I figured this info would be more appropriate in this thread than the other one. With the unexpected generous offer from a GT user to try out his new Ultimate 13" coil he just bought and write a little field report on it, I should have this coil by mid to late next week in the mail from him. Due to his obligations he won't be able to use it for a month or so maybe, so he figured he'd see if I wanted to give his coil a spin and see what I thought about it in comparison to my 12x10, 10" Tornado, and also the 15x12 I used to own. Needless to say I jumped on the offer and want to thank him for the generosity of doing so...
I've got the perfect few sites in mind to test the Ultimate at. Two sites come to mind right off the bat. Both I always grid hard with each new machine or coil I've got over the years. The GT pulled more coins out of these two sites with the stock 10" Tornado, and the 15x12 and then the 12x10 used later also pulled more coins out of them. One site is known for deep coins. My two deepest are an 11" v-nickle and an 11" indian dug with the GT.
This site is pretty devoid of trash and just has really deep coins present. It also has a tree in the center of it that I've gridded hard around with every machine and coil I ever owned, yet the GT pulled more stuff from around this tree. While most of the site is lacking much trash and just has deep coins, right around the tree for about a 40 foot diameter there is a lot of iron present.
The stock 10" Tornado did well at this site, as did the 15x12, and then the 12x10 did even better there. So this will be a good site to see how the Ultimate can both do in depth in clean ground conditions, as well as how it will do around that tree where I know more shallow coins still lurk but are masked in heavy iron. I hear the Ultimate has some unique abilities to sound off to coins in iron not seen on conventional round DD coils, so I am real interested in seeing what it does there. I hear a few blurbs that it doesn't separate as well left/right wise as the 12x10 due to the SEF's unique shape that compresses the DD line, but as said I hear it will sound off to coins in iron easier than other round DD coils will. That's an interesting thing I want to see for myself.
The other site I have in mind has a lot of iron over it's entire area, and I've dug old coins both shallow and at extreme depth at this site hiding among the iron. Even in patches of it where no iron exists, the soil is highly mineralized with tiny hot rocks in places that made even shallower coins with some of my prior machines give really iffy coin signals. So it should be a good test at this site for depth, finding coins among iron (shallow and deep), as well as finding coins that aren't all that deep but are being masked in some ways degrading the target signal due to the nature of the hot rock(ish) type soil in some places. Interestingly enough, much of the site where the iron is present has good rich black soil somewhat low in minerals, but then in the areas where the iron junk is in low numbers, the soil gets mineralized and contains these fine hot rock like sand particles that make even a shallow coin signal sound pretty bad.
So those two sites should be a really good test of this coin in all kinds of various masking, depth, clean ground, iron, and hot rock conditions. Both sites "have it all" in terms of what they throw at a detector and it's coil. The perfect place to see what this coil will do, and whether it will find deeper or badly masked coins that all my prior machines and coils somehow missed. These are my two "go to site proving grounds" when it comes to any new machine or coil I buy to see just what they are capable of. Hope the sound of that interests some people. If it don't then you don't have a "thing" for trying out coils like I do.

I know I live for reading field reports like this on a coil myself. Almost as much as I do writing them.
