil....every few feet or so.

I'm sure the ctx would have to be ground balance just as many times if you enabled gb with the ctx but might give you better depth but then again I think you would be ground balancing quit often

If you watch my nickel video you will see something similar going on The ground just takes over the target and the trace starts to grow larger because the machine can't quite make out what it is but I still have audio where as you loose it

That must be some bad ground there wonder what other metals got fired and blow en up there .

I still have to ask how did pinpoint sizing work was it deeper than the sensitivity you wore running in manual . sube

 

[bklein]

Hello luked,

I don't know how much of your detecting time is spent relic hunting?

Assuming it is a lot, from a cost/benefit standpoint, the Etrac should do you just as well as the CTX for a lesser investment.

I agree with CT Todd, in that, I would also run wide open, with no discrimination. If operating in open areas, where digging with a shovel is not an issue as far as turf damage, dig it all would be my game plan.

If hunting in water, and need of the GPS feature for tracking finds, then obviously the CTX may be the better.

To be honest, if I were primarily a relic hunter, I would have a PI (pulse induction) detector in my arsenal. If discrimination isn't necessary, nothing would detect deeper. Just an option.

Good luck in your choice!

Actually that is a very good point that I've never read before. Makes total sense. With a CTX what are you going to discriminate out? I'm happy being a beach hunter (with a CTX).